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As bin Laden said in a 2004 statement, "We, alongside the mujahedeen, bled Russia for 10 years until it went bankrupt and was forced to withdraw in defeat."
The US housing market lost 3.3 trillion dollars in value in 2008, the US stock market has lost trillions of dollars the last two quarters, and the US economy lost 3.6 million jobs since the recession began. The federal debt has doubled since the attack of 9/11, and the Obama administration has proposed new spending of 3 trillion dollars (1 trillion for economic stimulus and 2 trillion for a bank bailout) on top of the inherited 1 trillion dollar federal budget deficit for 2009. Furthermore while the US has incurred over a trillion dollars in costs off-budget on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, we are losing the war in Afghanistan and still have over 150,000 troops in Iraq.
I think it is safe to say that bin Laden and al Qaeda are winning their war with the US.
Instead of primarily militarily or financially, we can only win the war against al Qaeda culturally. I suggest the cheap and simple method of providing cosmopolitan access to the internet (portable computers and a wireless server) for everyone world-wide, but particularly to the Pashtun peoples of Afghanistan/Pakistan. The eventual result will be a homogenous culture (a snake doesn't bite it's own tail), but the immediate result will be open lines of communication with vastly improved intelligence (good intelligence is the foundation of military success).
Since repressive leaders will resist, the primary selling tool should be the economic argument that globalization is extremely economically beneficial. The internet could be introduced to the youth as an efficient method of learning (obviously cultural subversion and vastly increased communication would naturally follow).
