As per usual, I disagree with the premise. I haven’t actually read the book, so I can’t be sure, but my guess would be that most actions of terrorist leaders are mostly intended to influence terrorist followers. The rest of the world can go hang as long as Bin Laden feels he has enough worshippers.

From that point of view, the whole thing looks like a colossal SNAFU. “Hmm, the troops are getting restless,” says Osama, “they don’t think we’re sticking it to the infidel hard enough and are starting to defect to other groups.” He ponders. “I know, let’s throw a scare into the Americans. That’ll remind people I’m still here.”

A few months later and Osama is basking in the adoration of his followers. Then the first bombers start soaring overhead…

If I’m right, the whole thing is reminiscent of Japan in WWII, where a big reason why the generals couldn’t surrender until after Hiroshima/Nagasaki was because the middle-level officers would have gone crazy over the insult to Japan’s honour.

The source for that one paragraph (p. 331) is Ali Soufan, one of the few FBI agents fluent in Arabic. He was part of the intelligence debacle that lead to 9/11 (along with a lot of people in the CIA and NSA; Soufan seems to be the least culpable of the bunch). According to Wright’s index, Soufan now works for the Giuliani partners in New York (although I don’t see him on their website). In the book, Soufan seems like a really decent man, but you’ve got to question his choice of employers.

But this argument makes no sense. The Taliban were barely in control over Kabul at the time of 9/11; they had only killed the leader of the Northern Alliance (Massoud) two days before 9/11. If I understand the argument correctly, Bin Laden was trying to lead us to war with a country he had no control over, and in which he largely wasn’t wanted (nor, for that matter, did he want to be there). The group he was allied with, the Taliban, barely controlled parts of the country; moreover, according to Wright’s book, there were powerful factions within the Taliban that seriously considered turning bin Laden over to the Saudis (it was a standing offer for them). Moreover, bin Laden was running out of money (and his money was the one thing that probably kept him alive in Afghanistan). Why in god’s name would he think that he’d have the support of the Afghans in this war? He didn’t have the CIA and the Saudi’s financing him this time.

Moreover, Balko writes, “Wright writes that bin Laden was initially dispirited at the ease with which U.S. forces removed the Taliban from power.” But this is inaccurate. The book says (p. 371) “Bin Laden felt betrayed by the Muslims who had failed to join him [in the fight for Tora Bora] . . .’only a few remained steadfast,’ [bin Laden] complained. ‘The rest surrendered or fled before they encountered the enemy.”’ Bin Laden was dispirited with his own people. But this is posturing. He knew from his experience against the Soviets that he couldn’t trust Afghans to join his cause (again, read the book), and he had maybe a few hundred hard-core Arab fighters. He hardly wanted to draw us into a war there.

Look, I hate this damn war. I hate the war in Iraq even more. One damn phone call between the FBI and CIA could have stopped 9/11 (again, read the book); we would have read the second-page news report about the disrupted plot and dismissed the whole thing as impossible. But it happened, and the more we repeat this clash of civilizations bs, the more we fight on bin Laden’s ideological turf. Bin Laden’s reading of Somalia and Lebanon was that we couldn’t sustain casualties; after 9/11, he probably thought we’d stay here and fire missiles, and he’d rally public support for the innocent dead (Saddam Hussein, up to the moment he was pulled from his spider hole, thought there was no way the US would invade either). I’m not saying it was right to go into Afghanistan — in fact, the book suggests that the Taliban were more open to deal-making for bin Laden than I had ever suspected — but let’s not add to the mythologizing of bin Laden.

1. secure poppy farming for cocaine production. Blame it on Taliban. (Who had nearly obliterated poppy farming prior to 9/11 because it’s against Muslim Law. Thus those farmers were beheaded.) Mission Accomplished.

2. secure Asia-euro oil pipeline. Not accomplished.

3. Distract Americans with another “Vietnam” type war. Mission Accomplished.

2 of the 3 have been accomplished. Securing the pipeline is still in the works. Need Iran under thumb to do that.

