How US lost the war on terror

[varun]

Article from an Indian magazine (The Pioneeer)

http://www.dailypioneer.com/indexn12.asp?main_variable=EDITS&file_name=edit3%2Etxt&counter_img=3

President George Bush is a desperate man today. He wants Osama bin Laden, dead or alive. More than 12,000 US troops, including a 1,400-men strong elite commando unit known as Task Force 121, are in Pakistan and Afghanistan hunting for Laden. Supporting them is a 70,000-strong contingent from Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf's army. There are several thousand more intelligence operatives from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) combing the region for a single man. At no time has the world's super power launched such a massive manhunt for a single individual.




There is every possibility that President Bush and his valiant troops could catch Laden in the next few weeks (that is if he has not been caught already). The question is not whether Laden will be caught. He will be. The question is will that single head make the Superpower led by President George Bush victorious? The answer is no. The US has lost the first war on terrorism. It is a defeat which President Bush cannot live with,regardless of what his spin doctors at the Pentagon might broadcast to the world. The success or failure of a war is related to its mission objectives. The objectives of the war on terrorism was to punish the Al Qaeda for the September 11 attacks, to destroy it and its affiliates, to contain and finish other terrorist groups and to ensure that terrorism was dealt a crippling blow. Twenty-nine months since the World Trade Centre was attacked by a group of terrorists, the only people who have been punished by the US are those in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan-most of whom, incidentally, had nothing to do with the Al Qaeda or other terrorist groups.



The Al Qaeda is far from destroyed. In the past two years, the organisation has not only been successfully able to regroup and reorganise in different regions of the world, it has also changed its character and functioning with such alacrity that it took the US intelligence agencies a long time to realise the truth....

[Big_AJ]

1. The world's most impatient person.

It's barely 2 1/5 years and he's already screaming we lost! What a loser!

AJ

[thebigidea]

3. I'd love to hear your counterargument that we're somehow winning

[teryang]

2. The myth of a widespread centralized threat

...called al qaeda is reminiscent of the cold war American propaganda that every opposition and guerilla group opposing oppressive governments around the world were all communists subject to control from Moscow.

This is the kind of propaganda that is used to justify interference in the internal governance of virtually every country in the world. Oppressive policies generate scores of enemies around the world who don't need al qaeda or anyone else to "lead them" against their enemies. These groups are well aware when their interests are being damaged or exploited by Washington.