The President On The War On Terror

Even as some are saying that we should declare victory in the war on terror, the President reminds us all of the danger that still exists and why it is important to continue taking the fight to the enemy:

In five years since our nation was attacked, al Qaeda and terrorists it has inspired have continued to attack across the world. They've killed the innocent in Europe and Africa and the Middle East, in Central Asia and the Far East, and beyond. Most recently, they attempted to strike again in the most ambitious plot since the attacks of September the 11th -- a plan to blow up passenger planes headed for America over the Atlantic Ocean.

Five years after our nation was attacked, the terrorist danger remains. We're a nation at war -- and America and her allies are fighting this war with relentless determination across the world. Together with our coalition partners, we've removed terrorist sanctuaries, disrupted their finances, killed and captured key operatives, broken up terrorist cells in America and other nations, and stopped new attacks before they're carried out. We're on the offense against the terrorists on every battlefront -- and we'll accept nothing less than complete victory. (Applause.)

In the five years since our nation was attacked, we've also learned a great deal about the enemy we face in this war. We've learned about them through videos and audio recordings, and letters and statements they've posted on websites. We've learned about them from captured enemy documents that the terrorists have never meant for us to see. Together, these documents and statements have given us clear insight into the mind of our enemies -- their ideology, their ambitions, and their strategy to defeat us.

We know what the terrorists intend to do because they've told us -- and we need to take their words seriously. . . .

According to al Qaeda, their strategy to defeat America has two parts: First, they're waging a campaign of terror across the world. They're targeting our forces abroad, hoping that the American people will grow tired of casualties and give up the fight. And they're targeting America's financial centers and economic infrastructure at home, hoping to terrorize us and cause our economy to collapse.

Bin Laden calls this his "bleed-until-bankruptcy plan." And he cited the attacks of 9/11 as evidence that such a plan can succeed. With the 9/11 attacks, Osama bin Laden says, "al Qaeda spent $500,000 on the event, while America lost -- according to the lowest estimate -- $500 billion -- meaning that every dollar of al Qaeda defeated a million dollars of America. Bin Laden concludes from this experience that "America is definitely a great power, with unbelievable military strength and a vibrant economy, but all of these have been built on a very weak and hollow foundation." He went on to say, "Therefore, it is very easy to target the flimsy base and concentrate on their weak points, and even if we're able to target one-tenth of these weak points, we will be able to crush and destroy them."

Secondly, along with this campaign of terror, the enemy has a propaganda strategy. Osama bin Laden laid out this strategy in a letter to the Taliban leader, Mullah Omar, that coalition forces uncovered in Afghanistan in 2002. In it, bin Laden says that al Qaeda intends to "launch," in his words, "a media campaign to create a wedge between the American people and their government." This media campaign, bin Laden says, will send the American people a number of messages, including "that their government will bring them more losses in finances and casualties." And he goes on to say that "they are being sacrificed to serve the big investors, especially the Jews." Bin Laden says that by delivering these messages, al Qaeda "aims at creating pressure from the American people on the American government to stop their campaign against Afghanistan."

Read the whole thing.

That last point is particularly important. There is no doubt that the terrorists are waging a media campaign in order to undermine support among America's citizens for the war in Iraq. What's surprising is just how willing many journalists/leftists are willing to go along with those efforts. We know the terrorists want to make the situation in Iraq look hopeless because, as the President points out above, they've said as much. The media complies with this by reporting nothing negativity from Iraq. They hype increases of violence even when the actual statistics coming out of Iraq show no such increase in violence at all. We hear more about bombings and insurgent activity then we do about school openings and the heroic deeds of our soldiers.

And leftist politicians, of course, point to the incessantly negative media coverage as evidence of how the Bush administration has "mishandled the war" and how we should withdraw our soldiers from Iraq.

Are these journalists and politicians working in cahoots with the terrorists? Of course not. The idea is absurd. The journalists are simply trying to sell papers and increase viewership while the Democrats are just trying to exploit an issue to get themselves elected. Which is all well and good as far as that goes, but it would be helpful if these people also remembered that their actions and words - unwittingly as it may be - play directly into the hands of our enemies.