2001 we took out the Taliban and crushed al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. In 2003 we determined Saddam was non-compliant with international requirements on disclosing his WMDs (please, no one try and claim this is not true – even the UN agreed this was true) and because of communications he had had with al-Qaeda over the years he was deemed a risk. So the US took him out and al-Qaeda decided to try and take us on there in the desert of Iraq – and they lost. Instead of recruiting a Arab Muslim Army to rise up and smite The Great Satan, al-Qaeda’s brutality against fellow Muslims turned them from the future of Islam into the enemy of Islam. The Arab Muslim Army that rose up came after al-Qaeda, and not Americans who instead became allies.

While a lot of liberals don’t see what is happening, and a jaded America is still not seeing what is happening because the media has blinded them while it blinded itself to the sea change in the Middle East – it is still nonetheless happening. In a classic example of the old question “if a tree falls in a forest and no one hears, did it ever happen?” we see Americans thinking if it is not on TV or in the newspapers it cannot be happening. But it is because the to the prime players in this historic moment it is very real and very important. If you miss watching a football game it still happens – and we inside America are just spectators dealing with a media blackout.

The battles are starting to build up in Pakistan, as I think the insurgents realize they are being surrounded and hunted. They need a place to ‘exist’ and plot and lick their wounds. But they also need total submission. Their need to dominate seems to be the one consistent mistake they make. They become so abusive and brutal people in the vicinity beg for someone to come in and take them out. Al-Qaeda mistook 9-11 as a sign massive brutality will create obedient followers. It produced only a transient up-welling of general support for someone who gave the US a black eye.

Cheering a good hit on America doesn’t translate into full obedience to al-Qaeda’s dictatorial whims, and that has been al-Qaeda’s biggest and most consistent mistake. The cheering crowds after 9-11 where not contracts by Muslims to bow down to Bin Laden. And here we are six and half years later and al-Qaeda is struggling to carve out sanctuary for what remains of its beaten forces. Forces who have added millions of Arab Muslims to their list of enemies instead of their ranks of supporters. So why would the Pashtuns in Pakistan rally around these Arab losers??? No one has yet explained why Bin Laden will be able to rule Afghanistan or Pakistan, especially since these countries aren’t even Arabs (and don’t have any love loss for Arabs)?