The Bush-Bin Laden Symbiosis

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By Robert Parry, Posted by Robert Parry (about the submitter) Page 4 of 5 page(s)

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After the 9/11 attacks, al-Qaeda's gamble almost failed as the CIA, backed by U.S. Special Forces, ousted bin Laden's Taliban allies in Afghanistan and cornered much of the al-Qaeda leadership in the mountains of Tora Bora near the Pakistani border.

But instead of using U.S. ground troops to seal the border, Bush relied on the Pakistani army. The Pakistani military, which included many Taliban sympathizers, moved too slowly, allowing bin Laden and other leaders to escape.

Then, instead of staying focused on bin Laden and his fellow fugitives, Bush shifted U.S. Special Forces toward Saddam Hussein and Iraq.

Many U.S. terrorism experts, including White House counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke, were shocked since the intelligence community didn't believe that Hussein's secular dictatorship had any working relationship with al-Qaeda and had no role in the 9/11 attacks.

Nevertheless, Bush ordered an invasion of Iraq on March 19, 2003, ousting Hussein from power but also unleashing mayhem across Iraqi society. The Iraq War along with the controversies over torture and mistreatment of Muslim detainees served as recruitment posters for al-Qaeda.

Soon, al-Qaeda had established terrorist cells in central Iraq, taking root amid the weeds of sectarian violence and the nation's general anarchy. Instead of an obscure group of misfits, al-Qaeda was achieving legendary status among many Muslims as the defenders of the Islamic holy lands, battling the new "crusaders" led by Bush.

The Bush Bounce

Back in the United States, the 9/11 attacks were working political wonders for Bush, too. He had reinvented himself as a "war president" who operated almost without oversight. He saw his approval ratings surge from the 50s to the 90s and watched as the Republican Party consolidated its control of the U.S. Congress in 2002.

Though the worsening bloodshed in Iraq eroded Bush's popularity in 2004, political adviser Karl Rove still framed the election around Bush's aggressive moves to defend the United States and to punish American enemies.

Whereas Bush was supposedly resolute, Democrat Kerry was portrayed as weak and indecisive, a "flip-flopper." Kerry, however, scored some political points in the presidential debates by citing the debacle at Tora Bora that enabled bin Laden to escape.

The race was considered neck-and-neck as it turned toward the final weekend of campaigning. Then, the shimmering image of Osama bin Laden appeared on American televisions, speaking directly to the American people, mocking Bush and offering a kind of truce if U.S. forces withdrew from the Middle East.

"He [Bush] was more interested in listening to the child's story about the goat rather than worry about what was happening to the [twin] towers," bin Laden said. "So, we had three times the time necessary to accomplish the events."

Over the final weekend of the campaign, right-wing pundits, bloggers and talk-show hosts portrayed bin Laden's videotape as an effort to hurt Bush and help Kerry which understandably prompted the opposite reaction among many Americans.

Behind the walls of secrecy at Langley, Virginia, however, U.S. intelligence experts reviewed the evidence and concluded that bin Laden had achieved exactly what he wanted, a stampede of voters to Bush and a continuation of the clumsy "war on terror."

Now as the Middle East conflagration has drawn in Israel and spread to Lebanon and Gaza and may jump to Syria and Iran the larger Islamic world is beginning to look more and more like the briar patch where Osama bin Laden and other violent extremists feel most comfortable.

Similarly, the Aug. 10 arrests of 24 alleged plotters scheming to use mixtures of liquid chemicals to blow up U.S. airliners over the Atlantic Ocean have given Bush the opportunity to reprise his popular role as the nation's protector against the evil terrorists.

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