In a somewhat simplistic sense, one may say that Al Qaeda and the Muslim militants are winning the latest round in the war. They have won the first, causing great damage in the US, attacking us with an element of surprise. The second round they have lost badly. They miscalculated the impact of their attack… they didn’t expect the buildings to collapse, they didn’t expect the US to come after them to Afghanistan. As a result, they lost a large country, which they practically owned and could use as a base.
The third round they are winning. By sending brainwashed kids to blow themselves up, they were able to shift the world’s attention away from themselves. Now, everyone speaks about Israel and Palestine… few people seem to care that thousands of Al Qaeda terrorists have a chance to regroup and establish new bases for future operations. Another net result of the suicide bombings is that Yasser Arafat has proved that he is not an irrelevancy… that he is still a power in the Middle East.
I see a clear parallel between their Modus Operandi in New York and the one they use in Israel. In both cases they proved that committed (albeit brainwashed) human beings, ready to sacrifice their lives, can stand up effectively against a nation-state.
Our opponents need to be taken seriously. They understand the Westerners mind. They have proved capable of taking a hit and not getting destroyed. They came back, maybe in a predictable way, but still capable of confounding our leadership, of getting it to lose its focus. |
