9/11, 3/11, and Rewarding Terrorists

[richardf8]

Let's say your name is Osama Bin Laden. Your objective? A unified Arab world under Sharia Law and free of Jewish or Christian taint. You have a vast terrorist network at your disposal. Nothing organized enough to effect a coup, but certainly organized enough to execute a few operations that will piss people off and make them behave irrationally.

You look out upon the Arab World and see a secular despot. His face, not Mohammed's, is plastered in every schoolbook and hanging in every living room. His form, not Mohammed's is erected as statuary throughout the cities. And he holds good, Sharia loving Shiites bound in his iron grip.

You look at America. You see a president with a gray mandate and a visceral hatred of that Secular despot in Iraq. You know how to piss him off and make him behave irrationally. You know that any attack from the Arab world is ultimately going to be avenged upon Saddam Hussein. So you attack the US.

It takes its time. You probably weren't counting on the Taliban being scattered. But the payoff comes with the 2002 State of the Union address, when you hear your enemy enumerated among an "Axis of Evil." It's a pity virtuous Iran is on that list, and as for North Korea, who cares, really? You know Iraq is in the crosshairs.

The attack comes. Hussein is removed from power and eventually removed from the country. The Crusaders have done their job, and now, with a combination of insurgency and well timed attacks, it is time to get rid of them. They have done your bidding. Hence Spain, where an anti-war zeitgeist is easily leveraged to ensure a change in leadership (it might have even happened without you). Bush himself, you can't decide about. Do you want to rotate him out, or do you want to manipulate him into fighting another battle for you, perhaps in the too-secular-for-comfort Syria?

Comments

[lordrunningclam.livejournal.com]

The problem with the Spanish situation, aside from the horror, pain, suffering and waste of human life, is that now we'll never know what would have happened had the train bombings not happened. I read somewhere that anti-war sentiment in Spain was running something like 80%, which says to me that the conservatives would likely have been voted out anyway. I would note that my personal sense is that a similar event in the US would likely have the opposite effect.

It will be interesting to see what the long-term reaction from Spain will be. A change of government doesn't get the perpetrators off the hook and a public trial might expose them as the murderous thugs they are to their own countrymen. I think the secrecy surrounding detainees in this country has helped turn similar thugs into martyrs. A public trial in Spain might expose them as dangerous, even to secular arab states, and turn them into the 21st Century equivalent of Savonarola. The secular arab countries might take care of the problem for us.

Josh Marshall in his blog, BTW, made some interesting points along your general line of thinking yesterday.