So you think, I want to target the Arab state with the fewest people who think Islamist extremism threatens them (10%) and the most people who don't think Islamist extremism is a threat to them (87%).
And that country really rises to the top when you consider that it would be good to target a country whose people believe more now than in 2002 that attacking civilian targets is justified (57% now versus 43% on 2002). Conversely, the percentage of this country's people who think such attacks on civilian are never justified has dropped to 11% from 26%.
Yep, according to the July 2005 Pew poll, Jordan is your ideal target.
So when you carry out your attack on the perfect target whose people are bound to understand why jihadis had to attack civilian targets in your country, this reaction (via Instapundit) has got to be a surprise:
Hundreds of angry Jordanians rallied Thursday outside one of three U.S.-based hotels attacked by suicide bombers, shouting, “Burn in hell, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi!” — a reference to the leader of Al-Qaida in Iraq, the terrorist group tied to the blasts that killed at least 56 people.
The new jihadi motto?
Al Qaeda: Shooting Ourselves in the Foot to Bring on the Caliphate. Because We All Know the Big Toe is a Zionist Plot.
I really wonder if Mullah Omar is raging against bin Laden for his lies that got the jihadis into war with America: "Oh, yeah, one hard blow and the Americans will wilt like flowers! They'll flee the Middle East! Now we are in a quagmire in the Middle East and the Arab street is rising against us!"
These guys are inept clowns. Murderous clowns, to be sure, who need to be hunted down and killed. But inept clowns nonetheless.
UPDATE: Strategypage examines the status of al Qaeda since they foolishly escalated their war in 2001 and provoked us to fight back hard:
The successful referendum underscores just how impotent al Qaeda has become since the attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001. Four years ago, al Qaeda was able to launch a coordinated attack that killed 3,000 people in the United States. Now, al Qaeda has proven unable to oppose the United States after American troops have liberated two countries in al Qaeda’s backyard. These singular failures belie the claims of a quagmire coming from the mainstream media and critics of the Administration. Al Qaeda has been rejected by the people of Afghanistan and Iraq.
But it isn't as if al Qaeda has no hope of eventually winning. They have one ace in the hole:
The media’s tendency to accentuate the negative has given al Qaeda a bit of a lifeline – their only hope for victory is that the anti-war movement, fuelled by the mainstream media, will wear down the political will of the United States.
I still don't know why these nutballs are called the "anti-war" movement. The war was fought before we got into it, and if we lose and retreat, the war will follow us home. Anti-war only means anti-America fighting back. Funny how that works.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Strategypage has another post entitled "Find Foot, Take Aim, Fire," which highlights the amazing ability of ruthless killers to do so stupidly:
One explanation for this counter-productive behavior can be found in the quality of al Qaeda personnel. It is low, with most members having few skills and little training. While the media concentrates on the few successes al Qaeda has, the majority of the terror groups operations are sloppy, ineffective and counterproductive. One should be thankful for incompetent terrorists, although in this case that's only natural. Al Qaeda's goals and methods are based on fantasy and self-delusion. Many of those who join al Qaeda have bought into the delusions, and are not terribly rational themselves. Thus al Qaeda's strategy is, currently, to kill at every opportunity, without paying attention to who the victims, or consequences, are. Al Qaeda gunmen are not noted for their accuracy, except when the target is their own foot. Let's hope they never change.
The self-evident truth of this analysis makes it amazing to me that some anti-war people still earnestly insist that we are falling into al Qaeda's trap by waging a war just as bin Laden intended us to do. How anti-war people can spin events into a brilliant Islamist strategy when it is indeed utter failure and defeat for the Islamists is beyond me. But then I never held the analytical, historical, or military skills and knowledge of the anti-war side very high in the first place.
