Did Laden win?

[napframe]

"Did Osama Bin Laden Win ?

Bin Laden's laughter echoes across the West

Written by Simon Jenkins

Osama bin Laden hovers over events in the Gulf as he hovered over Mr Blair’s dispatch box. History will surely rate this stateless psychopath as potent beyond all imaginings. He did not just kill 3,000 people. His single act entered so deep into US psychology as to traumatise its sense of security and well-being. He devastated the economy of a city, New York, and a whole country. He turned Americans in on themselves, fortifying their houses, buying gas masks, fearing dark-skinned foreigners and screaming at the sight of powder. He bankrupted their airline companies. He emptied their office blocks. He made them suspend habeas corpus.

Bin Laden incited one war, of America against Afghanistan. He licensed another, the revived Palestinian suicide intifada and thus Israeli retaliation. He fuelled fundamentalist dissent in Egypt, Pakistan and Turkey. He made every American and Briton in the Middle East fear for his life.

Then early last year the unthinkable became thought, an all-out American war on the quiescent Saddam lest he “might” form an alliance with the Scarlet Pimpernel bin Laden. By an act of psychological transference, fear of bin Laden became fear of Iraq. Washington and London suddenly found themselves expecting attack from bin Laden and, by proxy, Saddam. Tanks raced back and forth to airports. Bunkers were built. Tourists were driven to stay at home. War became a matter of “self-defence”.

Britain and America have now allowed bin Laden to goad them to a conflict that has divided the West more fiercely than the Soviet Union ever did during the Cold War. Bin Laden has split Europe. He has reawakened “ugly American” diplomacy and reopened wounds between the New World and the Old. He has split Europe from America. He has split Russia from America. He has divided America within itself. He has made Iraq’s old friend, Jacques Chirac, a domestic hero unparalleled since de Gaulle.

Bin Laden has left Nato inert as an alliance supposedly under threat. He has destroyed, possibly for ever, the ambition of a common European Union foreign and defence policy. He has also destroyed Tony Blair’s dream of one day leading it. He induced the British to treat the UN first as a validator of war, then as a disposable comfort blanket.

Nor is that all. Nothing can be giving bin Laden greater pleasure than the spectacle of the West going to war to topple his hated foe, the “atheist Satan”, Saddam Hussein. Even in his wildest dreams, he cannot have imagined what has now come to pass, Saddam about to go and Islam radicalised against the West."
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It seems 9/11 pulled us farther apart. With our foreign affairs and domestic policies and now the Bush administration's T.I.P.S. which makes Americans report eachother of suspicious activity. I don't know there is still alot of turmoil and hatred in America.

[HB Tigger Fan]

I don't think he won. Our economy has been horrible before. We recovered. We will recover again. Europe will get over it once they get over the realization that Iraq will never pay the monies owed. The UN will reemerge, new, revamped and stronger than ever. While there is a lot of spoken hatred of the USA in Iraq, many of them I believe are speaking to save their lives. Even some of the top Generals, who have been offered incentives to defect/surrender. Not all of them, but some are speaking out of fear for their families and their lives.

This great country has been through a lot in her 200+ years, always coming out on top. We are a strong country, we are a resourceful country. Our country has changed, some for the worse, some for the better, but we're still standing.

[jonvn]

Yeah. He won a pair of motor scooters.

[napframe]

Originally posted by HB Tigger Fan
I don't think he won. Our economy has been horrible before. We recovered. We will recover again. Europe will get over it once they get over the realization that Iraq will never pay the monies owed. The UN will reemerge, new, revamped and stronger than ever. While there is a lot of spoken hatred of the USA in Iraq, many of them I believe are speaking to save their lives. Even some of the top Generals, who have been offered incentives to defect/surrender. Not all of them, but some are speaking out of fear for their families and their lives.

This great country has been through a lot in her 200+ years, always coming out on top. We are a strong country, we are a resourceful country. Our country has changed, some for the worse, some for the better, but we're still standing.

