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Was Bin Laden Right About 9/11?
(A reprint of my 9/11 article from 2016…)
OK, ok, serious now. It’s been 15 years now people, so we can talk about this kind of thing, ‘kay? That’s what anniversaries are for, after all.
Peter Bergen, at CNN, who is often the sanest clown in the CNN circus, tell us that al Qaeda really blew it on 9/11.“Like the attack on Pearl Harbor,” says Bergen, “9/11 was a great tactical victory for America’s enemies. But in both these cases the tactical success of the attacks was not matched by strategic victories. Quite the reverse.” He goes on to remind us the U.S. totally kicked Japan’s butt.
Now it can get a little fuzzy when you try to jam 9/11 and al Qaeda into the Saving Private Ryan narrative framework. So it’s important to understand what Bergen thinks al Qaeda’s goal was with the attacks 15 years ago. I’ll quote him so when I call him an idiot a bit later, you’ll understand my reasoning:
“Bin Laden believed that al Qaeda’s attacks on New York and Washington would result in an American withdrawal from the Middle East. Instead, the United States quickly toppled the Taliban and al Qaeda… The United States not only did not reduce its influence in the Middle East, but it also established or added to massive bases in Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. And, of course, it also occupied both Afghanistan and Iraq. Bin Laden’s tactical victory on 9/11 turned out to be a spectacular strategic flop.”
Um, OK.
Bergen is an idiot. Al Qaeda got much, much more than it ever hoped for out of 9/11, and Bergen’s silly retelling of al Qaeda’s goals is part and parcel of what drives American foreign policy off a cliff on a daily basis in the Middle East.Japan was a nation set on territorial conquest in WWII. It bombed Pearl Harbor to destroy as much of America’s Navy as it could to buy itself as much time as it could to conquer as much as it could across the Pacific before America got back on its naval feet. Standard war as it has been since Caesar.
Terrorists fight a different war, a political one. They don’t have navies. They have guys who hijack planes.
Quite the opposite of what Bergen says, bin Laden did not want America to withdraw from the Middle East, he wanted to pull America into a Middle Eastern quagmire as deep and sticky as possible. This would drive recruits to al Qaeda’s cause, establishing with global certainty the west was at war with Islam.That worked; see Islamic State, and the way war and chaos has spread from edge-to-edge in the region, as well as the presence of so-called lone wolves in the U.S. and Europe. And remember, on 9/11, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen and Libya were all stable countries and there were no lone wolves in California and Florida.
Bin Laden did almost blow it. He expected the west to bog down in the graveyard of Afghanistan very quickly, but that didn’t happen. The early successes that drove the Taliban out of governing and into the mountains were done with very few troops and relatively clean bombing attacks. It was after that the Afghan war grew messy, when reconstruction and democracy and all that became the new goals interlaced with the U.S. having new tolerance for the nasty bastards running Pakistan.
And, of course, the crown jewel of bin Laden’s success, still giving, was the invasion of Iraq.Bush’s invasion of Iraq was so transparently pointless to everyone but most Americans that it made concrete all the things bin Laden was saying: America was at war with Islam, America sought to conquer the Middle East, America wanted the oil, and so forth. But even bin Laden could not have hoped for the free gifts his cause got out of the invasion: the chance for al Qaeda to set up shop in Iraq, the massacre at Fallujah when the Marines reduced the city to medieval rubble, the images of torture from Abu Ghraib, the jihadi training grounds at prison Camp Bucca, and, of course, the overall Sunni-Shia clusterf*ck the invasion ended up as. You know, the one that is driving the current ISIS war today.
And never mind the U.S. destruction of the Libyan state, America’s clumsy hand in crushing the Arab Spring, the growth of Islamic State and the little wars between the Turks and the Kurds, in Yemen, and more to come. Chaos and failed states favor the terrorists.
As Canadian historian Gwynne Dyer, a guy we all should be listening to said, “It is hard enough for Westerners to recognize that their attackers actually have a coherent strategy and are not simply mad fanatics motivated by hatred. To accept that these terrorist attacks are not really about Western countries at all, but merely an attempt to use the overreaction of Western countries to create change in the Middle East, is beyond their understanding.”
What Peter Bergen cannot seem to understand himself is bin Laden was practicing a kind of tough love when he staged the 9/11 attacks, to bring the wrath of the United States down on innocent Muslims to radicalize and politicize them. It is, bin Laden (and now ISIS) believe, for their own long-term good.
We’ll need to wait longer to find out if the U.S. will ever get it. See you next year for the next anniversary of 9/11.
Copyright © 2020. All rights reserved. The views expressed here are solely those of the author(s) in their private capacity.
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rich bauer said...
