October 18, 2007

New Republic Author Gets it Backwards on Al Qaeda

By Ray Robison
Critics of President Bush's leadership continue to maintain that the War on Terror is failing, despite accumulating evidence to the contrary. Peter Bergen's attention-grabbing article in the New Republic, War of Error, is itself in error on the history of the war on al Qaeda. Bergen criticizes President Bush for getting the drop on Usama in 2001 only to lose it as al Qaeda renewed itself in Pakistan. The only problem is, he has it all backwards.Powerline's Paul Mirengoff noted that Bergen rests his case on a letter written by an al Qaeda leader to Khalid Sheik Mohamed:Al Qaeda's cadres were right to be dispirited. (In reference to the letter written by an unidentified al Qaeda commander to Khalid Sheik Mohamed about the bitter defeat they tasted in late 2001 in Afghanistan.) The United States appeared to have soundly defeated the terrorist organization. As Bruce Hoffman, a Georgetown professor and one of the world's leading authorities on terrorism, told me, "It's...(Read Full Article)