"The terrorists beat us on 9/11 in that they changed our lives for the worse. I am reminded of President Bush’s asinine remark, “They hate us for our freedom.” I used to joke about the corollary to that. If our own government took away our freedom, would “they” still hate us? Or, consider us as brother/sisters in struggle against the infidels?

The grievance expressed by our Al Qaeda adversaries started in the first Gulf War, when infidel Americans put their profane boots on holy soil. No Americans got anywhere near Mecca or Medina, but within the borders of Saudi Arabia was enough for Osama bin Laden to declare the Saudi royals to be traitors to Islam for extending the invitation to defend their oil, er, soil. Saddam Hussein, having rolled though Kuwait, had massed tanks on the Saudi border, but bin Laden was of the opinion that the amateur soldiers of Al Qaeda should be sufficient defense. Such was the delusion of grandeur by the terrorist currently experiencing life as fish food.

As in the Cold War, when the Communists never hurt us nearly so much as they scared us into hurting ourselves, so it has been with the War on Terror."

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Steve Russell: Losing the War on Terror (Indian Country Today 8/8)

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