Four Remarkable Reports of Impending Victory

How quickly things can change. How remarkably the Democratic candidates reflect the new reality. How significantly the French grow close and want to help. Here are excerpts of four reports published today. Get the full flavor of these reports by going to the links and reading them through.

A Quiet Triumph May be Brewing
By Ray Robison, September 28, 2007 , The American Thinker

"There are signs that the global Islamic jihad movement is splitting apart, in what would be a tremendous achievement for American strategy. The center of the action is in Pakistan and Afghanistan, the very territory which is thought to harbor Usama, and from which Al Qaeda was able to launch 9/11. Capitalizing on existing splits, a trap was set and closed, and the benefits have only begun to be evident.

There were already signs of a split, but recent events strengthen the that trend. In March and again in May of this year I reviewed relevant South Asian media reporting to predict that the global Islamic jihad movement was cracking up. That theory focused on a split between the leadership of al Qaeda and the jihad groups that secure them in Pakistan such as the Taliban."
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Bin Laden: A Fallen Star
Tuesday 25 September 2007, Asharq Al-Awsat
The leading Arabic international paper

”Osama Bin Laden’s recent televised appearance has failed to elicit the impact he desired after a disappearance of three years in which there has been increasing speculation about him and his fate.

The image of Al Qaeda’s leader has been ingrained in the minds of his supporters as a rebel or revolutionary who is mounting a horse and brandishing a weapon, or practicing his shooting and fighting skills or the art of bombing or as a tired man due to running to and away from the Afghan mountains. Meanwhile, those who reject his violence only see the image of someone taken in by the devil in such a way that he has lost all feeling of humanity.”
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A weakened bin Laden; an Iraq as decisive front
Jonathon Last, Philadelphia Inquirer, 9/28/07 (Excerpt)

“But all of that's just icing: For those worried that the war on terror has been prosecuted, shall we say, sub-optimally, the new tape suggests that Osama bin Laden is now operating from a position of weakness.

To understand the change, you have to go back to bin Laden's two fatwas declaring war on America. His goals and grievances back then were much more expansive.

In 1996, bin Laden was primarily concerned with getting every American out of Saudi Arabia. "[T]o push the enemy - the greatest Kufr [unbelieving ingrate] - out of [Saudi Arabia is] a prime duty. No other duty after Belief is more important," he said.

In 1998, in his second fatwa, bin Laden was still torqued about Americans - not just in Saudi Arabia, but anywhere on the Arabian Peninsula - writing about "the crusader armies spreading in it like locusts, eating its riches and wiping out its plantations." The reason the dim-witted crusaders were there, of course, was "to serve the Jews' petty state."

He concluded that fatwa by claiming that "the ruling to kill the Americans and their allies - civilians and military - is an individual duty for every Muslim . . . in order for their armies to move out of all the lands of Islam." Which is tricky because, technically speaking, all lands belong to Allah.

Remember, this was during the Clinton years, when bin Laden wanted, for starters: (1) all infidels banished from the Arabian Peninsula; (2) the Saudi ruling class replaced with "true Muslims"; and (3) the Zionist Entity gone from Jerusalem. To get this, he called for a battle royal, us-against-them, end-times conflict with the forces of paganism, secularism and sin (you and me) on one side and the forces of the Prophet (peace be upon him!) on the other.

Fast-forward to last week: Bin Laden now says we can all make nice if America will just pull out of Iraq.”
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Silence in Syria, Panic in Iran
By Dr. Jack Wheeler, To The Point News Sep 25, 2007 - 12:09:27 PM (Excerpt)

"Everyone in the government and military can only talk of one thing,' he reports. 'No matter who I talked to, all they could do was ask me, over and over again, 'Do you think the Americans will attack us?' 'When will the Americans attack us?' 'Will the Americans attack us in a joint operation with the Israelis?' How massive will the attack be?' on and on, endlessly. The Iranians are in a state of total panic.'

And that was before September 6. Since then, it's panic-squared in Tehran. The mullahs are freaking out in fear. Why? Because of the silence in Syria. On September 6, Israeli Air Force F-15 and F-16s conducted a devastating attack on targets deep inside Syria near the city of Dayr az-Zawr. Israel's military censors have muzzled the Israeli media, enforcing an extraordinary silence about the identity of the targets. Massive speculation in the world press has followed, such as Brett Stephens' Osirak II? in yesterday's (9/18) Wall St. Journal. Stephens and most everyone else have missed the real story. It is not Israel's silence that 'speaks volumes' as he claims, but Syria's.

Why would the Syrian government be so tight-lipped about an act of war perpetrated on their soil? The first half of the answer lies in this story that appeared in the Israeli media last month (8/13): Syria's Antiaircraft System Most Advanced In World. Syria has gone on a profligate buying spree, spending vast sums on Russian systems, 'considered the cutting edge in aircraft interception technology.' Syria now 'possesses the most crowded antiaircraft system in the world,' with 'more than 200 antiaircraft batteries of different types,' some of which are so new that they have been installed in Syria 'before being introduced into Russian operation service.' While you're digesting that, take a look at the map of Syria: Notice how far away Dayr az-Zawr is from Israel. An F15/16 attack there is not a tiptoe across the border, but a deep, deep penetration of Syrian airspace. And guess what happened with the Russian super-hyper-sophisticated cutting edge antiaircraft missile batteries when that penetration took place on September 6th. Nothing.

El blanko. Silence. The systems didn't even light up, gave no indication whatever of any detection of enemy aircraft invading Syrian airspace, zip, zero, nada. The Israelis (with a little techie assistance from us) blinded the Russkie antiaircraft systems so completely the Syrians didn't even know they were blinded. Now you see why the Syrians have been scared speechless. They thought they were protected - at enormous expense - only to discover they are defenseless. As in naked. Thus the Great Iranian Freak-Out - for this means Iran is just as nakedly defenseless as Syria.”