1Or perhaps Clinton’s Collapse on 9-11 was Fate’s way of telling US that, no matter how we deny it, we have to pay for our stupid decisions.
09/12/16 12:50 PM | Comment Link
John Poole said...
2Pearl Harbor was a preemptive strike against the USA which the Japanese rightfully assumed would eventually be drawn into the war against them. They didn’t count on America dropping two atomic bombs on their soil. Bergen’s bragging that the USA kicked Japan’s butt in retaliation suggests we did it the conventional way. It was hardly a conventional butt kicking.
09/12/16 1:20 PM | Comment Link
Bruce said...
3Or they’re US’ PNAC Attack stepping stones (ala Clark) on the way to Oceaniac WWIII with East/EurAsia (China & Russia); together with respective 5th Column TPP/TTIP Coalition “allies” in collateral economic assaults!
09/12/16 2:54 PM | Comment Link
chuck said...
4Pardon Snowden.
09/12/16 3:35 PM | Comment Link
chuck said...
5Certain causes really make you have a gut feeling.
09/12/16 3:37 PM | Comment Link
bloodypitchfork said...
6Peter said:
“Bergen is an idiot.”
Word.
09/12/16 6:06 PM | Comment Link
John Poole said...
7Obama says he will veto the suit against the Saudis for 9/11 by certain parties. The Saudis own him too? What a weakling male-just wanting to serve the rich whohe worships. Who knew the “devil” actually ruled this world (the devil’s dung being that black ooze where he took a giant dump many years ago. OK, have some fun. Devil? Huh?
09/12/16 6:06 PM | Comment Link
rich bauer said...
8All this secrecy, the bitch is hiding something big. Just hope Wikileaks gets it hands on the smoking gun before the election. If not, HRC will make her history – first woman presidense, first woman presidense impeached.
09/12/16 6:08 PM | Comment Link
bloodypitchfork said...
9chuck said…
“Pardon Snowden.”
word x10.
Meanwhile.. fuck Bush, Cheney, Obama, the CIA, the NSA, the DOJ, the DEA, the FAA, the DHS, the IRS, the VA, notwithstanding, Michael Hayden, James Clapper, Capt. Startrek Alexander, Bolton, Brenner, Rodriquez, et al and all the scumsucking owned neocon psychopathic, murdering, war mongering criminals who have brought us to final chapter of Orwell’s vision. May god send them to hell for eternity.
09/12/16 6:15 PM | Comment Link
bloodypitchfork said...
10rich bauer said…
“All this secrecy, the bitch is hiding something big. Just hope Wikileaks gets it hands on the smoking gun before the election.”
I’ve got $100 that says Assaunge has something he’s waiting for the right moment to thrust into the heart of the Clinton campaign that will kill this abomination forever. Unfortunately.. that leaves the other abomination. There is no win in this political, fiasco.
Just like Revelations says.
09/12/16 6:26 PM | Comment Link
gregj said...
11Well, about the attack on Pearl Harbor. I am no expert — I just read books — but one explaination was that Japan expected that a devastating blow to the U.S. Fleet would stop them from pursuing war against Japan — an “honor” thing, that Japan was so obsessed with.
Ironically, the Oil reserves nearby were left alone. So after PH, America still had resources to fight back.
History is not “Occam’s razor”. It is “The more complicated answer is probably the more correct.”
09/12/16 10:01 PM | Comment Link
rich bauer said...
12Let US face it, people. If the United States isn’t killing people in foreign places, it’s killing people right here in the good ol’ USA. “Land of the free” to kill, we are a sick fuck country loaded with assault weapons just looking for an excuse. Consider this official moron -(yeah, I know Kentucky, what do you expect):
Kentucky Republican Gov. Matt Bevin warned that Americans may have to “physically” fight to preserve religious and conservative values if Hillary Clinton is elected president in November, saying that “blood” would need to be shed to “reclaim” those principles.
“I want us to be able to fight ideologically, mentally, spiritually, economically, so that we don’t have to do it physically,” Bevin said in a speech at the Values Voters Summit Saturday in Washington, D.C. “But that may, in fact, be the case.”
If you think he’s just shooting off his mouth, think again.
09/13/16 9:28 AM | Comment Link
John Poole said...
13Pagliano today didn’t even show at the senate hearing after being given immunity to testify. He of course pleaed the fifth via counsel awhile back and three others who did appear today took the 5th.-you know that old right to not self incriminate. I think we need a T shirt: “Real Men Don’t plead the 5th!” or Women like men who would never plead the 5th.
09/13/16 1:08 PM | Comment Link
John Poole said...
