Because the jihadists see the American people have no desire for the war to continue and a major attack now will breathe new life into something that they can soon declare a victory.
True or false? Does it matter how they spin our eventual departure?
Considering that the second worst terrorist attack on the US had nothing to do with Islamic jihadists, I’m not sue that your prediction depends entirely on what they want.
Nah. If the jihadists don’t do it, one of our own will. The one thing I can be sure of is that there will be another terror attack. Probably in NYC, but you never know.
And yet it continues, with no end in sight. I don’t think President Clinton or President Obama will get all of our troops out of Iraq before 2012, and they aren’t committing that they will.
How? We’re going to be in Iraq indefinitely.
The premise was false, and that lead you to a false conclusion. That often happens. (I’m not intending to be snarky with that comment, btw.).
False.
First off, they showed no such consideration in precipitating a war.
Second, if you believe the news reports it’s not as if they’ve stopped thinking about another attack. And what a victory it would be, too. Years of wasted time and money on security for naught. The possibility of showing the US up has to have them drooling like dogs.
Last, since ideology cannot be defeated, why would they want the war to end? From their perspective, they are dying glorious deaths to expose the US as decadent, murderous criminals. The longer it goes on the more favorable their potential converts see them to be.
I don’t live my life in fear of some massive attack, but I would be naive to think that it won’t happen again. While I think that they are wrong in virtually every way, it’s not hard to come to the realization that they are quite pleased with the current state of events and would not be reluctant to renew or prolong it.
The more the US lashes out, the more opportunities for them to justify their narrative wrt the US.
It’s a classic guerrilla / insurgency type of tactic to provoke the powers that be into reacting in such a way that it alienates the populace and / or creates sympathy for the guerrilla movement.
I regret to say that there will be more attacks, both on the US. UK. and other countries
These ballsack terrorists are not going to give in, not for a long while.
And realisation of this depresses me no end
Ding ding ding ding ding! I second this. Most people, I think, really overestimate the amount of strategy exhibited by Al Qaeda over the years. (For example, I don’t think the “they wanted to draw the US into a war and make the rest of the world hate it” theory is true; I think they thought the attack would convince the US to withdraw from the Middle East altogether. They may be skilled at planning bombings and the like, but that’s not the same as being intelligent or sensible; these are religious nuts!) And besides, they’re not interested in what Americans think.
Exactly. We make the mistake of assuming that they are thinking logically. They aren’t. “Killing infidels” is a ticket to heaven for them. And even if the few at the top are attempting to think geopolitically, the cannon fodder expects to have the opportunity to become martyrs.
You know, those involved in planning and executing this disaster might have benefited from screening The Battle of Algeirs. Oh, wait a minute; they did.
The attacks on September 11th were low-hanging fruit; easily executed by a bunch of amateurs with little coordination and financing. The sort of “major attack” that Homeland Security keeps wailing about at every holiday and significant anniversary is unlikely to emerge, nor is it necessary; the U.S. is doing everything it possibly can to inflame passions and encourage resentment toward the U.S., especially among those most likely to be swayed by appeal to fundamentalist Islam.
Stranger
I’m not as worried about another terror attack like 9/11 as I am about the day to day terror that happens in Iraq and happens to some extent in Israel. Even with its borders virtually closed, random bombings that claim a handful of lives happen on a regular basis over there. With our relatively wide open borders, I believe we in for some mighty tough years in the future. I suspect in 10 years or so it will be very unhealthy for anyone in the US to admit in public that they are a Muslim.
It’s a victory now, and no spin is required to make it so. It was a win the moment we attacked Iraq; our subsequent behavior has only piled triumph upon triumph for them.
If a major attack comes, I wouldn’t be surprised to see it right before the Presidential elections, in the hopes of stampeding America into electing a Republican. And I wouldn’t be surprised to see Bush’s cronies let it happen on purpose.
No. We’ve done so much harm to ourselves that spin doesn’t matter.
The other mistake the OP malrd is thinking that Iraq is all that matters. We ain’t getting out of Afghanistan anytime soon, and that’s got to be at least as upsetting to the Islamic extremists. Not to mention our almost unquestioning support of Israel. If we got out of Iraq tomorrow, we’d still be vulnerable to attack by al Qaeda (or some other extremist group).
