US intelligence agencies are becoming more optimistic that al-Qaeda is now unable to carry out any significant terrorist operations. With key members of the group in custody and lines of funding cut off, al-Qaeda is no longer the threat it was two years ago.
The al Qaeda leadership was significantly dismantled during the first year following the Sept. 11 strikes on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. But terrorist experts still expected bin Laden’s followers — many of them not formally connected to the terrorist organization — to have carried out attacks during the Iraq war. They said it was noteworthy that this did not occur.
"It’s no coincidence" that no operations were mounted, said Cofer Black, a long-time CIA terrorism official who now heads the State Department’s counterterrorism office. "This was the big game for them — you put up or shut up and they have failed. It proves that the global war on terrorism has been effective, focused and has got these guys on the run."
By no means should we be complacent about national security, but this is a major sign that President Bush’s antiterrorism strategy has been a success. al-Qaeda is broken and unable to attack. Saddam Hussein has been removed from power, and his funding of groups from Hamas to Hizb’Allah is no more. Even the State Department finds terrorism is on the wane. All the signs point to the war on terror being a success.
The left consistantly argued that each action the US would take would inflame terrorism ever more. Why bombing Afghanistan would only produce thousands of angry recruits for al-Qaeda. Eighteen months later, it didn’t happen. Again, the same argument was made for the invasion of Iraq. Just wait, the left cried, and we’ll see terrorism sweep this country like never before. Weeks later, it seems as though that prediction was equally bad.
What critics of the war on terrorism have missed is that the people who join terrorist groups don’t think like American or European intellectuals. They respect power. As even Osama bin Laden said, people tend to back the strong horse. The lessons of the past two years have been absolutely clear to potential terrorists: an attack against the US will quickly result in a rain of destruction that will likely leave you dead along with your leaders.
That’s effective counterterrorist strategy, and that’s why our relative safety comes from a willingness to show strength.
Or could it be possible that anti-terrorism measures will be successful short-term, but not long-term? It’s not really wise for either side to make predictions based on the outcomes of military endeavors, but the anti-American climate in the Middle East, and increasingly elsewhere in the world, is certainly ripe for future terrorism to breed. You should be thankful that the left is at least around to offer potential doomsday scenarios in the event that one of them does happen. Even in their wrongness, they are contributing something relevant to the debate, which is more than can be said for the “patriots” who merely wave flags and order dump French wine into the streets of the comfy Atlanta subdivision.
Of course the Left does do a good job of playing devil’s advocate from time to time. (They were right about nation-building in the late 90’s… but even a broken clock is right twice a day.)
More importantly, without them, I wouldn’t have nearly as much to write about. Losing the loony left would really leave me shortchanged for material…
That’s true to an extent. If you didn’t focus your wrath on the left as a perpetual distraction, you may actually have to address the consequences to the spend-and-borrow budgetary practices of your side and how national bankruptcy is all but inevitable if the GOP keeps the practices under the public radar screen long enough. You also may have to address the consequences to an economic policy that by its nature disempowers more than a third of Americans, ultimately betraying them to third-world living conditions in order to appease renegade capitalism as practiced in the 19th century.
So long as you sling mud about the “loony left” and ignore the real issues vital to preservation of our national quality of life, you’ll probably be able to distract enough narrow-minded voters for just long enough so that GOP can socially engineer its dystopia and fulfill its financial genocide against the working class and future generations.