Hi Hawkmoon; Re: "But it ignores the fact that Bin Laden was created out of that effort to contain Iraq, primarily due to the basing of US forces in Saudi Arabia."
I can agree that our basing forces in Saudi Arabia did contribute to Arab support for ObL, but Bush's war in Iraq is doing far more to support Al Qaeda than anything that went on during sanctions.
Al Qaeda has grown so large that barely a week goes by without their blowing up another truck bomb somewhere. Now it's the holiday season and the US is under orange alert.
The war against Al Qaeda has been going on for more than 2 years now, but they're more powerful now than at any time in the past. Sure they're (hopefully) not going to get lucky again with a WTC attack, but the simple truth is that the improved resistance to terrorism in the US is due to our homeland security changes, not to Bush's military adventures.
Indeed, Bush has made the US less popular in the Arab world than it ever was before. And our demonstrated inability to control Iraq has decreased the fear that the Arabs (other than their leadership who probably feel more threatened) once had of our military power. But it is not the Arab leadership that is running Al Qaeda, it's the masses. And the masses are angry, not fearful.
As far as winning hearts and minds, Bush is a loser as he has only angered the Arabs. As far as grabbing them by the balls and hoping that their hearts and minds will follow, Bush is a loser, as the Arab extremists are more enthusiastic than ever (while our troops suffer from poor morale).
Two years after we entered WW2, the Japanese and Germans were in retreat and no one could seriously doubt the outcome of the war. But now, more than two years after the WTC, Bush has lost ground against Al Qaeda. This is a war with a trend more similar to Vietnam than WW2.
-- Carl |
