It’s working just like he planned, says Eric Margolis in his latest article:
Azzam was murdered in 1989, likely by a western intelligence service. His pupil, Osama, launched a seemingly quixotic mission to overthrow the western-backed dictatorships and monarchies that misruled the Muslim world, and drive western power from the region.
Today, Osama’s words haunt us as we witness hysteria and chaos engulf America’s air travel system, the war party in Washington demands the US invade Yemen, and the drums beat for war against Iran.
US airport security officials will be even more panicked when they learn a jihadist recently tried to assassinate Saudi Arabia’s interior minister, Prince Nayef, by detonating a bomb secreted in his rectum. Will we soon bend and spread for security – just like in prisons?
The American colossus continues to stumble ever deeper into the Muslim world’s violent, tangled affairs at a time when Washington is bankrupt and only runs on Chinese loans. In 2009, the US deficit was US $1.4 trillion. But Washington managed to spend $200 billion on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan by loading the costs onto the national credit card.
Oh the terrorists won alright. Big time. Just fly anywhere. They already won. It is the death of a thousand cuts on a global scale.
USA would be MUCH BETTER OFF to let the terrorists blowup a skyscraper every ten years than to respond the way we have. Better off in terms of lives saved, money spent, reputation and effectiveness on the world stage SPECIFICALLY INCLUDED.
Course, if we did nothing in response to 911, probably there would be more than one skyscraper per decade taken down.
A military response in Afghanistan, limited to a government decapitation and then back to home base and THEN a massive development of gay muslim double agents would be money/potential much better spent===even now.
I would agree that the Cheney administration pretty much took the bait.
With a $10,000 investment, Bin Laden caused Cheney and his monkey to squander a trillion from our treasury and send countless people to their death.
The added bonus that we now live in a police state was gravy. Yeah, I’d say he’s winning.
The USA going into Iraq couldn’t be about poor intelligence, because we swooped in their so quickly (within a year of 9/11). The decision to turn Iraq into our battleground seemed like an ulterior motive from the start. The American people are getting fleeced while various large corporations are profiting from the war. The US government may go bankrupt but many of our corporate citizens will simply become expatriates in other countries when the shit hits the fan here.
From the article:
Bin Laden proclaimed his grand strategy in the 1990’s. He would oust the modern “Crusaders’ by luring the US and its allies into a series of small, debilitating, hugely expensive wars to bleed and slowly bankrupt the US economy, which he called America’s Achilles’ heel.
Bloody attacks would enrage the US and lure it into one quagmire after another.
Yup, working like a charm. And now the wingnuts want us to invade Yemen.
An enraged and fearful wingnut is a terrorist’s best friend.
The real fun starts when the Chinese and the rest of the world stop lending us money. They only way to constrain our government is to take away its ability to spend.
Speaking of the wingnuts, they seem to be avoiding this thread. Gee, I wonder why…
With Bin Laden partnered with the US government, how could he not win. Terrorist and the US government have caused people to live in fear and in annoyance.
On a lighter note, the Freedom Tower is now called 1 World Trade Center and is many years behind in construction.
Don’t give Laden too much credit. All empires crumble with age. Why does anyone think the US is invulnerable to it. I’m sure the Greek, Egyptians, and Romans, to name a few, thought the same.
Bin Laden just helped to accelerate the process of the US bankrupting itself.
I’d rather the US do it now than do it later.
The system was always destined for financial collapse with the Social Security pyramid scheme.
But now we won’t even have to wait for that.
The Department of Homeland Security has cost about $500 billion since 2002 and this mostly involves making us take our shoes off at the airport.
Obama was supposed to get us out of Afghanistan and Iraq and close Gitmo; I am annoyed he is sending more troops to Afghanistan and why is Gitmo still open?
There is probably about 2 remaining before foreign creditors stop lending us money and due to the jobs situation it is impossible to fund our federal government’s spending habits even through high taxes.
Efficiency! It’s coming in a few years, cuz the government won’t be able to spend when there is no money and no credit.
I think you’re seeing two outdated and tired worlds colliding.
Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda are amateur incompetents and the even the Afgan and Pakistan people want the Taliban gone. The tipping point will be when the locals start “outing” these violent extremists.
The US is literally bankrupt, the US finance sector is fragile, and the US military is exhausted after 8-9 long years of effort. The US won’t do anything about these problems due to media driven paralysis but everyone else is busy distancing themselves from the coming mess. The tipping point will be when the US can’t pay the interest on the debt.
Bin Laden played Bushco, Inc. like a cheap violin!
What’s more is that PNAC wanted “a new Pearl Harbor,” to secure petro resources in the Middle East, and this “attack” gave them the perfect “reason” to do this.
