The goal of any organized terrorist attack is to goad a vastly more powerful enemy into an excessive response. And over the past nine years, the United States has blundered into the 9/11 snare with one overreaction after another. Bin Laden deserves to be the object of our hostility, national anguish and contempt, and he deserves to be taken seriously as a canny tactician. But much of what he has achieved we have done, and continue to do, to ourselves. Bin Laden does not deserve that we, even inadvertently, fulfill so many of his unimagined dreams.
We're playing into bin Laden's hands, it seems.
--Refusing to passively retreat from the Middle East played into his hands.
--Destroying his patron, the Taliban government of Afghanistan, played into his hands.
--Smashing bin Laden's terrorism sanctuary in Afghanistan played into his hands.
--Killing off his A-team in our offensive and driving them into Pakistan caves played into his hands.
--Turning off the illegal Pakistani nuclear proliferation network played into his hands.
--Ending major Pakistani support for the Taliban played into his hands.
--Fighting on the ground, man-to-man, when jihadi propaganda suggested we were too afraid to do anything but fling cruise missiles, and kicking their asses, played into his hands.
--Smashing the terror ally and fellow enemy of America Saddam played into his hands.
--Scaring Libya into ending their WMD plans played into his hands.
--Defeating the al Qaeda offensive in Iraq, again man-to-man where their fervor and faith supposedly gave them the advantage, played into his hands.
--Demonstrating to the Moslem world the depravity of al Qaeda's murderous intent which alienated the world's Moslems who until seeing the jihadis up close in Iraq, had backed jihad and suicide bombings in uncomfortably large numbers, played into his hands.
--Leading a coalition of the willing into combat in both Iraq and Afghanistan where we fought and defeated jihadis played into his hands.
--Leading the Europeans and much of the rest of the world--including Moslem majority countries--in efforts to find and smother al Qaeda operatives and sympathizers played into his hands.
I have one question for Ted: is Osama's big plan to take so many hits from us to his face that we bruise our knuckles?
Because from my perspective, falling for Osama's deep plan looks an awful lot like kicking his ass. The whole anguish thing seems largely to lie in his court.
And if Ted thinks that fighting jihadis is bankrupting us, please recall that our defense burden is far less than during the Cold War and we committed, in a couple afternoon signing ceremonies, to spending far more money in a stimulus and health care "reform" legislation. So who is running hither and yon spending us into oblivion?
Yes indeed, a terrorist can dream his unimaginable dreams. And Koppel, who rose to fame on America held hostage in 1980, can perhaps be forgiven for dreaming about an ideal world where America responds tit for tat to terror attacks and remains held hostage by refusing to fight and destroy jihadi terrorism. It worked so well the last time, right?
