Al Qaeda Adjusting to New Era
Atwan said that Al Qaeda has managed to drag the US into wars of attrition. He explains, “when I met bin Laden in November 1996, he told me ‘I can’t fight America inside America, but if I manage to drag America to Arab and Islamic countries, then I can win because I would be fighting it in our land.’” The US so far has spent $918 billion on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq at a time when its economy is in serious crisis.
Osama bin Laden’s latest audiotape message confirms that he views the war in Afghanistan as an opportunity to fight a war of attrition against the US. Bin Laden said in the tape, which was aired on September 13
“If you [Americans] stop the war, then fine. Otherwise we will have no choice but to continue our war of attrition on every front just as we have worn out the former Soviet Union for ten years until it disintegrated.”
“Continue to fight for as long as you wish,” bin Laden warned. “You are fighting a desperate war that you can’t win.” He also observed that Obama was “powerless” to halt the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and must rethink his policy on Israel.
Many people fail to understand that OBL really did want to not only hit us where it hurt emotionally, physically, and economically, but he also wanted to drag us into this “war of attrition” that the article is talking about. Like I have mentioned before, look at what the Russians failed at in Afghanistan and the end result. Unless we come up with some smart plans or we just pull out, we will be in the morass that is Afghanistan for a long long time.
Of course though, do not expect that were we to walk away from Afghanistan that all would be well and OBL would leave us be. Nope, the Caliphate that he seeks is a global, if not “universal” one and he and his followers will never stop until they do have full control. So, its going to be a long battle kids.
What Obama seems to be moving toward now is moving the focus toward only Al Qaeda.. Whatever that means.
One only hopes that it works…
Krypt3ia 
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