More on "Bin Laden's candidate"...
What was Joe Conason (an author and columnist for Salon) saying this past fall...?
salon.com
<<...Thanks to Bush, the nations that united behind America after 9/11 are now divided and dispirited. Why would bin Laden want that to change?
The German Marshall Fund survey echoed similar findings earlier this year by the Pew Global Attitudes Project, which tested opinion across Europe as well as in four major, predominantly Muslim nations. In those countries -- Jordan, Pakistan, Morocco and Turkey -- Bush policies have stimulated grave doubt about the purposes of the war on terrorism, which they regard as "an effort to control Mideast oil and to dominate the world."
The same poll showed that large percentages view Osama bin Laden favorably in Pakistan (65 percent), Jordan (55 percent) and Morocco (45 percent). Although bin Laden himself is unpopular in Turkey, where al-Qaida's allies have committed murderous attacks, nearly a third of the Turkish population feels that "suicide attacks against Americans and other Westerners in Iraq are justifiable." As for Europeans surveyed by Pew, they too believe that the war on terrorism was damaged by the Iraq invasion -- and want their governments to pursue policies more independent of Washington.
So Bush has improved bin Laden's standing in the Muslim world and damaged America's standing from East to West. Why would bin Laden want that to change?
No doubt Bush would argue, as he has done repeatedly, that American action has led to the death or apprehension of hundreds of al-Qaida militants, including some of the organization's top leaders. He deserves credit for those efforts, even though his decision to invade Iraq diverted U.S. intelligence and military resources from the war against al-Qaida.
But in the view of real experts on terrorism, the bottom line of the Bush policies is less impressive than the president claims. A year ago, the respected International Institute of Strategic Studies in London released a paper warning that al-Qaida's ranks had grown in the aftermath of the Iraq invasion. American claims that the terrorists were "on the run" showed unwarranted overconfidence -- and the IISS presciently predicted that postwar chaos and failure would help bin Laden recruit more young Muslims to his cause.
Michael Scheuer, the CIA analyst and terrorism expert formerly known as Anonymous, agrees with the IISS findings and goes further. He has suggested that al-Qaida is likely so pleased with Bush that its agents might try to help his campaign. In an interview last summer, Scheuer told the Guardian that the White House and Department of Homeland Security alerts about a possible pre-election strike by the terrorists are credible but wrong about the purpose.
The aim would be not to depose the Bush administration but to "mount an attack that would rally the country around the president" and "keep the Republicans in power." As he put it, "I'm very sure they can't have a better administration for them than the one they have now." ...>> |
