Capturing Osama: Daniel Pipes warns presidential election results deeply affect war

Osama bin Laden's capture or death, the focus of renewed American military attention, would greatly help the war on terror — but not in the way you might expect.

True, in some cases, seizing a terrorist leader leads directly to a reduction in threat or even to the decomposition of his organization. Consider these examples :

Terrorist specialist Michael Radu points out that the same pattern also held with the capture of leaders of smaller terrorist groups, including Andreas Baader of Germany's Rote Armee (Red Army) and Shoko Asahara of Japan's Aum Shinrikyo. A similar steep decline, Mr. Radu notes, will likely recur should Velupillai Prabhakaran of Sri Lanka's Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) be captured or killed.

In all these cases, the leaders offer characteristics — charisma, power, ruthlessness — critical to their organizations. If no other figure can replace these strengths, then rivalries, incoherence, and decline result.

While Mr. bin Laden personally symbolizes militant Islam and his continued ability to elude coalition force inspires his Islamist followers, his capture or execution would have a mainly psychological impact by demoralizing those followers. His elimination would certainly be a blow to his movement, but one it could readily recover from. "His capture won't end terrorism's danger," Robert Andrews rightly noted in a recent USA Today article.

Ending terrorism requires more than targeting terrorists, their leaders, or their organizations. It requires recognizing and defeating the body of ideas known as militant Islam or Islamism. The war cannot be won until politicians and others focus on this ideology rather than on terrorism, which is merely its manifestation.

This said, Mr. bin Laden's capture or death could indeed have a major beneficial impact on the war on terror — by helping to re-elect President Bush against his presumptive Democratic opponent. Who wins the forthcoming presidential election will deeply affect the future conduct of the global war on terror. To adopt Fred Barnes's formulation in the Weekly Standard, "George W. Bush is a September 12 person. John Kerry is a September 10 person." Just as Saddam Hussein's capture in December helped to end Howard Dean's candidacy for president, so Mr. bin Laden's capture might harm Senator Kerry's.

That's because Mr. Kerry has lashed out at the way the war on terror is conducted, blaming Mr. Bush for everything from faulty tactics (allowing Mr. bin Laden to escape near capture in Tora Bora), to poor strategy ("Only an ad hoc strategy to keep our enemies at bay"), to an overall failed policy ("The most arrogant, inept, reckless and ideological foreign policy in modern history.") Mr. Kerry goes so far as to claim that America is worse off now than on September 11, 2001.

Such over-the-top criticisms render Mr. Kerry vulnerable should Mr. bin Laden actually be caught or killed. Which makes catching or killing Mr. bin Laden truly an urgent war imperative.

Sadly, it makes no difference.

I made this point just a few months after 9/11: the majority of Americans are stupid sheep with MTV attention spans and the war on terror would mean nothing, especially if it was being successful.

And I got raked over the coals for pessimissm and how I didn't understand how things have changed, etc.

Now it's been only 30 months since 9/11/01 and I'm more right. The people don't care. They are too busy going "baa baa baa" about jobs and the economy and blah, blah, blah.

Pipes does a good job of listing the past. And it shows the majority of morons in this country couldn't care less unless we have massive troop movements, bombs, tanks, etc.

They have to have a large army of thousands invading from the South to wake up! Oh wait, they don't. Because that's already happening and no one cares. I guess since the Mexicans aren't using tanks, airplanes and mortar fire they turn a blind eye thinking they are safe.

I don't know about anyone else, but I'm digging my nice huge hole in the ground in an obscure area. I don't trust the voters any longer. You can't even say things and they all get bent out of shape once the media whips them into a frenzy with buzz words.

Tell the truth in the United States today and you'll pay a heavy price. Don't believe me? Didn't you see how EVERYONE in Congress foamed at the mouth over Greenspan's simple, truthful comments about the future viability of Social Security? Pavlov would have been proud.

And even the wimpy Republicans didn't take the opportunity to reinforce their message of slowly privatizing and eliminating the program. Of course, they never say eliminate but that's the end result once we quick forcing people to pay into a socialist ponzi scheme. Unfortunately, it will take decades to get them to save for themselves (even no taxes on savings will work in the short term) and not require them to put money away.

Forget attacking our cities. Forget blowing up buildings. Forget trying to kill people. All the terrorist have to do is make Americans think Social Security is going away and they can just sit back and watch the chaos.

Works for the Democrats.

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