Gus > US crack sleuths lay their hands on Bin Laden's PDA early on --when they were chasing the Taliban out of their Afghan grottoes...
antiwar.com
>>The strategic utility of invading Iraq as a means to combat "terrorism" as represented by al-Qaeda has always baffled war opponents, and even a few reluctant supporters, because it was so strikingly counterintuitive. Osama was forgotten: Saddam was the new demon figure, and Iraq, not al-Qaeda, the target. The invasion and subsequent occupation created a terrorist recruitment and training center in the Sunni triangle that soon extended outward, to the Shi'ite south. Only two leaders have been well-served by the American conquest, and George W. Bush is not one of them. CIA analyst Michael Scheuer, writing as "Anonymous," put it well in the opening paragraph of his recent book, Imperial Hubris:
"U.S. forces and policies are completing the radicalization of the Islamic world, something Osama bin Laden has been trying to do with substantial but incomplete success since the early 1990s. As a result, I think it is fair to conclude that the United States of America remains bin Laden's only indispensable ally."
If bin Laden is the chief beneficiary of American policies in the Middle East, then Ariel Sharon runs a close second. His government has been given a free hand to do what it wills in the occupied territories, including increased settlement-building, increased state terrorism, and even U.S. acquiescence on the "Wall of Separation." Israeli agents are swarming over Kurdistan, fomenting rebellion, and threatening Iran. The old Zionist dream of extending Israel's hegemony from the Nile to the Euphrates suddenly seems close to realization.<< |
