Victories in the War against Terrorism; as the U.S. Piles Up Victories on Many Fronts against Terrorism, Some Bush Officials Insist the Long-Term Strategy for the War on Terror Needs to Be Bolder

Byline: J. Michael Waller, INSIGHT

The United States and its allies are chewing their way through terror networks on every populated continent. On any given day, international terrorists and their leaders are surrendering, being captured or killed. Terrorist commanders from Iraq to Indonesia face life sentences in prison or await execution. Those who remain find their networks in tatters, their funding sources starting to dry up and fewer places to hide.

Things have changed in the two years since 9/11. The terrorists now are the prey, though still a dangerous one.

Some say the United States is being too aggressive in fighting terrorism, citing insensitivity to other cultures abroad and alleged abuses of civil liberties at home. Others, such as Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, insist that the United States isn't fighting hard enough or creatively enough and has yet to take a strategic approach to a war expected to take years or even decades [see sidebar, p. 28].

The civilized world faces more ugly and painful realities ahead, and the elites aren't getting their customary instant gratification of a quick, tidy victory. Yet despite deep and emotional divisions over the ouster of Saddam Hussein, the Arab-Israeli hostilities, the sheer aggressiveness of the

U.S.-led offensive against the world's terrorists and their friends and Washington's inept communication with the rest of the world, the United States still has the support of most of the countries that matter. That's important, Bush-administration officials say, because the toughest part may be yet to come.

President George W. Bush has racked up an impressive string of victories in a little more than two years. He led an unheard-of Marine invasion and Naval bombardment of landlocked

Afghanistan, destroying the terrorist, Wahhabi-backed Taliban regime, tearing up the sanctuaries of al-Qaeda and freeing a grateful people from a Dark Ages nightmare. He commanded an audacious and spectacularly successful invasion of Iraq, breaking records of military history in a campaign that ousted Saddam Hussein and ripped up the totalitarian Ba'athist Party.

While human casualties have been low, the political and diplomatic casualties for the administration have been costly. Sold to the public and the world on legalistic grounds as enforcement of U.N. resolutions, the Iraq war was and is, according to …

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Publication information: Article title: Victories in the War against Terrorism; as the U.S. Piles Up Victories on Many Fronts against Terrorism, Some Bush Officials Insist the Long-Term Strategy for the War on Terror Needs to Be Bolder. Contributors: Not available. Magazine title: Insight on the News. Publication date: November 10, 2003. Page number: 27. © 1999 News World Communications, Inc. COPYRIGHT 2003 Gale Group.

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