"the fortunes of war are shifting tides..."
Very true!
Here is one man's (geopolitical analyst Richard Maybury) thought-provoking question:
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Will the War Against Islam Bankrupt the U.S.?
In the economy and investment markets, the most important story of 2005 has been completely missed by the mainstream press. It was in Osama bin Laden’s speech on October 30 th, 2004.
Bin Laden said Muslim guerrillas “bled Russia for 10 years” in Afghanistan, until Russia “went bankrupt and was forced to withdraw.” He said, “We are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy.”
Bin Laden explained, the 9-11 attack cost the guerrillas $500,000, and it has cost America $500 billion. That’s a ratio of a million to one. For each dollar the guerrillas spent, Washington has spent a million. This ratio, said bin Laden, is the primary reason the federal deficit “has reached astronomical numbers.”
If bin Laden said it, it must be a lie, right?
In this case, I’m afraid not. I first warned about this military spending imbalance in a 1985 Washington Times article pointing out that the wartime defensive vs. offensive cost ratio was changing fast. I wrote, “For four decades, the superpowers have been carving up the world into their two spheres of influence, with little regard for the innocent individuals living in the path of the carving knife. […]
“Some individuals simply do not want to be part of anyone's sphere of influence. They want to be independent. Observe the many ‘Yankee Go Home!’ signs seen all over the world and their equivalent ‘Soviet Go Home!’ signs in places like Afghanistan and Poland. […]
“Shoulder-launched guided missiles like the Stinger and Redeye,” I explained in that 1985 article, “weigh less than 50 pounds and cost as little as $50,000. They can shoot down a $1 million helicopter or a $15 million supersonic jet fighter.”
In World War II, the defensive vs. offensive cost ratio was about 1 to 1. By 1985 it was as much as 1 to 300 in favor of the defense. Six times since then, I showed the ratio was continuing to shift in favor of the defense. A year ago, in some cases it had reached 1 to 280,000. The 1 to 1 million cited by bin Laden was taken from a recent study by a British think tank.
In other words, the old truism, the best defense is a good offense, has been reversed. Today, the best offense is a good defense, and the guerrillas know it, as do long-time readers of my newsletter, the U.S. and World Early Warning Report. Apparently Washington still has not figured it out, or is afraid to talk openly about it.
9-11 was the guerrillas’ way of suckering Washington into invading their homeland. This put Washington on the offense, and them on the defense.
I warned dozens of times in the 1990s that if Washington did not stop supporting Mideast tyrants such as Musharraf, Mubarak and the Saudi royal family, the victims of these tyrants would find a way to get revenge on us; we would end up in a global war with Muslims. Now we are three years into this war....
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