As strange as the news may seem at times nothing happens without someone with a checkbook making deals. The wars are all part of the military industrial machine:

The banks make money from financing the wars, military industry makes money from supplying equipment, computers, ect, and our economy is transforming from a peaceful industrial complex which made textiles, auto and home appliances to a economy where the good jobs are military based…Thus avoiding a draft (for now.)

However, if Iran doesn’t fall in line and allow us to steal their share of the pipeline we will allow Israel to attack them under the pretense of preemptive strike for unproven nuclear weapons which will suck us into another front and most likely into a draft.

That is providing we don’t actually go into another civil war ourselves.

Answer: a couple of cities connected by road, warehousing local serfs constructing a pipeline to run oil towards Israel.

#16 | Fritz | “Wayne, are you making an argument that the organization who couldn’t get ice to New Orleans was the same one that pulled off 9/11?”

Fritz, are you making an argument that the organization who couldn’t get ice to New Orleans was the same one that would pull off Iraq and Afghanistan?

‘”But the real question about this war is: “What would victory look like for the Taliban?”’

Good to see we’ve dispensed of the illusory question of what would victory look like for the Afghans living under an oppressive regime.

A bright light streaks across the sky, followed by a flash as something apparently hits the ground. The townspeople get a little rattled. Then, a car won’t start, or it starts by itself. Lights go off, and on. A witch hunt ensues. Finally, people are thoroughly freaking out.

Then, as the show ends, we see a couple space men have landed, and one of them is pushing buttons on a small box which controls the cars, lights, and so forth. He says to the other, “See how easy it is? You just have get them started, then they’ll do themselves in.”

Sound familiar ??

RB: “What exactly does “victory” in Afghanistan look like?”
Didn’t Obama tell you Tuesday night? He told you he was going to tell you that. When I used to attend IBM seminars, the instructor would often preface the lesson scheme this way: “We will tell you what we are going to show you; then we will show it to you; finally we will tell you what you were shown.” Obama seems to have adopted that mantra, except for the small detail of omitting the middle step.

hexag1: “Didn’t the US military build up two liberal societies, West Germany and Japan?”
I don’t really think that Japan is a comparable. We didn’t transform their culture, we completely annihilated it right down to their rational for having a culture. We used nuclear weapons on people who lived in bamboo and rice paper houses and for the most part probably had no clue such things as atomic bombs existed or were even possible. Twice. Think about that. The feeble remnant of the Japanese people mindlessly copied our culture (subject to their ability to understand and interpret it), the way your dog will try to copy some of your behavior, within the limits of paws versus hands. It appears to me as if the Japanese may to a large extent still be trapped in that paradigm.

Actually there is an accomplishment that probably lies within our grasp by means of Obama’s Afghanistan strategy. We can finish the job of destabilizing Pakistan. Which I somehow suspect, without being able to articulate any specific rational for it, might be part of the real agenda.

AleG

Phelps: “I think this is the first statement in a long time from Radley on war in general that I agree enthusiastically and 100% with. (My main disagreement is that I think we should be destroying illiberal ones at a much higher rate.)”

Actually, you’re both wrong, and Radley’s wrong in a stunningly odd way. For example, in Iraq, the US military didn’t *destroy* an illiberal *society”; it destroyed an illiberal *government*. The society got more illiberal, due to trashing the government, and smashing the normal reorganization that people tried to do (those who succeeded were the nasty people who thrived under that trashing, and then those of that group who successfully became Our SOB’s in Iraq).

Societies and governments are two different things.

I wouldn’t make that bet, SamK – remember what the neocons were promising back in ’02-’03? And how that got worked slowly down until the present mess in Iraq (several years of war, ~$1 trillion+ in costs, a PR/political disaster, a nasty-*ss theo-/kleptocracy in charge) is now considered success?

Yes, many of the blunders of the Bush the Younger played right into the hands of al Qaeda, the Taliban, similar groups, and their often overlooked sponsors in places like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. (Many of their benefactors hold high positions in governments, pretending to be our allies one minute, and sending millions in cash to the bad guys the next. That’s something which can’t be solved by any surge.)

But I think we need to be careful not to give al Qaeda and the Taliban too much credit for long-range strategy. I seriously doubt they predicted how much they would lose at the outset. They had control of Afghanistan and I have a hard time believing they would have wanted that, even if they saw a long-range victory.