Posted on 05/31/2008 2:00:04 AM PDT by elhombrelibre
Don't look now, but evidence of progress in the war on terror is just about everywhere. Last week CIA director Michael Hayden noted some U.S. accomplishments for the Washington Post: "Near strategic defeat of al-Qaeda in Iraq. Near strategic defeat for al-Qaeda in Saudi Arabia. Significant setbacks for al-Qaeda globally." USA Today: Attacks in Iraq are "down 70 percent since President Bush ordered a U.S. troop increase, or 'surge,' early last year."
The New Yorker's Lawrence Wright devoted a long essay to Sayyid Imam al-Sharif, onetime mentor to Ayman al Zawahiri, who now criticizes his former protégé and Osama bin Laden and suggests they be put on trial. In the New Republic, Peter Bergen and Paul Cruickshank told the story of Sheikh Salman al-Awdah, author of an open letter attacking bin Laden and violent jihad that has caused shockwaves across the Muslim world. The sheikhs of Anbar Province in Iraq lead a national, transsectarian movement preparing for provincial elections by the end of the year. Polling shows a widespread decline in support among Muslims for suicide bombing and for bin Laden. Fareed Zakaria observed that the number of Islamist attacks worldwide has declined precipitously since 2004.
How did this happen? It is partly due to Muslim outrage at al Qaeda's killing of its coreligionists. It is partly due to Muslim rejection of al Qaeda's malign interpretation of Islam. For these reasons, Bergen and Cruickshank wrote that "encoded in the DNA of apocalyptic jihadist groups like Al Qaeda are the seeds of their
(Excerpt) Read more at weeklystandard.com ...
Weekly Standard on winning in Iraq ping.
“What once seemed a war between jihadists and the West is now a war between jihadists and Muslims who reject terrorism. Bin Laden is close to losing this fight on his central front. Al Qaeda is no longer the attractive “strong horse” of bin Laden’s December 2001 metaphor. It is that fact, more than any other, that accounts for his movement’s current disarray.”
It is so sad this is the news that is not fit to print.
I remember Obama telling his brood to go back to Pakistan and wait...
I think we did it just right in securing Pakistan as an ally, particularly with their nuclear weapons.
It's a dangerous world and Iran is run by a nut....one of the same nuts involved in the "hostages" many years ago.
Obama is blind. McCain is right. Either you play both offensive and defensive or you cower in the corner...giving them another "free shot".
Bubba not only gave the "terror team" a "free shot", he IGNORED chances to take out Usama, the "top scorer".
I will forever believe that Bubba's disregard for the security of the USA was the leading factor for the terrorists to AGAIN hit on the USA on 9-11.
If the story doesn’t fit the template of defeat and failure, it is spiked.
And the left insists "we're not safer".
al Qaeda WILL lose. Reason #348,916 and counting
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hPVOxn-iN_pxDw3xHAjSeMa7zxgQ
MOSUL, Iraq (AFP) — Ata Taha tied the knot with his university sweetheart in a popular park and traditional meeting point for lovers in Iraq’s northern city of Mosul — but only after Al-Qaeda went on the retreat.
“My family had advised me to have a private wedding or celebrate abroad but I stood my ground,” the 26-year-old said proudly. “I got my wish — I married my colleague and we did so in public.”
Al-Qaeda militants had banned all public expressions of joy in Mosul, and even prevented the sale of a local popular bread, claiming that it was a breach of Muslim tradition.
In mid-May Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said a crackdown had begun against a Sunni area of Mosul that the American military describes as the last urban bastion of Al-Qaeda jihadists in Iraq.
According to the US military at least 1,200 suspects — including about 200 Al-Qaeda militants — have been arrested since the Iraqi-led and US-backed operation was launched on May 14, and the level of attacks has also dropped.
Taha and his fiancee took advantage of the offensive against Al-Qaeda to don their wedding finery and head for the so-called “Forest Park” where newlyweds traditionally pose for pictures surrounded by friends and family.
Frightened residents deserted the park in north Mosul after radical Al-Qaeda militants imposed their extremist view of Islam on the city.
But since the local campaign against Al-Qaeda began residents have been returning in force to celebrate weddings in the park, especially at weekends.
Guests gather there both to congratulate the newlyweds and to pose for pictures with the couple.
“The extremist factions imposed their values on us with rhetoric and fatwas (decrees) that have nothing to do with real Islam,” said Taha.
Coffee shops and restaurants, as well as other favourite meeting spots like the corniche overlooking the Tigris River in downtown Mosul, have also buzzed with activity since the anti-Al Qaeda operation got under way.
All across the city, residents have taken on a new lease on life.
Streets are thronged with pedestrians and market stalls brim anew with fruit and vegetables — including tomatoes and cucumbers displayed side by side in clear defiance to the Islamists who had banned this as sexually provocative.
The local Iraqi bread known as “sammoun” — also prohibited by the militants who argued that it did not exist in the time of the Prophet Mohammed — can now be found again in bakeries.
For schoolteacher Zakia Abdullah al-Badrani, Mosul is “a land of civilisations that should not be soiled by obscurantists” such as Al-Qaeda.
Mosul, with its population of 1.5 million, is the provincial capital of Nineveh — itself the capital of the once powerful Assyrian empire — and is home to both Sunni and Shiite Muslims, as well as Kurds and Christians.
“We always lived in harmony with the other communities and this is what encouraged me to come back,” said Gergis Hannah, a Christian who fled his hometown two years ago but returned at the onset of the military push against the jihadists.
Once Al-Qaeda is uprooted from Mosul “the government must push for reconciliation” among all of the city’s communities, Hannah added.
Soldiers armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles continue to patrol the streets of Mosul in a reminder that the threat posed by Al-Qaeda has not been removed completely.
But the military met no resistance as its forces rolled into Mosul, and many residents believe the Islamists either fled the city in the face of the advance or went to ground.
Word! Dittos. Rightly said.
***Then the president denied the jihadists an ally by removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq. Bin Laden declared Iraq the “central front” of his war against the West, and the Sunni insurgency helped Al Qaeda in Iraq gain a foothold there. ***
And the liberals STILL say that we shouldn’t have attacked Iraq and Saddam.
Al Qaeda in Iraq has been utterly defeated and we have WON the war in Iraq.
The war is ending with a whimper largely ignored by the MSM.
He still needs to be killed.
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