bin Ladens useful idiots

Writing about the so called Ground Zero Mosque Andy McCarthy of the NRO tries to torture out a thought experiment that goes something like this.

Some Christian nut cases fly a hijacked airliner into the Kaaba in Mecca. Later some less nutty Christian missionaries get it in their heads that they want to build a church near the ruins of the Kaaba as a means to attempt to reach out to Islam blah blah. Just imagine that willya? Imagine the reaction of the musselmen should such a thing occur!

A breathtakingly inapt "thought experiment". Al Quada did not attack Christianitys holiest shrine in its holiest city (if there were such a thing, St. Peters basilica comes closest but only for Catholics). Destroying the Kaaba would be deeply offensive and traumatic to all the worlds practicing muslims and would be miltarily/strategically/politically pointless. It would simply be an act of hatred towards a religion and its adherants.


bin Laden, being immeasurably smarter than McCarthy chose his targets with a clear (if ruthless and cruel) political objective in mind. He wanted to strike at the three pillars of US hegenomy over the middle east; the WTC representing American business, the Pentagon and (most likely) the Capital or the White House. McCarthy and his ilk dream up fantastical scenarios of doom whereby bin Laden wants to conquer the world and establish a global Caliphate. bin Laden doesn't give a shit about Chritianity, New York or Finland for that matter. All he wants is for the US, the west in general and especially Israel to evaporate from the middle east so they can live happily ever after in an 11th century paradise on earth. (All I said was bin Laden is/was immeasurably smarter than McCarthy, not that bin Laden isn't both stupid and insane himself).

Come to think of it McCarthy probably does think of the WTC, the Pentagon and the WH/Capital as the holiest shrines in the world

And So It Ends (Sort Of)

Yesterday the last US "combat" brigade left Iraq leaving only 50,000 "advisors". That's a hell of a lot of advice. I sort of recall an American general, probably Tommy Franks remarking just as the invasion started something like "So, somebody tell me how this is going to end?". Well, after;

2708 days of invasion and occupation
~100,000 - 1,000,000 dead Iraqi citizens
~5,000 dead invading regular military, and mercenaries (not contractors, mercenaries)
~2,000,000,000,000,000 USD of direct and long term costs
0 Weapons of Mass Destruction found

We got;

1 dead third world dictator

Plus a bunch of other things like the looting of the Iraqi National Museum which lost of thousands of priceless artifacts of the very origins of human civilization. Creating at least 7 years of hyperinflated oil prices. Immeasurably increasing the power and influence of Iran in the region. Untold misery and hardship for the Iraqis who didn't get killed with no end in sight.

And the beat goes on. Some blog commentator and I can't recall where I read it, who is clearly more witty than me said something like" why should we complain, we keep putting up ground zeros right next to mosques?"