Yeah that's true, I find it ironic though how a small attack or oil shortage can bring the economy to a halt because we depend so much on imports. We found that out in Bush's speech when he said "Don't burn the oil wells." What a shame. I'm embarrased to be an American knowing we killed more people than any country in the world from our meerly 200 years of existence and can get away with it.

[napframe]

Originally posted by jonvn
Yeah. He won a pair of motor scooters.

C'mon be serious just this once we're fighting ignorance.

[HB Tigger Fan]

Originally posted by napframe
Yeah that's true, I find it ironic though how a small attack or oil shortage can bring the economy to a halt because we depend so much on imports. We found that out in Bush's speech when he said "Don't burn the oil wells." What a shame. I'm embarrased to be an American knowing we killed more people than any country in the world from our meerly 200 years of existence and can get away with it.

We get most of our oil from Venezuela (and their strike is really hurting us) and countries OTHER than Iraq. I think that Bush had a poor choice of words, yet a good point. The Iraqi oil fields will be a source of income for Iraq eventually. We don't need their oil here, he was not suggesting don't burn it because we want it.

This war is not about oil. And I am from the anti-war standpoint of we are doing this the wrong way, we really needed the UN support not some gung-ho we're gonna do this no matter what you say president. To those of you who will now call me anti-American, DON'T EVEN GO THERE! This is not about you are either pro-America or anti-America, at least for me.

Do Not confuse my politics for my patriotism!

[disney68]

I agree with you HB Tigger Fan. When did disagreeing with or not liking the President become unpatriotic? Come on people get real. If that's the case then every person that has ever voted has been unpatriotic. Which is when their political party didn't win an election. That's the type of mindset countries like Iraq, North Korea or any other dictatorship have. Talk about their leader and you are a traitor.

You're right:
Do Not confuse my politics for my patriotism!

[HB Tigger Fan]

Thank you disney68! I have been called so many names by people who don't even know me because I think that Bush is doing this the wrong way. Just because I don't support this decision (or quite a few others) by our President doesn't mean that I don't respect the office of the President, and just because I don't support the decisions of the President doesn't mean that I don't support our troops.

This war has divided this country so deeply that it will take a long time for it to totally heal. The surface wounds will heal when this is done and over with, but underneath there will still be hurt. Those who are anti-war are not anti-American. Those that are pro-war aren't pro-cheap oil. Well those that are making informed choices on the side that they stand. I was standing in a small protest** when there were pro-war teens (yes, teens, in high school) across the street with signs like "kick butt (other word) for cheap gas" and "nuke saddam for cheap gas" who were screaming across the street names that are not appropriate for this message board. They were calling us anti-American and telling us to go live in Iraq. When I yelled back that my SO is a US Marine they started screaming things like "no wonder he left" (he is stuck overseas on a deployment, he is not in the dessert). Pure immaturity.

**I do have to admit that I didn't research the group I was standing with and eventually I stopped standing with them since their politics were on the total opposite spectrum as me and they were almost as bad as the teens across the street (sans the obscenities).

[napframe]

Originally posted by HB Tigger Fan
This war is not about oil. Do Not confuse my politics for my patriotism!

Actually if you do some further research you can clearly see it's all about oil. I even found it ironic how they were broadcasting high gas prices during the last 48 hour ultimatum. Why do you think so many anti-war people are out there in the first place? Cheney had some oil contracts signed weeks before the war even started. We have N. Korea actually wanting attention from the U.S. for carring nuclear weapons and cowboy here cares only about Iraq. There has always been a war in Iraq.

Think about it, you have an enemy sitting on top of the worlds largest oil reserves.

[napframe]

Originally posted by HB Tigger Fan
They were calling us anti-American and telling us to go live in Iraq.

Tell them to get off stolen land that doesn't even belong to us in the first place.