We could have had bin Laden, back in 01, had the Special Ops in Tora Bora been allowed to get him. The order came from on high, that they were to pull back, and now we are in this big mess.
Interesting. This article appears to be the slightly re-written and re-headlined version of the Toronto Sun article here:
http://www.torontosun.com/comment/columnists/eric_margolis/2010/01/10/12408811-sun.html
In the Sun, the headline reads “Old Threat Rings True Today” which is nowhere near as attractive to the Cherman eye as his cited “Osama: 10, The US: 0” which is on LewRockwell.com.
With articles presented here via Cherman, it’s always a good idea to do a little deeper research. Cherman appears to write with a big thick pen full of attitude.
What a bunch of whiny cowards.
Never have I witnessed such gutless dregs of humanity in all my life. Why don’t you go down to the Home Depot and buy a good sturdy board and stiffen your spines.
I bet you all squat to pee.
Bin Laden’s plan was that the US would withdraw.
All his later tapes are calls for truce, saying states that vote for Kerry won’t be attacked, etc.
Of course the U.S. is bankrupting itself. The public is stupid. Greedy and stupid. They all want THEIR stuff. See, the House has 23% approval rating (wow, they’re hated), but a 98% re-election rate (wow, they’re loved). How can that be? Congress is evil, corrupt and stupid, except for YOUR Congressman/woman. The public is stupid. It’s the public that WANTS everything. The Republicans WANT to spent more and more and more and more on the military (already over $700 billion a year). That shows no sign of slowing, even from the conservative fiscal hawks. The Republicans AND Democrats vow to “protect” Social Security. George W. Bush (Republican) vastly expanded Medicare with a half trillion dollar drug plan. Democrats aren’t exactly going to cut Medicare. So between Medicare, Social Security and the military, that’s most of our budget. NEITHER party has the courage to cut ANY of that. The Republicans “talk” about doing, but have NEVER done it…the government got bigger and spent more during Nixon, Reagan, Bush 1, Bush 2. None of them left office with a smaller less costly government. So they can just shut the hell up and stop PRETENDING to be for small government. Neither party is willing to tell the STUPID public they can’t have something.
“The decision to turn Iraq into our battleground seemed like an ulterior motive from the start.”
It was and has been documented as such by people who were involved in the process. If the liars actually told the truth for once, here’s what they’d say:
“The price we must pay to continue our geopolitical hegemony efforts, especially in oil producing regions, besides the trillions spent on a “defense” establishment that couldn’t stop 19 peons from killing 3000+ Americans on US soil, will be an occasional attack on US soil that claims far less lives than the annual death toll on our highways. Meanwhile, we’ll exaggerate that minor threat so you’ll allow us to eliminate your rights and spend many more billions building the foundation of a police state.”
An even better recent article:
“A blogger with the PBS’ NewsHour asked former CIA analyst Ray McGovern to respond to three questions regarding recent events involving the CIA, FBI, and the intelligence community in general.”
Why Counter-Terrorism Is in Shambles
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2010/010510c.html
Yes, Hitler was winning the same way too. Except then people thought there was a war going on.
RBG
#14, Dudd,
Yup, the right wing nuts have arrived. No intelligent insight or comment, just a typical rant from someone who has a difficult time thinking.
#19, RBG,
Yes, Hitler was winning the same way too.
WTF ???
RGB wins today’s Godwin Award.
Eric Margolis needs to be detained and detained in Guantanamo as he apparently has contact with Bin Laden. How else would he think otherwise? 🙂
Misinformation and fear mongering. Osama was killed a long time ago. But it was decided that hell without the devil wasn’t scary enough. After all the war must go on.
#20-Mr Fussion-No intelligent insight…
Well, at least you know yourself pretty good.
How’s knitting class? Still sharing passages from the Book of Marx and watching old Jane Fonda films with the other ladies?
Bin Laden winning presupposes that this is stuff we would not have done to ourselves. The tinder pile was already there, Bin Laden just threw a match on it.
#25,
I’ve seen a lot of your ilk online lately. Is that the republicans new strategy?? Try and bully and hurt feeling their way back to majority?
And it doesn’t bother any of you that your current President seems to be following in Bush’s footsteps? Or is it more important to slam Bush than to actually try to stop his failed policies from being continued?
Unfortunately he is winning. The proper response is to nuke the entire mideast to glass. Quick and painless solution that takes care of the problem.
#27-Postman-Is that the republicans new strategy?? Try and bully and hurt feeling their way back to majority?
What you really mean is all is right with the world as long as you can shamelessly spread lies and attack at will with little or no resistance.
Yep, I can see why you might whine foul.