Robert wrote:

For a breath of fresh intellectual air, when I get a chance I'll track down bin Laden's manifesto, the half dozen grievances that he's consistently articulated over the years. I've seen it before, and it's not the work of a crazy person, it's the work of a smart enemy. I think it's useful to examine the manifesto because it provides traction that we can't get from the bin-Laden-is-crazy rhetoric. You can't predict what the insane will do, other than wait and react and try to exterminate them one-by-one; but if we understand an enemy's goals and objectives we can focus our efforts on proactively blocking him.

Tom, do you really think Bush knows how to win? He's demonstrated he knows how to fight, but what suggests that he knows how to win?

Bin Laden's "manifesto" can be found here. He sets six conditions out, and if they are not met, he will continue to kill us.

You can read the six items for yourself, but they boil down to this:

(1) Accept the Islamic religion, or die.

(2) Get rid of homosexuals, alcohol, gambling, and charging interest on financial transactions, or die.

(4) Abandon our support of Israel, and anti-terrorism in India, Chechen, and the Phillipines, or die.

(5) Leave all bases and facilities in the Middle East, or die.

(6) Abandon our support of any pro-American Arabic leaders, or die.

(7) Now, negotiate with us based on our "mutual interests and benefits." Oh, did we mentions abandoning support for the Jews?

Liberals can spend all their time trying to "grok" these things, to figure out where bin Laden is "coming from." I think we all have a pretty good idea where he's coming from.

Somewhere along the line, people got the idea that "articulate" means "intelligent," or even "sane." Sorry. No connection. It doesn't matter how well bin Laden writes, he is, or was, a psychotic who would annihilate much of the world if given the tools to do so.

Now. How do you "block" something like this? The Left has run itself around in circles convinced that somehow there's a painless way. That somehow "anybody but Bush" would have the secret, the magic words that would convince bin Laden, Zarqawi, or any of the others that there is a reasonable alternative.

Kerry lost the election because he had nothing better than Bush did. Nobody does. If the entire U.N. rose up as one against bin Laden, what's different? The same U.S. and British soldiers, the same U.S. equipment, doing the same things, except Officially Blessed by those who count.

If we had never gone into Iraq, would bin Laden have just "gone away?" If we had killed him, would the Islamists have given up?

Would they be any less pissed about our invasion of Afghanistan, home of the Taliban and home base of al Qaeda, than they are about Iraq, supposedly a sectarian enemy of the Islamists?

Wouldn't Guantanamo still be full of the very same people captured in Afghanistan as it is now?

If George W. Bush, or Al Gore, had never invaded Iraq, which of bin Laden's lunatic articles would have been satisifed? Hell, if we had never invaded Afghanistan, and were still based in Saudi Arabia supporting the no-fly zones, would bin Laden have been any happier? Anyone remember WHY al-Qaeda was founded?

Okay, say we never attacked Iraq in the first Gulf War. Just sat it out. No no-fly zones, no Kuwait any more, no troops in Saudi Arabia. Would we have been safe then? With Saddam's second nuclear weapons program left untouched? For how long?

There isn't anyplace to run, Robert. There isn't any political leader who can throw Bush out and save the day. We don't have a lot of choice but to keep fighting where we can.

Or surrender, and accept that every so often a few thousand Americans will die on our soil. Maybe we could get used to it. 9/11 wasn't much worse than the automobile toll, or damage from a natural disaster, and we recover from those all the time. Fatalism is easy, and nobody has to worry about pissing anyone off. When the nuclear exchange between Israel and the Arab world settles out, most of the radiation won't even get this far, and after the single civilized nation in the Middle East is eaten by the radicals, and Israel is no longer an issue, maybe they'll just stop. Maybe we can pay them, or something.

We went over this many times before the election. Bush and his administration are working through all this, Iraq and many other nations, as best they can. Nobody has a "master plan." Not you, not the Democrats, not the U.N., not France. Sometimes throwing things at the wall to see what sticks is all there is to work with. I haven't heard jack from the Democrats other than "Bush is screwing up," and they had an entire election cycle to do it.

Here's John Kerry on what he would have done "better" in Iraq.

First, the President has to get the promised international support so our men and women in uniform don't have to go it alone.

All the international support we could get is already supporting us. The rest told us to go jump in the lake. Guess what: those same nations would have told President Kerry to go jump in the lake, too. Or does anyone honestly think that if Kerry asked, the French and Germans would roll troops into Iraq?

Second, the President must get serious about training Iraqi security forces.

How much more "serious" can you get? Exactly what would Kerry add to the mix that would suddenly speed up the training, and haul an army out of a totalitarian mindset into an effective fighting force? More money, maybe? The same money that Democrats are bitching about now? Or is billions of dollars more for Iraq okay if a Democratic president is asking for it?

Third, the President must carry out a reconstruction plan that finally brings tangible benefits to the Iraqi people.

Oh, yeah. We aren't doing ANY of this. And surely small Iraqi contractors will do just as good a job as large American industries that specialize in this kind of work. And if Iraqis do it, there won't be any corruption, right?

Fourth, the President must take immediate, urgent, essential steps to guarantee the promised elections can be held next year.

Check. Wait...who was it that thought elections should be postponed until things settle down?

George Bush has no strategy for Iraq. I do.

No. You had nothing different, and everybody knew it. And nothing different on the whole war on terror, either.

I use Kerry as an example, but many on the Left are making the same kind of noises. And they've got nothing, too.

If you've got a better method, clue us in. A lot of people would like to hear it. Or keep sitting on the sidelines and throwing rocks.