The Logic Off Topic list

From our friends in Ausie Land...
"The terrorist atrocities inflicted on the US have give rise to a new rumor
mill that grinds out stories that range from the banal to the bizarre. But a
story out of the Middle East has more credibility than most, particularly in
certain quarters. Some cooler and more intelligent heads in the Arab world
have concluded that Bush has outfoxed the fanatical bin Laden.

Like all fanatics bin Laden is narrowly on his mission while being
disconnected from the real world. Far from being the educated man he is said
to be he, like his suicide-bombers, is remarkable ignorant of the West,
specially the US. Although some of his followers have been educated at
Western Universities their education has 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 will. The sad fact is that
what little they knew of US history and policies came entirely from the
country's anti-American left, which has painted a grossly dishonest picture
of America that neatly fitted in with these terrorists' anti-American dogma
thus blinding them further to the political and military consequences of
their actions.

As our editor pointed out at a recent seminar in Australia, being narrowly
focused to the exclusion of all else is part of the terrorists' Achilles
heel. And so it is 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 operates with an open loop. Therefore there is no negative feedback
mechanism to correct his distorted picture of the world. There are no
advisers to council restraint or retreat because like Hitler, Stalin, Mao,
etc., he literally believes himself to be the only one capable of
interpreting events and predicting their consequences.

Now we have bin Laden's fundamental weakness. Being truly ignorant of
American history and knowing nothing of the country's political system he
has 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's 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
resembles 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 can have only 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. Afghanistan has been isolated, it's
borders sealed.

Battle lines have been drawn and are being supported with varying degrees of
enthusiasm. Russia, Tajikstan. Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, even Iran, Pakistan
and China are cooperating. British special forces (SAS) are already
operating in the country while American special forces are moving in. A
coordinated plan consisting of concentrated air attacks on terrorist camps
and Taliban installations, special forces assault teams, and the cooperation
of the Northern Alliance is being put into action. None of this, so the
story goes, is supposed to be happening.

Moreover, there are rumors that the scale of the forces that bin Laden has
unleashed has caused subterranean cracks to appear within the Taliban's
ranks, with some of them wondering why they should have to take the fall for
bin Laden. The smarter ones know they are not popular among the mass of
Afghans, and that if properly equipped and supported by Western powers the
Northern Alliance would drive them back to their mountain villages - that is
if the locals don't hang them from cranes and artillery barrels first.

Afghan refugees are relating tales of an increasing number of Taliban acts
of banditry and rape as order collapses in the towns and cities. The
wholesale kidnapping of non-Pashtun males aged between 15 and 30 for
'military' service smells of panic because the Taliban knows these males
belong to hostile ethnic minorities. These are not the actions of men who
believe in their own invincibility.

So to some Arab observers Bush has already won. But surely if bin Laden is
killed other bin Laden's will arise. There is only one bin Laden, thank God.
This latter-day Mahdi is just another religious millenarian who promises
paradise by driving out the infidel, the cause of the faithful's misery.
Such people have been a curse throughout history.

I'm not saying 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 is done,
the invisible war against terrorism will accelerate, from the freezing of
bank accounts to the assassination of terrorist organizers and the smashing
of their networks.

The strategy, as explained to me, is 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."
If the shoe fits...
-Grandaddy Mike