Post by Kee on May 6, 2004 20:50:09 GMT -5
Interesting article by Howard Fineman in the
Washington Post today:
To read the full article go here: www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4908312/
Bin Laden: The 'other' candidate
Things couldn't be better for al Qaida leader
........
Taliban on the comeback
In the last year or so, the U.S. has divided its friends and united its enemies. The Taliban is on the comeback trail in the mountains of Afghanistan, and the Saudi royal family — no angels, but at least fitfully cooperative — are in the fundamentalists’ line of fire. We wrested control of one giant oil-producing country (Iraq) from the hands of a bad guy (Saddam) but in doing so may have helped generate an insurrection in the biggest of them all (Saudi Arabia). To bin Laden, Iraq is Afghanistan of a quarter-century ago, times 10: a recruiting ground, a cause to unite all Arabs and Muslims in jihad, the start of the ultimate clash with the infidel.
Iraq was the war Bush wanted. But it also was the war OBL wanted. Not even in his most fevered prayers could bin Laden have imagined the propaganda coup offered by the pictures of humiliated prisoners in Baghdad. It’s unfair, really: Saddam’s murderous sadism went on for decades, largely away from the media’s eyes. We are conducting our war in public and by standards of decency and law unknown in the Persian Gulf. But pictures don’t come with context, and these paint us the way OBL wants us to be seen.
Bin Laden’s bet was, and is, that the United States is too weak-willed and economically vulnerable to last for long in a war against jihadis motivated by centuries of hatred for the West. The American public will tire of the fight, and the cost will weaken an economy already facing competition from Europe and China. He hoped to provoke an Armageddon, and now he has one.
Will al-Qaida try to launch another attack in the U.S. before the presidential election? Probably. How would that effect the presidential election? Hard to say. America is not Spain, but the public’s patience is not unlimited, either.
Washington Post today:
To read the full article go here: www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4908312/
Bin Laden: The 'other' candidate
Things couldn't be better for al Qaida leader
........
Taliban on the comeback
In the last year or so, the U.S. has divided its friends and united its enemies. The Taliban is on the comeback trail in the mountains of Afghanistan, and the Saudi royal family — no angels, but at least fitfully cooperative — are in the fundamentalists’ line of fire. We wrested control of one giant oil-producing country (Iraq) from the hands of a bad guy (Saddam) but in doing so may have helped generate an insurrection in the biggest of them all (Saudi Arabia). To bin Laden, Iraq is Afghanistan of a quarter-century ago, times 10: a recruiting ground, a cause to unite all Arabs and Muslims in jihad, the start of the ultimate clash with the infidel.
Iraq was the war Bush wanted. But it also was the war OBL wanted. Not even in his most fevered prayers could bin Laden have imagined the propaganda coup offered by the pictures of humiliated prisoners in Baghdad. It’s unfair, really: Saddam’s murderous sadism went on for decades, largely away from the media’s eyes. We are conducting our war in public and by standards of decency and law unknown in the Persian Gulf. But pictures don’t come with context, and these paint us the way OBL wants us to be seen.
Bin Laden’s bet was, and is, that the United States is too weak-willed and economically vulnerable to last for long in a war against jihadis motivated by centuries of hatred for the West. The American public will tire of the fight, and the cost will weaken an economy already facing competition from Europe and China. He hoped to provoke an Armageddon, and now he has one.
Will al-Qaida try to launch another attack in the U.S. before the presidential election? Probably. How would that effect the presidential election? Hard to say. America is not Spain, but the public’s patience is not unlimited, either.