Osama Bin Laden Losing Popularity
A very interesting post over at Strategy Page called The Joke’s on Osama.
In short: Osama Bin Laden was once a highly popular figure in many Muslim countries. His ‘popularity peak’ perhaps, was on 9/11/01. However, five years after the attacks on the World Trade Center Al Qaeda is talking the talk, but no longer walking the walk: Al Qaeda has not been able to carry out attacks against the West for quite a long while now: instead, the US – leading the ‘Coalition of the Willing’ – has responded forcefully: within a couple of months after 9/11, Afghanistan was no longer a safe haven for terrorists, led by the Taliban. Other countries in the Middle East have, as a result of 9/11, been forced to cooperate (somewhat) with the West. The West was no longer passive: it chose the offensive.
If the analysis is accurate, it means that the aggressive approach towards Muslim extremism, or the result of it – terrorism – is paying off. Perhaps the West is not able to convince certain people in the Mideast to love freedom as much as we do, but we do seem to be able to confront them with the results of Muslim terrorism and their (quiet) support for it.
4 Responses to “Osama Bin Laden Losing Popularity”
The old saying, “the best defense is a good offense,” still rings true. We need to take the offense to defeat terrorism. Unfortunately, Islam and democracy are probably fundamentally incompatible and so our venture in Iraq will not result in democracy there.
I understand that sentiment but we should never forget that, in the end, men give direction to a specific religion. In other words, Islam is not some neutral aspect in people’s lives, something people cannot change: they can change / controll what Islam truly means to them, for instance.
MvdG:
I agree with you that Islam could change, but I think Tommy’s point touches on something I brought up in another thread about neocon Fukuyawa’s assessment of the failure in Iraq. He feels that modernization should be the goal in the Middle East, not democratization, basically because they aren’t ready to accept democratization until after the modernize.
C.S. good point and I agree that it takes more than simply bringing democracy. “Bring them democracy and they will choose peace” is a sign that one is in a severe need of a reality-check.