The flypaper analogy is right, just reversed

No attacks have occurred in the United States since September 11, 2001.

Osama bin Laden arguably helped the President's reelection campaign.

Most of us were convinced that Al Qaeda was in favor of a Bush victory.

Why?

They have us where they want us. Taking out Saddam was a double gift to Al Qaeda. Not only did we take out an avowedly secular enemy of the Wahhabis, we also placed all of our best troops in an illegal, immoral and untenable position. The Iraqi Resistance has the right to try kill the forces of the invaders. We too would reserve this right. But it goes beyond this. It is as if Moslems had invaded a European country or attempted to subdue a European people in their empire demanding independence .

When Greece began her bid to break free of the Ottoman Empire, volunteers from across Christendom arrived to help fight off the `Turk.' Lord Byron (the poet) would have been labeled a `foreign fighter' and shipped off to Gitmo.  The mythology we are providing to OBL's fantasy future nation would be worth 200 billion if we were making friends. Instead, we are training our enemies with the lives of our best.

Al Qaeda is growing up and thinking strategically. What better than to have the Americans demonstrate their impotence in Afghanistan and Iraq and their perfidy at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. Cross-hairs grow on the backs of every American around the world, without Al Qaeda having to lift a finger.

The best, absolutely priceless part of all this for the terrorist masterminds who determine success depending on how many people died that day, is that they get to train their forces for free with live ammunition, against the best troops in the field today. They will take virtually unlimited casualties in order to keep the training grounds open and since we cannot police the borders...

The wingnuts figure that it is better to kill terrorists in Iraq rather than in the States. The terrorists figure that it is better to learn how to kill the best and most fearsome Americans in Iraq for free while establishing new links and creating a groundswell of support among their target demographic: Muslims and Arabs and especially and especially young Muslim Arabs, of whom there are many and they do not have much else to do.

Even if things begin to go south for Al Qaeda in Iraq, they will have gained priceless knowledge. They now know how to shape charges in order to slice through an armored vehicle. They have probably figured out how we jam their signals and are learning how to circumvent. They certainly know and have demonstrated to the world that our military and our intelligence agencies are not the infallible, invincible gods that we had half-convinced the world they were.

It is sad when myths are shattered. It took a long time and a lot of effort to achieve what one idiot destroyed in half a term.

My prediction: Al Qaeda will strike again inside the US when they next need to lower American intelligence. (note the lack of capitalization) This event will again be seized upon by the government to grant greater powers to itself. This is also in Al Qaeda's interest.

To summarize: The Islamic fundies are really happy to be fighting a proxy war with the Christian fundies in Iraq, which is swell for them but shit for the rest of us because it weakens the best and strengthens the worst.

Crossposted among and between dKos, BooTrib and EuroTrib.

•  sadly, I fear you are correct

  The challenge for us is to keep the United States from reacting the same way it did last time. 9/11 was a truly traumatic event, and mourning the dead along with some expressions of a love for our country was a normal reaction (on a somewhat controversial sidenote, I happen to be a supporter of the US invasion of Afghanistan, but that's not my point here). Bombing the hell out of a country that had nothing to do with the attacks (Iraq) was not a normal reaction, nor was detaining dozens of men based on the color of their skin at Guantanamo, nor was passing a series of scary laws (Patriot Act, color-coded terror alerts, etc.).

  Bush got a free pass on 9/11 because there was nothing else to distract from it. Despite the occassional dips in the post-9/11 economy, at no time in the past four years has the American economy actually been in a major slump, like the ones of the 1970s and early 80s. If those types of conditions has been present in the 2004 economy, Bush would have been toast.

  I don't know what the proper response is to Islamic terrorists. But I do know that BushCo and most of the contemporary GOP are too inept to respond to it effectively.

  by pine on Sun Jun 19, 2005 at 06:10:47 PM PDT

  •  too inept

    At this stage inept would be good! These guys are counterproductive.

    by Athenian on Sun Jun 19, 2005 at 06:56:37 PM PDT

•  Another reason Al Qaeda wanted a Bush win

  If their goal is to destroy America, why not help elect the very person that is destroying America faster and worse than they ever could.

  by dugjxn on Sun Jun 19, 2005 at 06:22:54 PM PDT

  •  Indeed,

    Bush is doing their work for them.

    by Athenian on Sun Jun 19, 2005 at 06:59:58 PM PDT

•  Petri Dish not Fly Paper

  Jim Henley makes a similar point. One might think that US presence in Iraq is undermanned and underequipped on purpose.

  Our Iraq strategy amounts to promiscuous use of insufficient antibiotics on a sinus infection - we're culling the lame terrorists and breeding a newer, stronger strain. Afghanistan, Bosnia, Kosovo and Chchnya aren't enough for this Administration. They needed to create one more petrie dish of Islamist militancy

  by MonkeyBoy on Sun Jun 19, 2005 at 07:30:01 PM PDT

  •  And what a petri dish it is

    with millions of non-combatants, hundreds of thousands of sympathizers, tens of thousands of dead and injured and thousands of days ahead and behind, they are like pigs in ....

    Thanks for the link and the quote.

    by Athenian on Sun Jun 19, 2005 at 07:39:17 PM PDT