NP Who's winning the war?

[Tiarnân Ô Corrâin]

Al-Qaida is winning war, allies warned 

 Tania Branigan
Wednesday October 31, 2001
The Guardian 

 The eminent military historian Professor Sir Michael Howard launched
 a scathing attack yesterday on the continued bombardment of
 Afghanistan, comparing it to "trying to eradicate cancer cells with a
 blow torch".

It had put the al-Qaida network in a "win-win situation", he told the
conference, and could escalate into an ongoing confrontation that
would shatter our own multicultural societies.

The longer it went on, he added, the worse the consequences would be.

"Even more disastrous would be its extension... through other rogue
states, beginning with Iraq, to eradicate terrorism for good and all,"
he said. "I can think of no policy more likely, not only to
indefinitely prolong the war, but to ensure that we can never win it."

While praising President George Bush for moving away from the
unilateralism and isolationism that had characterised recent US
policy, Sir Michael said the administration had made a "terrible and
irreversible" mistake in calling its anti-terrorism campaign a war.

It had granted al-Qaida a status it did not deserve and created
overwhelming public demand for military action.

"Many people would have preferred a police operation conducted under
the auspices of the UN on behalf of the international community as a
whole, against a criminal conspiracy, whose members should be hunted
down and brought before an international court," Sir Michael said.

"Terrorists can be successfully destroyed only if public opinion
supports the authorities in regarding them as criminals rather than
heroes.

"As we discovered in both Palestine and Ireland, the terrorists have
already won an important battle if they can provoke the authorities
into using overt armed force."

Sir Michael, who was for many years regius professor of modern history
at Oxford University, scorned the idea that al-Qaida could be defeated
by the removal of the "evil genius" Osama bin Laden.

He warned: "It is hard to believe that a global network apparently
consisting of people as intelligent and well-educated as they are
dedicated and ruthless will not continue to function effectively until
they are traced and dug out by patient operations of police and
intelligence forces."

-- 
Tiarnán Ó Corráin       <ocorrain at esatclear.ie/ocorrain at yahoo.com> 
Q:      How many supply-siders does it take to change a light bulb?
A:      None.  The darkness will cause the light bulb to change by itself.