The War on Terror

A homeland security adviser to President Bush has recently called Osama Bin Laden "virtually impotent" and ever since we missed him in Afghanistan the administration has downplayed his capture’s importance in interrupting the operations of the al-Qaida network. I don’t care if he is virtually impotent or has little relevance to the day-to-day operations of al-Qaida. He represents a global “brand” of Islamic extremism that threatens our country and every day he is free is a day that September 11th goes unpunished. He and the rest of al-Qaida’s leadership need to be eliminated and it should be our #1 foreign policy initiative.

Terrorism experts say al-Qaida's core leadership is regrouping in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border region. The latest National Intelligence Estimate says the network is growing in strength, intensifying its effort to put operatives in the U.S. and plot new attacks. So with this backdrop, why are we downplaying the importance of decapitating its leadership structure and why is NATO complaining that they don’t have enough troops to carry out their mission in Afghanistan? Unfortunately, this sounds all too familiar. It highlights the continued unwillingness to fight-the-fight that needs winning. Using President Bush’s own motto, we should use all the political and military capital that we have to enter this region in force and destroy its position as a base of terrorist operations. This was the original intention of the Afghanistan war, now let’s finish the job.

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