Bumbling the war on terror

By Steve Gilliard

Bumbling Bush may have given Osama an open goal

The old-style tactics used in the 'war on terror' won't work on al-Qaida

Simon Tisdall
Monday August 4, 2003

If they are ever to defang and defuse the "totalitarian Islamist revivalism" that constitutes al-Qaida's main inspiration and appeal, Stern says, the US and its allies must exhibit similar adaptability and innovation and more imaginative remedies for east-west alienation.

It is at this point that the doubts about Bush's divisive and frequently crude leadership of the "war on terror" come more sharply into focus. Bush is accused of many things - but never of being imaginative. From the very start, and despite much spin and waffle about fighting a new kind of conflict by unconventional means, Bush has opted for the obvious

..........

Deputy Pentagon chief Paul Wolfowitz still insists that "Iraq is the central battle in the war on terror". In reality, he is now trying disingenuously to redefine all Iraqi opponents of US occupation as "terrorists" - as somehow one and the same as the people who blew up Manhattan. It won't wash.

The continuing cost of Iraq in terms of ruptured alliances, global tension, economic disruption, Muslim animosity and the daily grief of both occupiers and occupied surely gives great comfort to America's true ideological and cultural enemies. How they must gloat.

The Bush camapign on terror has worked so well, so efficiently that this was the major news today:

New al-Qaeda tape says US will 'pay dearly'
August 4 2003

US plans to bring terror suspects before military tribunals have angered al-Qaeda, judging from a new tape attributed to a top leader in the network accused in the September 11, 2001 attacks.

The purported al-Qaeda audiotape aired today on the Arab satellite station Al-Arabiya says: "America has announced it will start putting Muslim prisoners in Guantanamo on trial before military courts that could sentence them to death." It adds the United States will "pay dearly" if it harms the detainees.

Yep, a chastened and cowed Al Qaeda living in fear of US retribution.

Posted August 04, 2003 01:45 AM