RRC Archives

Militarily, politically, and philosophically:

"For years now, the American left has been arguing that the war in Iraq is a distraction from the "real" war against al Qaeda and is counter-productive because it's "creating" new terrorists. Apparently, it never occurred to these deep-thinkers that inflicting a defeat on al-Qaeda in Iraq -- a defeat made possible because a previously sympathetic population turned with our help against al Qaeda -- might constitute a devastating blow to al Qaeda's standing in the Arab world.

The idea that losing a war hurts one's standing may be a novel one for our sophisticated liberals. But Osama bin Laden has long grasped it, famously stating years ago that "when people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature, they will like the strong horse."

Our amazing progress in Iraq is demonstrating that, for now, al Qaeda rather than the U.S. is the weak horse in the very country that al Qaeda has identified as the key battleground in its struggle against us. Consequently, as Peter Wehner shows, the tide within the Islamic world is beginning to run strongly against al-Qaeda."

But do read the whole thing. http://powerlineblog.com/

I just deleted a whole long, detailed post about how AQI aren't the people who attacked the US on 9/11, are simply a small militia in the overall Iraqi civil war who changed their name for more attention, how they didn't exist prior to the US invasion, how defeating AQI would cripple core al Qaeda as much as closing down Vauxhaul Motors would cripple GM (they're a subsidiary of GM in Britain, and no they don't matter outside of Britain, which is my point), how the whackjobs who run AQI are so sick and insane that their fellow Iraqi militants will gladly wipe out AQI with or without US help, and so on. Basically, how his whole right-wing blog quote is based on false premises and how it's conclusion is sadly wrong.

In other words, yes, Iraq has been a huge propaganda win for "real" al Queda all around the world and no, all the blood we're shedding in the crossfire of the Iraqi civil war isn't going to be a real bruise on "core" al Qaeda no matter how well we do. Think about it - we could kill every member of AQI, and bin Laden will still be running things from somewhere on the Afghan/Pakistani border.

But, why bother. Who here thinks Larry is vaguely capable of learning from history? Who here thinks that facts would have any influence on his beliefs? Seriously?

Sorry, but you couldn't be more wrong. Iraq is rapidly turning into a huge propaganda loss for Al Qaeda. Polls conducted throughout the Muslim world make that pretty clear. The fact that bin Laden remains on the loose says little about the success of our overall efforts. After all, the Unabomber successfully evaded capture for eighteen years as he conducted his campaign of terror from within the U.S.. With that in mind, it's not all that surprising that bin Laden has been able to hide out in the border region for as long as he has. And while you clearly don't approve of how it's being done, al Qaeda is slowly being dismantled, and the Taliban will be defeated.

All the same, thanks for the kind words.

at the risk of etting involved in this heated debate. I thought al qaeda numbers were stronger than ever before? to me this indicates that while we may be making progress we still have a long way to go.

just my thoughts......

I have enjoyed reading the debates on the subject.

NUKE IRAN NOW

i think this is what Day is tryin' to say. geez, quit beatin' round the 'bush'.

if that ^ aint spreading democaracy, i dunno what is.

clowns are scary, atomic clowns are real scary.

kinda looks like Crusty in there, get your virgins here, thank you USAF I feel soooo closer to allah- now on to Jerusalem and expand our empire of glass

No, I don't like no atom clowns, and don't want the mad mullahs playing around with 'em.