The Bush strategy that beat bin Laden and destroyed Saddam

James Henry
BrookesNews.Com
Monday 4 August 2003

The 9/11 terrorist atrocities gave rise to a new rumor mill that ground out stories ranging from the banal to the bizarre. But one story that came out of the Middle East had more credibility than most, particularly in certain quarters. Some cooler and more intelligent heads in the Arab world had quickly concluded that Bush had outfoxed the fanatical bin Laden.

Like nearly all fanatics bin Laden's obsession disconnected him from the real world. Far from being the educated man some laughably claimed him to be he, like his suicide-bombers, was remarkably ignorant of the West, particularly the US. Although some of his followers were educated at Western Universities their education had been confined to technical subjects like engineering.

Those, for example, who attended US universities learnt nothing of US history or cultural values, confusing topless bars, which some of them enjoyed, with moral decay and lack of national will. The sad fact is that what little they knew of US history and policies came entirely from the country's loathsome anti-American left, which still paints a grossly dishonest picture of America, a picture that neatly fitted in with those terrorists' anti-American dogma thus blinding them further to the political and military consequences of their actions.

As our economics editor pointed out at a seminar in Australia, being narrowly focused to the exclusion of all else is part of these terrorists' Achilles heel. And so it was with bin Laden. Believing himself to be the hand of God and a follower of the one true faith, or his fanatical version of it, means he operated with an open loop.

Therefore there was no negative feedback mechanism to correct his distorted picture of the world. There were no advisers to council restraint or retreat because like Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Castro, etc., he literally believes himself to be the only one capable of interpreting events and predicting their consequences.

Now we have pinpointed bin Laden’s fundamental weakness. Being truly ignorant of American history and knowing nothing of the country's political system he made the mistake of drawing the wrong lesson from a narrow range of fairly recent events by interpreting it in terms of his world view: the refusal of George Bush senior to finish off Saddam Hussein, the hasty retreat from Somalia, the successful bombing of US embassies and military bases in Saudi Arabia, the attack on the Cole and Clinton's self-serving pinprick responses to terrorism.

In bin Laden's fantasy America would either respond in a Clintonesque way and so demonstrate to the world its cowardly nature or it would blindly strike out, killing hundreds if not thousands of innocents and so inflame the whole of the Islamic world. (Notice how closely his apocalyptic vision resembled the extreme left's one of a world-wide revolution against capitalism).

He got neither. Instead of grabbing the initiative he made a terrible blunder. His actions pulled the US together, awakening in it a steely resolve that could only have had one outcome. Instead of retreating or immediately striking out, President Bush set about building up a mighty military force not only to destroy bin Laden but to demonstrate to the rest of the world the consequences of attacking America.

The result? The destruction of the Taliban and the liberation of Afghanistan rapidly followed by the destruction of Saddam's regime and the liberation of Iraq.

Decisive action by Bush exposed assertions by the left that if bin Laden were killed other bin Laden’s would arise as utter nonsense. There was only one bin Laden, thank God. That latter-day Mahdi was just another religious millenarian who promised paradise by driving out the infidel, the cause of the faithful's misery. Such people have been a curse throughout history.

(Readers should take note of just how leftist anti-Western thinking, particularly the anti-American variety, is used by these terrorists to justify their crimes).

Of course, no one in the administration suggested that terrorism will end with bin Laden, only that his head must be the first to roll if victory is to be achieved. Once this was done, the invisible war against terrorism not only accelerated, from the freezing of bank accounts to the assassination of terrorist organizers and the smashing of their networks, but the plan to destroy Saddam's regime raced ahead.

The strategy was basically simple. Make an example of bin Laden, demonstrate overwhelming military power and the will to use it against states that harbor and train terrorists; isolate the terrorists physically and squeeze them psychologically.

The ultimate aim is the elimination of state-sponsored terrorism. For this reason, the liberation of Iraq is a vital part of the strategy. That the Democrats, ie, the Copperhead Party, and their media friends are undermining this strategy by trying to turn the American people against the war that destroyed the Taliban, bin Laden and the vile Saddam is something that is bordering on treason.