Jihad has worked - the world is now split in two: "There is a tendency in the west to play down - or ignore - the extent of Bin Laden's success. The US and UK governments regard mentioning it as disloyal or heretical. But look back on interviews by Bin Laden in the 1990s to see what he has achieved. He can tick off one of the four objectives he set himself, and, arguably, a second.
...Instead of the war on Iraq, Bush would have been better, as Blair continually advised him, to deal first with Israel-Palestine. Although the US secretary of state, Colin Powell, last week showed interest in the Geneva accord, the work of the Israeli-Palestinian peace camp, Bush has dropped any pretence of a US that acts as an independent arbitrator in the conflict. He has placed himself alongside Sharon. He has said he supports the creation of a Palestinian state, but shows no desire to use America's political and financial power over Israel to try to bring it about. The resolution of the Israel-Palestinian conflict, however, is the only immediate way of reversing the dangerous polarisation of the world that Bin Laden seeks. ""

The great failure of the "war on terror" is that it polarizes people. Bush seemed determined to do that from the beginning, saying, "If you are not with us, you are against us."

That is exactly what the terrorists want us to do. To go to extremes, so they end up with more supporters. Our violence creates more terrorists who create more violence. It's a spiral that destroys our society and values. And that has already started in the USA; the Partiot Act is a case in point. So the war on terror is a victory for the terrorists.

The second great failure of the war on terror is that it employs military tactics. We cannot defeat them with superior fire power. That kills more civilians than terrorists, and so alienates the civil society we're supposed to be defending. Again, this strategy ends up favoring the terrorists.

That will be clear in Iraq, which was not part of the war on terror--until Bush invaded. Now it is part of the war on terror, because they want us out of there and are fighting with the means at their disposal. Guerilla warfare.

What we need is intelligence. Of course, after 9/11 we didn't even inquire about why we failed to stop 9/11 attacks from happening. That wasn't very intelligent. And in Iraq, we don't even know who is attacking our troops. Again, a dramatic and inexcusable lack of intelligence.

We'll never win against Bin Ladin without effective intelligence and intelligent policies. Stop the war on terror now and start using our intelligence. Otherwise we'll all end up dead as a result of the futile escalation of violence Bush is donating to the terrorists.

Stop polarizing policies. Stop them in Israel, especially. (See story above). Then we'll begin to know peace again.
- posted by geoff @ #