Osama would vote Republican

I'm reading Ron Suskind's book "The One Percent Doctrine" and I've come to a rather interesting and relevant part dealing with why we haven't been hit since September 11 (other than the Anthrax attacks).

There is a strong belief inside the US government that perhaps the reason we haven't been hit is because Osama decided a while back NOT to hit us again on the US mainland. Rather, he is targeting our allies (Spain and England particularly), the argument goes, in order to force them to pull out of Iraq, and more generally distance themselves from the US, in order to leave us all alone in our Iraqi quagmire, thus making Iraq an even BIGGER quagmire (taking the financial and military hit), but just as importantly, making the US (and its Arab allies, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan) the focus of all the Muslim rage that will continue to build because of the US presence in Iraq.

Or to put it more simply, Osama wanted the US to invade the Middle East, and he really wants us to stay there because our presence helps generate anti-US and pro-Osama feelings.

Or even more simply, Osama wants us to "stay the course" in Iraq. George Bush and the stay-the-course Republicans are Osama's wet dream.

This also means that Bush has been lying to the America people about why it is we haven't been hit since September 11. He knows that it isn't at all clear that we haven't been hit because he's supposedly done such a good job breaking up terror cells.

First, I can't think of a single terror cell that seriously threatened the US mainland (perhaps that plane plot to hit that building in LA, and I say perhaps because you'll notice we haven't heard Bush boasting about that plot at all, and you know as well as I that we'd still be hearing about it if it were true). As for Bush's other great terror cell capers, the guys in NY were a joke, the guys in Florida a second joke, Padilla a third joke, and who else is there that we the US broke up? Oh yeah, the nutjob who wanted to take down the Brooklyn Bridge with a blowtorch, yeah he was a big threat.

One plot that was real, and which Bush was NOT responsible for breaking up, was a planned 2003 Al Qaeda poisoned gas attack against the NYC subway. It wasn't by George Bush or anyone in the US government. It was stopped by Zawahiri, bin Laden's right-hand man. We would have been hit again but bin Laden's guy called it off, not George Bush. So George Bush's policies don't get the credit. This is also further evidence that Al Qaeda, for whatever reason, has decided NOT to hit the US mainland since September 11.

So what this tells us is:

1. George Bush is lying when he talks about how everyone should vote Republican because we haven't been hit since September 11. He knows damn well that it's quite possible we haven't been hit because bin Laden has decided not to hit us in the US.

2. George Bush is doing exactly what bin Laden wants by keeping US troops in Iraq. According to the Suskind book, bin Laden was hoping we'd invade Afghanistan and that IT would become our quagmire to inflame the Middle East. The fact that Iraq ultimately became the quagmire wasn't the initial plan, but it's working just as well to isolate our country and foment even more anti-Americanism across the globe.

So, that makes George Bush the closest thing to the al Qaeda candidate, and it makes anyone who wants US troops to remain in Iraq the next best thing to al Qaeda enablers.

Try them apples, Karl.