"Let's call the whole thing off"
Does the bin Laden tape signal an approaching end game? Bin Laden can't prevail against "the Chicago way."

This morning, reviewing the transcript of Osama bin Laden's videotape appearance this week brought to mind a scene from 1987's hit crime drama, The Untouchables:



Police Officer Jim Malone to Eliot Ness: "If Capone comes at you with a knife, you go after him with a gun. If he sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. That's the Chicago way! And that's how you get Capone!"

I am wondering whether bin Laden has started to realize that since 9/11, America has been fighting al Qaeda the Chicago way. Consider the evolution of his rhetoric until yesterday.

In an interview with Osama bin Laden in 2002, conducted by Jamal Isma'il in Afghanistan and broadcast on Middle East television, 'Abd-al-Bari 'Atwan, editor in chief of the London-based Al-Quds al-'Arabi newspaper, the terrorist leader said,

We think that the United States is very much weaker than Russia. Based on the reports we received from our brothers who participated in jihad in Somalia, we learned that they saw the weakness, frailty, and cowardice of US troops. Only 80 US troops were killed. Nonetheless, they fled in the heart of darkness, frustrated, after they had caused great commotion about the new world order.

Isma'il added,

The first point in this strategy is that the US Administration or the US forces, which he considers occupation forces in the Gulf and Arabian Peninsula, are a prelude to a comprehensive Israeli-Jewish hegemony over the region with the aim of looting its wealth and humiliating its Muslim people. One senses this as the essence of his creed and strategy.

Therefore, he believes that expelling these US forces from the Arab world is a top priority.

In an interview between Al-Jazeera television correspondent Tayseer Alouni in October 2001, bin Laden said,

We believe that the defeat of America is possible, with the help of God, and is even easier for us, God permitting, than the defeat of the Soviet Union was before.

Q: How can you explain that?

Bin Laden: We experienced the Americans through our brothers who went into combat against them in Somalia, for example. We found they had no power worthy of mention. There was a huge aura over America -- the United States -- that terrified people even before they entered combat. Our brothers who were here in Afghanistan tested them, and together with some of the mujahedin in Somalia, God granted them victory. America exited dragging its tails in failure, defeat, and ruin, caring for nothing.

America left faster than anyone expected. It forgot all that tremendous media fanfare about the new world order, that it is the master of that order, and that it does whatever it wants. It forgot all of these propositions, gathered up its army, and withdrew in defeat, thanks be to God.

Note the contempt for America in his words, and the absolute confidence he radiates that he can defeat anything America throws at him. America has "no power worthy of mention."

Last year, about this time, al Qaeda threatened catastrophe upon America:

In regard to rumors about a large-scale attack against the U.S. during the month of Ramadan, [top al Qaeda commander Abu Salma] Al-Hijazi said that "a huge and very courageous strike" will take place and that the number of infidels expected to be killed in this attack, according to primary estimates, exceeds 100,000. He added that he "anticipates, but will not swear, that the attack will happen during Ramadan."

He further stated that the attack will be carried out in a way that will "amaze the world and turn Al Qaida into [an organization that] horrifies the world until the law of Allah is implemented, actually implemented, and not just in words, on His land... You wait and see that the balance of power between Al Qaida and its rivals will change, all of a sudden, Allah willing."

In February of last year, al Jazeera broadcast an audiotape by bin Laden in which he recounted of jihadists withstanding American bombardment in Afghanistan:

If all the world forces of evil could not achieve their goals on a one square mile of area against a small number of mujahideen with very limited capabilities, how can these evil forces triumph over the Muslim world?

This is impossible, God willing, if people adhere to their religion and insist on jihad for its sake.

Note the triumphalism in his rhetoric, especially that Allah is shepherding his cause. In the same tape the triumphalism continued as he threatened some Islamic countries:

The most qualified regions for liberation are Jordan, Morocco, Nigeria, Pakistan, the land of the two holy mosques [Saudi Arabia], and Yemen.

And he ended with more assurance that Allah will see him through:

God, who sent the book unto the prophet, who drives the clouds, and who defeated the enemy parties, defeat them and make us victorious over them.

Now compare these fighting words with what bin Laden said in this week's video release and hust as importantly, how he said it.

You American people, my speech to you is the best way to avoid another conflict about the war and its reasons and results. I am telling you security is an important pillar of human life. And free people don't let go of their security contrary to Bush's claims that we hate freedom. He should tell us why we didn't hit Sweden for instance. Its known that those who hate freedom don't have dignified souls like the nineteen who were blessed. But we fought you because we are free people, we don't sleep on our oppression. We want to regain the freedom of our Muslim nation as you spill our security, we spill your security. ...

