Mark Steyn: We’re Winning This War

The Spectator ^ | September 13, 2003 | Mark Steyn

[quidnunc]

Quote:

Don’t ask me what the long-term strategy behind these biennial attacks is supposed to be. But, from oh, say, November, it becomes harder with each passing week for the doom-mongers to argue that the lack of activity is consistent with bin Laden’s modus operandi. To be sure, I still read the in-depth reports by experts who say he’s alive and well and living on the Northwest Frontier. But, if he doesn’t show himself, then inevitably those ‘experts’ begin to sound like the fellows who claim to know the whereabouts of Lord Lucan or the truth about the Loch Ness Monster. It’s all very scientific, I’m sure, but sooner or later Lucan and Nessie have to do a bit of work and put in an appearance themselves.

Instead, Osama makes audio cassettes, and he licenses his subordinates to make audio cassettes, and they issue bloodcurdling threats against everyone from the Great Satan to hapless bystanders like Ireland and Canada, and none of those threats comes to pass. They’re all turban and no jihad. They were at it again the other day: ‘We announce there will be new attacks inside and outside [the US] which would make America forget the attacks of 11 September,’ said an al-Qa’eda spokesman.

Maybe he’s right, and by the time you read this Chicago and Atlanta will be ablaze. Or maybe it will be like all the other empty threats. Even in the Hindu Kush at the all-U-can-eat scorpion buffet, you can’t dine out on 9/11 for ever. This is a long war — but for America, with victories at home, in Afghanistan, in Iraq and elsewhere, it’s been a pretty good start.

Good writing, that!

[JohnHuang2]

Mark Steyn MEGA PING!

[prairiebreeze]

bookmark for later read

[Cuttnhorse]

"All turban and no jihad" Classic

[kimmie7]

Excellent, thank you.

[Dog]

. As the New York Times’s elderly schoolgirl Maureen Dowd put it last week, ‘We wanted to get rid of Osama and Saddam and the Taleban and al-Qa’eda. We didn’t. They’re replicating and coming at us like cockroaches.’ Really? Osama is replicating? That’s news to me. Considering that the original hasn’t been seen in a year and three quarters, it looks more like he’s plicated. I said in these pages 15 months ago that he’s dead, he’s bin Laden to rest, he’s pushing up daisy-cutters, and I’m sticking with that.

LMAO!

Steyn at his best

[HiJinx]

They’re all turban and no jihad.

I think I just found my new tagline...for awhile, anyway.

[Dog]

Darn I missed a great tagline...

[Warren_Piece]

But the advantage of sour oppositionism is that whatever happens there’s always something to sneer at.

This applies to a few Freepers as well.

[AGreatPer]

You missed another one. "he’s bin Laden to rest"

[B.Bumbleberry]

Hour by hour, day by day, the jihadists are getting killed and captured. The invasion of Iraq is attracting the deadheads like lambs to the slaughter, has put enormous pressure on Iran, Syria and SA to stop supporting terrorists, and has taken enormous pressure off Israel. SA for the first time is taking effective action against local terrorists, terrorism supporters among the royal family are meeting mysterious deaths, and there is hint that the inciting to violence by the imams will soon be dealt with. Pakistan is quietly aiding in the search for AQ leaders in its tribal regions. And these are only the things we hear about. It will take years for the truth about all the clandestine operations going on to surface.

Yes, indeed, we are winning. In spades.

[Billthedrill]

If it’s a choice between Meacher or the Continentals who’ve turned down US requests for troop contributions because they want Iraq to go belly up so that Bush gets defeated in 2004 and some wimp Democrat gets elected who’ll treat them with the respect they deserve, I’ll take the latter.

Tears in my eyes on this one, because it's true. But "all turban and no jihad" is destined to become immortal.

[mattdono]

seamole, thanks for posting the entire article. This excerpting is getting totally out of hand, eh, quidnunc?

quidnunc, you have been around for a while, come on, you know that the only thing that needs to be excerpted is the WP and LAT articles.

[ken5050]

Steyn is, of course, absolutely correct...yet the sqad fact is that the Bush administration cannot, or perhaps fears, claiming credit for the fact that there has not been ONE single terrorist incident in the USA since 9/11, because, if the next day, a Moslem farted in Times Square, the entire media and the Dem candidates would be accusing W of hubris, and wailing that the administration was funding Homeland Security enough..

[BOBTHENAILER]

At home, the media and the Democrats argue that Americans are somehow reeling under a terrorist onslaught.

That onslaught was just reduced by 80 foreign terrorists captured north of Baghdad, by the 101st.

[LiberationIT]

Bump and read later.

[Grammy]

"...pretext to grab Iraq’s oil and Afghanistan’s, er, rubble"

I love this liberal nonsense. My sister wanted to take me to an Afghani restaurant and I asked her why she would want to dine at a place that made high cuisine from......dirt.

[Flashman_at_the_charge]

That one had me LOL as well. :-)

[quidnunc]

mattdono wrote: seamole, thanks for posting the entire article. This excerpting is getting totally out of hand, eh, quidnunc? quidnunc, you have been around for a while, come on, you know that the only thing that needs to be excerpted is the WP and LAT articles.

Thge reason WP and LAT articles must be exerpted is because they sued Free Republic for violation of copyright — i.e. theft of intellectual property — and won.

Those same same protections extend across the spectrum to all copyrighted materials.

Why do you think the recording industry has decided to sue music downloaders right and left?

It is not beyopnd the realm of possibility that if publications continue to get their stuff stolen, content will either be not available on-line, or will be posted as non-copyable PDFs.

I post some articles in their entirity, but not conservative-friendly stuff.

Those people deserve the courtesy of a page-view hit.