14Obama: “I really want to help elect Hillary!” Duh! He stole her spot in 2008. It would have made more sense to have had her run in 2008 and him in 2016 or 2012. They are both of the same cloth-monsters posing as humans.
09/13/16 5:41 PM | Comment Link
rich bauer said...
15“They are both of the same cloth-monsters posing as humans.”
While they are both transparent as mud, Hillarious is astoundingly stupid, posing as an educated fool. She should follow George Costanza’s example and do everything the opposite. Her latest bout of stupidity- minimizing pneumonia- could have killed her – and wouldn’t that be a shame.
09/13/16 6:53 PM | Comment Link
chuck said...
16Standing Rock / 2016
09/13/16 7:14 PM | Comment Link
bloodypitchfork said...
17Meanwhile, the bloody remains of the past STILL refuse to die. Hopefully, things that seem irrelevant today, will float to the pond scum filled surface of the WDC cesspool to such extent that mainstream followers of the history of the Bush/Clinton regimes will finally be awarded some simulance of satisfaction that will finally put to rest their interest in the historical record of these scum sucking reprobates.
To start, one must go back to the DOJs theft of Promis software/ debacle, it’s relation to the IRAN/CONTRA, Mena Arkan sa, CIA drug running, Seal, aircraft, Foster, Oliver North and all it entailed. Yet, you don’t have to research. TODAY, records and research over the decades since, are finally producing astounding revelations as to the connections, the lies, and the actors who participated in one of the most profound deceptions ever perpetrated in the name of… well..National Security. …my ass.
One can do no better than start HERE.. and work backwords.
http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=3326
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB854491476811028000
https://glomardisclosure.com/2016/08/28/cia-lied-to-congress-in-their-briefing-about-vince-foster-barry-seal-and-the-inslaw-scandal/
There are a THOUSAND links within those articles to bring you up to date. All said..these revelations only serve to PROVE the depravity, lies, murders perpetrated by our wunnerful USG. Welcome to the Matrix.
09/13/16 7:55 PM | Comment Link
chuck said...
18Is there a good Company airport/international in Arkansawhat ?
09/13/16 8:09 PM | Comment Link
chuck said...
19Today, my day was made when a native american women joined myself and others on the streets in Albany. It was her first protest ever (she was I guess 30). We will meet next week. Stand with Standing Rock…
09/13/16 8:23 PM | Comment Link
John Poole said...
20Pitch- the perverse USG DOES represent the majority of Americans. The citizens of this exceptional nation are quite content with what their government does in their name. You are in a teeny tiny minority which demands accountability for immoral inhumane behavior. Treasure anyone close who shares your views. They are a rare find.
09/13/16 8:50 PM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
21Method to the madness
“It is hard enough for Westerners to recognize that their attackers actually have a coherent strategy and are not simply mad fanatics motivated by hatred.”
So does the Wall Street War Party.
War is a racquet, and we peons are the birdies.
09/11/18 11:14 AM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
22“We’ll need to wait longer to find out if the U.S. will ever get it. See you next year for the next anniversary of 9/11.”
The cockpit is still unsecured, so the US doesn’t get it.
09/11/18 11:48 AM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
23Even Bin Laden couldn’t predict how incompetent this country could be.
Demented: I would like to extend my best wishes to all, even the haters and losers, on this special date, September 11th.
09/11/18 12:08 PM | Comment Link
teri said...
24So Trump tweets “17 years since 9/11!”, proving he knows his math stuff pretty good.
Actually, he wasn’t sure why he was being sent to Pa today, and after asking which Republican candidate he was scheduled to play golf with in some shithole of a town in Pennsylvania, some staffer reminded him it was for a 9/11 memorial. “Sir,” the staffer said, “it’s been 17 years; be sure to mention that in your speech today.” So Trump sends out his tweet and says, “There – done.”
But that’s nothing. Check out this picture of him getting off the plane in Shanksville this morning and greeting people with a double fist pump and a clenched jaw like he was at a football game and his team is winning. (“Whoo – HOO!) Our dear leader:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/trump-911-memorial-service-tweet-today-flight-93-september-white-house-a8532836.html
09/11/18 1:40 PM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
25Teri,
Demented thought it was just another campaign rally.
Here are some talking points Demented should have read at the rally:
9-11. It goes to show it takes a bunch of village idiots to bring down some buildings. The CIA and the FBI really outdid themselves stovepiping information. Knowledge is power but Turf is more important. Shoutout to the FAA who let the airlines cheap out on security. Keep up the good work. Finally, I want to thank our good friends the Saudi royal inbreds. Keep paying off your repressed people/terrorists and my debts. So what if they kill some foreigners. And last and least, the ignorant American public. You clowns keep paying for it all. LOSERS.
09/13/18 4:39 PM | Comment Link