Your security is not in the hands of Kerry or Bush or Al Qaeda. Your security is in your hands. Each state that doesn't mess with our security has automatically secured their security.

The Islamist triumphalism is absent. In fact, if Osama bin Laden could dance he might be imitating Fred Astaire: "Let's call the whole thing off!" Or maybe Greta Garbo, "I want to be let alone." What he was certainly saying boiled down to this: if you leave us alone now, we'll leave you alone. No matter how insincerely he means it, he did say it, and it can't be gaining him new recruits to jihad. Jihadis don't die to be let alone, but to defend Islam itself.

No longer does bin Laden call America the "weak horse." No more is he threatening to humiliate America and force its soldiers to flee homeward in fear and disgrace. Now he is practically doing a Monty Hall routine, asking, "Let's make a deal."

The words on the videotape are not the words of a man who thinks the light at the end of the tunnel is anything but the headlight of the proverbial oncoming train. This was the tape of a man who knows his tail is getting whipped from one end of the world to the other. He's now out of ideas and even out of new threats. The extensive quotes of the Quran as in tapes of yore seem AWOL now.

I think it's telling that al Jazeera only broadcast a very short excerpt of the whole tape and only summarized what it didn't broadcast. One US newscast said that al Jazeera explained its snip of a broadcast by saying that it didn't want inadvertently to broadcast secret codewords for terrorist attacks in the tape, a concern that seems never to have bothered the network before. Evidently al Jazeera is no longer awed by the great and mighty Osama bin Laden anymore; maybe it is even trying now to hedge its bets. Or maybe the arabist network was just too embarrassed by bin Laden's new humility to show it all.

If, as news reports indicate, US and Iraqi forces are going to clean up Falluja by the end of the year (or sooner), then al Qaeda's prospects must seem even worse to bin Laden than they appear to us. Despite the attention paid to the 1,000-plus American deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq, the cruel calculus of war is overwhelmingly in our favor. As Jim Dunnigan wrote earlier this month,

Al Qaeda no longer exists. Al Qaeda means “the base” in Arabic. ...

Al Qaeda was always feared for the loose relationship the many small Islamic terrorist groups, spread all over the planet, had with each other. What made these many groups (mostly composed of eager amateurs) really dangerous was their access to professional terrorists via al Qaeda. The eager amateurs no longer have an easy to find base. In fact, since September 11, 2001, the police have been more successful at finding these terrorists, than the terrorists have been in finding the many bits of al Qaeda out there. The base is no longer the base.

Just as I wrote in September 2003 I would write again today, only more so:

The US is making progress against them on too many fronts - military, economic, ideological, logistical, political - for al Qaeda to count on the stability needed to plan for long-ranger operations. Bases, personnel, resources and government support needed to conduct effective attacks against high-value targets just can't be forecast very far ahead. They face a much higher uncertainty about who might have been "turned" by the US to work against them.

They have lost too much major talent either to death or capture. Their first team is pretty much off the field and the benchers trying to carry on aren't up to the job. They don't have the personal renown of the terrorists who have been killed or captured, and among the societies they most need assistance from, personal reputation is extremely important. But they are virtual unknowns for the most part.

Al Qaeda is still dangerous, but the danger of a spectacular attack by them is much lower than ever.

Syndicated columnist Austin Bay, who just returned from several months in Iraq, wrote about how we are winning in August 2003. To students of this war, it is no surprise that many of al Qaeda's claws have been pulled. I say as always, we must not let down our guard but neither should we relent in the attack to crush al Qaeda now once for all. I think that there is a good chance the new bin Laden tape shows the corner has been turned. President Bush said after 2001 that the war against al Qaeda would occupy several successive administrations after his. I myself wrote in Sept. 2001 that the task ahead would take decades. Now I am more confident than ever. The collapse of Islamist terrorism may well come very quickly, especially as an internationally-coordinated effort. Casual Islamist terrorist groups will still work death, as in Chechnya, but the days of central resourcing and coordination out of al Qaeda are pretty much done. And I would emphasize that the problems of Iran and North Korea must still be resolved, Syria too. But I think that regarding al Qaeda, the bin Laden tape signifies we are no longer at the end of the beginning, but the beginning of the end.

I am reminded of the old story of two schoolboys fighting. One pushes the other to the ground and starts to kick him. A teacher rushes over and yanks the kicker back, admonishing, "You shouldn't kick him when he's down!" The boy exclaims, "What do you think I got him down for?"

Al Qaeda is down. It's time to kick, kick hard, and keep on kicking until there is nothing left to kick.

by Donald Sensing, 10/30/2004 03:10:50 PM. Permalink |