September 12, 2006
Redefining Winning
According to Richard Cohen, the War on Terror is over, and Osama won:
I hear bin Laden laughing. I heard him all day on Sunday and Monday as the mass murder of Sept. 11, 2001, was memorialized at the Pentagon and in that field in Pennsylvania and, especially, here where the most people died and where countless cameras recorded it all for posterity and an abiding, everlasting, anger. He laughs, the madman does, whenever George Bush says, as he has over and over, that America is "winning this war on terror.'' Osama bin Laden knows better. He has already won.It is not merely that bin Laden has not been captured or killed and that videotapes keep coming out of his hideout like taunts, it is rather that his initial strategy has borne fruit. It was always his intention to draw America into Afghanistan where, as had been done to the Soviets, they could be mauled by the fierce mujaheddin. He tried and failed when he blew up the USS Cole off Aden at 11:15 a.m. on Oct. 12, 2000, killing 17 sailors and crippling the ship. But he succeeded beyond his wildest expectations when the U.S. responded to the Sept. 11 attacks by invading Afghanistan and, in a beat, then going to war in Iraq. It remains mired in both countries to this day.
To Cohen I pose the question, "What price, victory?"
Al Qaeda has been driven from its training bases in Afghanistan, and can find no more states to openly provide it sanctuary. The Taliban that once supported bin Laden in Afghanistan have been driven from power, and when they emerge, reformed, to attempt to take back their country, they are killed by NATO forces by the hundreds.
Al Qaeda's leaders and specialists, their tacticians and their weapons experts, continue to fall prey to Coalition forces. Some are captured. Many are killed (more than 1,500 to date). More of al Qaeda's leadership circa 9/11 resides in Cuba or in the earth than lives in Afghanistan's frontier or Pakistan's tribal areas. Those that remain skitter from cave to cave knowing that this day may be the day a Hellfire-armed U.S. Air Force drone sends them to Allah, or more likely, some place much more warm and less inviting.
StrategyPage notes that there were eight state sponsors of terrorism on 9/12/01; now the regimes sponsoring terror in Afghanistan and Iraq have been deposed, and Libya, seeing the writing on the wall, has given up without a shot being fired.
I wish more such "victories" for al Qaeda.
If they continue, Islamic terrorism will cease through attrition.
Richard Cohen wrote some of the dumbest stuff I have read on the subject. Bin Ladin's genous plan sure worked out. Virtual training camps on the internet. I wonder how well that will work for them. Not well it seems, as the new al-Qaeda could not manage to get hand grenades over an 8 foot fence. Cohen, do you think Lee lured the yanks to Gettysburg?
Posted by: Zelsdorf Ragshaft III at September 12, 2006 04:25 PMI miss spelled genius. Sorry!
Posted by: Zelsdorf Ragshaft III at September 12, 2006 04:27 PMVideos from UBL? There's been no video with UBL since Oct 29, 2004 where he tried to impact the elections here in the US. Then the writer tries to claim that UBL drew the Soviets in Afganistan? (What does this guy smoke?) For the record it was the Soviets that went there on their own, they we not drawn into battle. UBL was just another fighter there, he later bought his way to prominance with his families money.
Back to the battles with the "fierce mujaheddin", on one of the right leaning blogs as recently as this week we were reminded of the sentiments of the "news" outlets, they discribed this action in bleak terms, where the truth is that within two months Kandahar fell. Yes there are Taliban remnants hiding in the hills and mountains, yet if we had rooted them out and destroyed them ruthlessly how would the left portray us then? For them there are always shots left for them to take, from behind their pulpits and keyboards but never from the field of battle where freedom is won or lost.
It's a shame that credibility is not a requirement before publication of drivel such as this.
Posted by: strange__guy at September 12, 2006 06:32 PMCohen needs to buy a vowel and get a clue.
Posted by: Purple Avenger at September 12, 2006 07:12 PMOsama probably didn't excape the bombing in the mountains and has been dead for years but he still win's the war if the democrats are elected in 06-08. They will fold like a house of cards and we'll be right back where we started. Under threat of attack 24-7 with no protection. Only kill a few hundred Americans a month and we won't bother with you.
Posted by: Scrapiron at September 12, 2006 09:25 PMLet's just call the future of the world for what it is:
All the moderate, westernized, peace-loving Muslims on this side. Ok, you can go now.
All the other radicalized, death-to-America-and-Israel, I'm-so-happy-to-see-dead-infidels-I'll-shoot-my-AK47-in-the-air-and-smile Muslims on the other. Now, now...bunch up a little bit closer...we need to fit you all in. Perfect. Say cheese!
*NUKE/BIG BOOM*. Problem solved.
It's really heading that way, you know - whether you like it or not.
Better to accept it now than enter the next hundred years dying the death of a thousand cuts.
Posted by: Atticus_NC at September 12, 2006 11:15 PMThese al-qaeda types are media hounds, so we have won if they can't pose with a lovely landscape back-drop that we can quickly identify. I'm sure alot of the newbies in their movement are doubting that Osama bin Laden and Co. are still alive. People blindly follow dictators that rev-up the crowd from balconies, not from grainy videos taken in basements.
Posted by: Tom TB at September 13, 2006 01:53 PMDidn't bush said he will get Osama "Dead or Alive"? Is he still looking for Osama? There are Al Queda in Cuba? That's a new one.
Posted by: SoWhat at September 13, 2006 02:20 PM
