Osama has won

It grieves me to say it, but we're the bad guys now. The article I want to show you today is called "Osama has won". Here's part of what it says:

America is the most hated nation on earth. In most countries its president is by far the most despised international figure. To read the State Department's Travel Advisories is to realise that for an American to take a trip overseas is a pretty grim prospect as there are so many countries to which it is highly dangerous for a US citizen to venture.

The reason that America is so detested, distrusted and abominated is that its president and his coterie decided their policy should be total aggression and antagonism. Diplomacy, courtesy and negotiation were for wimps. And thus they played right into the hands of bin Laden and his tiny number of dedicated weirdo fanatics.
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The peoples of Afghanistan and Iraq consider themselves occupied by foreign powers and are being told by influential figures in their countries that the US and Israel are waging war on Muslims. Moderate Muslims, such as President Musharraf of Pakistan, who went out on a very far limb by talking to a Jewish organization in New York in September last year, have had the ground cut from beneath their feet by Washington. Musharraf wants to encourage the Muslim world to recognize Israel and has tried hard to foster pan-Islamic tolerance. But after the Qana atrocity he and other progressive Muslims will find it impossible to even mention tolerance for Israel. And by deliberate choice of the Bush administration the US is inextricably linked with Israel's criminal ferocity.

Osama bin Laden may not be alive, but this is irrelevant because countless millions of Muslims regard him as a hero, alive or dead. Their reasoning is that he has caused a dramatic and continuing amount of disruption to the western world's economic and social structure. He has hit us hard. And his ongoing success in disrupting our lives is helped by the weaknesses of Bush and his people. Their smugness, arrogance and casual savagery are some of bin Laden's most effective weapons.

Osama bin Laden need never do anything again to ensure permanency and prosperity of his legacy of hatred. Thanks to the imperious policies of the Bush administration and its fervent support for Israel the United States is hated and despised to an almost unbelievable degree. Osama has won.

Can you imagine how different world opinion would be if, after 9/11, we had gone to war with nobody but rather pursued and then prosecuted bin Laden as a criminal? But that's, of course, assuming that Bush and Co. didn't want 9/11 to happen so they would have the excuse they needed to go to war.