My brilliant colleague, Walid Phares, has posted a fine piece on Fox’s site, and Andy McCarthy, another brilliant colleague at FDD, has done a similarly insightful piece over at NRO. As they say, the al Qaeda “mastermind,” Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, along with four underlings, are trying to turn their trial (at Guantanamo) into a political circus, and use their inevitable executions as a recruiting tool for the jihad.
My instinct is to quote Dirty Harry: “come on, make my day.” Andy thinks we should lowkey the whole thing, and try to turn it into a bore. Walid is rather more inclined to use the trial as a platform for attacking jihadism and jihadists. They are both right, needless to say. The problem is that we have an administration that is totally tone-deaf when it comes to explanation America’s actions, whether to the American people or to the broader world. For behind this little circus in Cuba lies a great event, namely the defeat of al Qaeda. And if we had taken credit for this victory, we’d be a lot better placed to talk about KSM and the other four losers.
Because that’s the point: they’re losers, bigtime losers. They attacked us twice, both times at the World Trade Center in New York. The first time around they were unlucky; had they placed the explosives more accurately, they might well have killed tens of thousands of people. The second time they were very lucky; they made their way through a series of incompetent security officials and managed to hijack enough commercial aircraft to kill three thousand innocents. They thought they would bring down America. Instead we unleashed Hell on their own organization, which is now a shambles of its former self.
They picked the time and place of the big fight: Iraq, after the fall of Saddam. They had plenty going for them, from the active support of Iran and Syria to their knowledge of the terrain and of the Iraqi people. They thought they would drive us out, and create the hub of the Caliphate. Instead they were defeated, humiliated, and driven into inglorious exile in…Yemen! Whence Zawahiri wrote to the mullahs to thank them for their invaluable help.
Just a few years ago they were dreaming of global domination. Now they’re thrilled if they can set off a few bombs in Yemen.
If only there were someone, somewhere, in the American Government who could just tell this little story. And then say, “these losers, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his failed comrades, are a testament to what happens to people who foolishly believe they can destroy us. They go to their graves with the taste of defeat in their mouths. The whole world knows they have lost.”
Isn’t that the way to deal with these bums?
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