It must suck to be Osama...his world is crashing down around him. And all his actions only increase the rate of his failure.
When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.And that, my friends, is the Enlightenment speaking. The difference between Iraq and America after the War of Independence is that, whereas the Americans instigated the change of government over a relatively weak set of charges against the king of Great Britain and recruited the help of European (chiefly Dutch and French) powers, the Iraqis had their tyrant overthrown on the initiative of a foreign power, and that foreign power is recruiting the people of Iraq to adopt Declaration principles and adapt constitutional ones to their society.We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.
The trial of Saddam will follow an indictment which would have curled the hair of the authors of the Declaration of Independence. From that we hope that the people of Iraq will adopt the 'self evident' principles listed above. To the extent that they do, we gain millions of allies in the WoT. That defeat is what al Qaeda now opposes; to the extent that the people of Iraq are moved by the crimes of Saddam to adopt Declaration principles they cannot but oppose the people of Iraq.
George has answered ben Laden's challenge with one of his own.
You oppose the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in America? Defend your tyranny in Iraq and Afghanistan. If you cannot defend tyranny in Afghanistan or Iraq, who can safely harbor you? Your influence will wither everywhere.The irony is that removal of all US forces from Saudi Arabia increases our leverage there. After all, with our need of bases in foreign countries we cannot afford to invade a country which hosts an American base . . .