Is Osama winning?

[mediaman007]

Since 2001 our country has been in a death spiral. It's like an avalanche! Really all he did was roll a snowball down the mountain...Bush* did the rest.

• loss of civil liberties
• economy in the tank
• increase in poverty
• loss of the middle class
• major cities destroyed

[lectrobyte]

1. and not to mention:

U.S. troops out of Saudi Arabia

Secular Iraqi government replaced by Islamic theocracy

[never_get_over_it]

5. Yep

I wanted to add those two to the list - and lets add that Osama hasn't been smoked out either

Yep Osama did much much better than hitting the trifecta!

I tell people all the time that Osama couldn't have planned this better if he tried - the freak in chief played right into his hands - hmmm maybe not - maybe that was the plan all along - since Osama been forgotten is still at large

[Pobeka]

2. Baiting Bush into the Iraq showdown.

Which Osama was smart enough to know would become a quagmire and leave ourselves weaker at home or if we legitimately needed to be somewhere else.

Not to mention how it breeds more hate for us which turns into recruits for Al Queda.

[Corgigal]

3. Not sure about that

but we did show him that we can't handle a natural disaster and with 3 days warning. Homeland security..HA.

[NastyLasky]

4. I think its more about who is losing...

and that seems to be everyone. The people of Iraq, the US, and Britain just to name some.

[uppityperson]

6. Welcome to DU, are you really a lasky?

[Betty]

7. Iraq to become an Islamic theocracy

Also what bin laden wanted... he hates secular governments.

[lectrobyte]

8. excellent article on terrorism strategy here:

http://www.gurus.com/dougdeb/politics/TS101.html

well worth reading, excerpting 2 paragraphs:

In radicalizing your sympathizers, who is your best ally? No points awarded for “the media” or “sympathetic foreign governments.” In radicalizing your apathetic sympathizers, you have no better ally than the violent extremists on the other side. Only they can convince your people that compromise is impossible. Only they can raise your countrymen’s level of fear and despair to the point that large numbers are willing to take up arms and follow your lead. A few blown-up apartment buildings and dead schoolchildren will get you more recruits than the best revolutionary tracts ever written.

Perversely, this means that you are the best ally of the extremists on the other side. That doesn’t mean you love or even talk to each other – they are, after all, vile and despicable demons. But at this stage in the process your interests align. Both of you want to invert the bell curve, to flatten out that big hump in the middle and drive people to the edges. That’s why extremists come in pairs: Caesar and Pompey, the Nazis and the Communists, Sharon and Arafat, Bush and Bin Laden. Each side needs a demonic opposite in order to galvanize its supporters.