September 11, 2006
Al Qaeda's Vietnams
While many are focused (rightly) on remembering what we lost five years ago today, Ralph Peters chose instead to remember what we have since achieved. One of his salient points was to describe the fact that Iraq has become al Qaeda's Vietnam:
No end of lies have been broadcast about our liberation of Iraq and Afghanistan "creating more terrorists." The terrorists were already there, recruited during the decades we looked away. Our arrival on their turf just brought them out of the woodwork.As for Iraq, Osama & Co. realized full well how high we'd raised the stakes. They had to fight to prevent the emergence of a Middle Eastern democracy. As a result, they've thrown in their reserves - who've been slaughtered by our soldiers and Marines.
The media obsesses on the price of this fight for us, but the terrorists have been forced to pay a terrible cost in trained fighters - while alienating fellow Muslims with their tactics. Pundits will argue forever over whether deposing Saddam was a diversion from the War on Terror, but the proof of its relevance - even if unexpected - is the unaffordable cost we've forced on al Qaeda.
I'm not certain just how much al Qaeda has alienated other Muslims, as many still quite openly pine for the demise of the West in general and Israel and the United States in particular, but we certainly have made that obsession costly.
When al Qaeda ‘s Number Two Ayman al-Zawahri releases a statement promising to bring Jihad to Israel and Arab Gulf States and advises not sending reinforcements to Afghanistan and Iraq, it reveals a pleading weakness in his cause.
"Whatever you do, please don't send reinforcements to Afghanistan and Iraq," he might as well be saying. With the reconstituted Taliban being martyred courtesy of NATO troops by the hundreds, Zawahiri's threats of attacking elsewhere with any significant sustained force ring hollow. He is the Dark Knight of Monty Python's Holy Grail, threatening to "bite your kneecaps off" of King Arthur after his arms and legs have been forcefully removed.
And indeed, many "limbs" of al Qaeda have been unceremoniously lopped off. Beyond bin Laden and al-Zawahiri himself, you'd be hard-pressed to find a "household name" in al Qaeda's leadership. The terrorist organization's most experienced planners, bomb-builders and experienced foot soldiers have been methodically hunted to near extinction, leaving dangerous but error-prone minor-leaguers terrorists to step up against increasingly savvy military and intelligence services around the world that continue to bleed al Qaeda on an almost daily basis.
Continuing Phyrric "victories" by al Qaeda have reduced it to more of a terrorist public relations firm than a viable terrorist entity. Zawahiri can trumpet jihad all he wants to a dwindling supply of fellow believers, but when his message has to pack-muled out from a remote and hidden cave, it becomes increasingly difficult to see his often-promised victory as anything other than a delusional fantasy.
This is one of the worst and hateful blogs I've ever seen.
Posted by: Blurr at September 11, 2006 09:50 PMReally, Blurr? I guess you had best keep you stealth @$$ away then, doncha think? Not brave enough to use a real address or an email address?
You're really a dummy, aren't you.
Smile. Your on 'candid camera!'
Posted by: Retired Spy at September 11, 2006 10:39 PMRalph Peters... Ralph Peters oh yes... I remember him...
He couldn't find Iraq's civil war...
I'M trying. I've been trying all week. The other day, I drove another 30 miles or so on the streets and alleys of Baghdad. I'm looking for the civil war that The New York Times declared. And I just can't find it.
That'd be the civil war that kills a few dozen Iraqis every day. How odd that he couldn’t see it. Perhaps he is blind as well as retarded?
If that's your authority for insight into Iraq that explains why you're so wrong.
Iraq is a quagmire but it's not the terrorists'. To them Iraq is a training and recruiting ground. They can scout talent, send the deadwood off to blow themselves up and best of all (for them) they will have enough propaganda to spur on generations of terrorists.
Yes, I know, Ralph Peter's says the exact opposite but Ralph has been mistaken about Iraq with a consistency matched only by your Dear “Mission Accomplished” Leader.
Only the truly mad or stupid would listen to him.
Posted by: salvage at September 12, 2006 09:00 AMLet's see. Believe someone who was in Iraq reporting what he saw--even tho it conflicts with the standard msm narrative. Or believe a nitwit who doesn't even know what a civil war means.
Better yet, believe a nitwit who thinks that having unskilled terrorists killed off (or blow themselves up) is a good way to train skilled terrorists. All for propaganda purposes--"come see the world, visit new places, get killed doing stupid shit, visit your 72 virgins...".
And you moonbats wonder why you have to constantly lie in order to get anyone to believe in your nonsense.
Posted by: iconoclast at September 12, 2006 09:24 AMThank you for a shinning example of the latter.
Posted by: salvage at September 12, 2006 09:45 AMHow can the President say that leaving Iraq now means the terrorists will win and yet Al Qaeda is a paraplegic, terrorist PR firm hunted to near extinction with only minor-league terrorists threatening to bite our kneecaps off?
Reminds me of Cheney's statement of just moping up some leftover Hussein's supporters...We are winning if you want to give us credit and we aren't if you wan to get rid of us...
Posted by: matt a at September 12, 2006 11:22 AMThis is one of the worst and hateful blogs I've ever seen.
High praise from one such as you.
Posted by: Purple Avenger at September 12, 2006 07:49 PMahh, salvage. Coming from you, that means....nothing.
Posted by: iconoclast at September 12, 2006 08:45 PMvom iconoclast:
believe a nitwit who thinks that having unskilled terrorists killed off (or blow themselves up) is a good way to train skilled terrorists.
Is a lack of reading comprehension a prerequisite for supporting the war?
Posted by: stogie at September 13, 2006 01:56 AMOh right, this is what bush would term as the "flypaper strategy", working so well to the tune of 3000 US soldiers killed and 20,000 injuried. This is NOT what the US should be doing.
Posted by: SoWhat at September 13, 2006 02:38 PMSoWhat,
What kind of argument is that? Do you have any idea how many men were lost at Normandy in a few hours? Do you think it was not something the US should have been doing?
Nothing worth fighting for? Nothing worth dying for. God, I'm glad I don't have your life.
Posted by: the-gunslinger at September 16, 2006 08:28 PMGunslinger:
It is incorrect to compare the WOT and Normandy. WWII was against Nazi Germany (and Fascist Italy by the way),a tangible enemy easily identified and immoral in all respects, which should rightly be comfronted militarily. The WOT should be more an intelligence driven exercise, which bush is vaguely coming around to with his recent excuse that he can't send 100,000 special forces to get OBL, but is more relying on some sheep-herder to drop the dime on Osama. During WWII it was possible to determine victory by the number of German battalions captured or killed, how do you determine victory in the WOT? Do you think killing 500,000 Talibans or Iraqi feyadeen will determine victory? No,it will not. No more than locking up all the drug pushers in Brooklyn tomorrow will stop the flow of drugs. What you have to do is engage people in dialogue, yes you now, like talking to them to try and establish points of convergence or where we differ. In other words, what is it that fuels this hatred for America, have we been always an honest broker? Sending American soldiers to fight an ill-defined war, against an ill-define enemy (why are we fighting Iraqis, when almost all the 9/11 hijackers were Saudis and NONE Iraqi?) and against an ill-defined ideology is a waste of precious lives.