I certainly agree that the war in Iraq has made us less safe wrt terrorists attacks, it’s hardly the key issue.
Another problem with such analyzation is equating the totality of the threat of international terrorism to al-Qaeda. Sure, they’re the big players and they’re the most credible, but they’re not the only ones. For all we know, this Thanksgiving some Syrian splinter group that no one outside some wonk in the CIA has ever heard of will suicide bomb some malls in California. Even al-Qaeda isn’t much of a top down organization where strategic decisions are made by the leaders. Sure, Osama and friends do their own thing, but there are lots of fringes and people who just call themselves al-Qaeda. Any dipshit Sunni who wants to kill infidels is liable to call their garage terrorist band al-Qaeda something or other.
I also agree with John Mace. But even if we went totally isolationist and pulled all the troops out, deconstructed the hundreds of bases we have in the Middle East, and stopped supporting Israel we’d have a decent chance of being hit. Those people have a long memory and they keep grudges. Although you may not want to ask me about it, since I’d consider the obesity epidemic a bigger threat to our national security than terrorism.
I’m actually surprised our embassies in the region haven’t been having serious security problems. Surely one time a big, angry crowd will rush the gate, no? No cement trucks filled with dynamite blowing a hole in a wall somewhere? I’m guessing all the real talent ends up going to Iraq.
Why would the jihadists/whomever want us to elect a Republican? Wouldn’t it be in their best interests to have us elect a Democrat to effect a normalization (which would be theoretical, but at least possible with a Democratic government)?
-Cem
I don’t see why Al Qaeda would declare victory. I do believe that their goal is actually a pan-Islamist state, so I take the establishment of such as their condition of victory. Short of that I think they’ll keep the struggle going.
Logical thinking and moral behavior are two different things. Suicide bombing is a disgusting practice to me, but it could be rational behavior. If we Americans were pitted in a war against super-space alien creatures who were impervious to our puny Earthling weapons, would it be rational to engage in suicide attacks if we knew that would injure the otherworldly beasts? Sure!
The one thing we know is that extremist, violent groups generally do things that make sense in scaring the living daylights out of people. “Coldly calculating” doesn’t equate to irrational. I’d love to hear of your examples where Al Qaeda has behaved irrationally – not just examples of plans that didn’t work out, but straight up illogical behavior.
Hardly. They want the war in Iraq, they want us to continue kidnapping and torturing and invading and rattling our saber at everyone, because all of those things benefit them and hurt us. They want us to continue to act out the role of “Great Satan” that they have assigned us. And radical Islam and conservative Republicanism have an awful lot of points of agreement.
Under Clinton, the people who bombed the WTC were caught and imprisoned. Under Bush, Osama is still free, and has been handed victory after victory; short of being elected President himself he couldn’t be better off. Al Qaeda wants the Republicans in office.
There will be more attacks, we just have no idea when or where. I think we flatter ourselves to think that they give two hoots about American politics and that would factor into their decisions.
I would submit that the 9/11 attacks were illogical. On 9/10/01, they had a friendly government that gave them sanctuary. The U.S. Government still treated terrorism as a law enforcement issue. It was abundantly clear from the past twenty years that they could kill a few dozen Americans at a time overseas with virtual impunity.
Then 9/11 happened. The United States turned on a dime. The Bush Doctrine of holding host nations responsible militarily for the actions of those they harbor. Increased spending on defense and intelligence. Asset tracking and freezing. The destruction of the Taliban government in Afghanistan. Many of their members killed or captured.
Us? 3000 dead out of 300 million and a blip in the stock market. Hardly a killing blow to the “great satan”. It was a tragedy…but as far as actually hurting the country? It was a flea bite.
That leads to another indication of their illogical behavior. If they were rational, they would realize that they can kill a few more people and cost us some more money, but their goal of forcing us to accept an Islamic state as our own is completely impossible. The great tragedy of all of this is the deluded stupidity of the Islamic radicals.
It was a crippling blow. Not because of the attack, but because of our reaction afterwards. We’ve done just about everything they could want, short of making Islam the state religion in America. And the Bush Doctrine is “Conquest for Profit and Ideology”, not “holding host nations responsible militarily for the actions of those they harbor”. That’s why we attacked Iraq, and not, say, Saudi Arabia.