The Post today reports that Al Qaeda has endorsed John McCain for president. With seemingly impeccable logic, the cave dwellers -- actually, more likely, Quetta-squatters -- say that by electing McCain, the United States will commit itself to an extension of President Bush's blunders and thus exhaust itself militarily and financially.

Of course, Al Qaeda says that the way it can assist McCain is through a terrorist act that will rally Americans to his side.

Saying that McCain will continue the "failing march of his predecessor," Al Qaeda added:


"Al-Qaeda will have to support McCain in the coming election. ... [We] will push the Americans deliberately to vote for McCain so that he takes revenge for them against al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda then will succeed in exhausting America."

The quotes came from an AQ-linked website called al-Hesbah and were written by Muhammad Haafid, a longtime contributor to the site.

Conspiracy theorists, along with pessimists and Cassandras on the left, will no doubt see in those words an imminent fatal blow to the Obama campaign in the form of a looming attack that would shift the electoral dynamic. I wouldn't worry. If the cave-dwellers and Quetta-squatters could attack the United States, they would have done it by now. I suppose its remotely possible that Al Qaeda types might blow something up, but there isn't a chance in the world that in the next two weeks they can do anything that could shift the election. In fact, by stepping up attacks in Pakistan and Afghanistan, where Al Qaeda does indeed have some actual ability to kill people, the organization will only add to Obama's arguments that the Bush-McCain policies have failed.

And that's the irony. It's actually Obama, not McCain, who is pressing an escalation of the war in Afghanistan and promising to attack Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Pakistan, as foolhardy and stupid as that might be. (No one has ever accused Al Qaeda of being politically astute.)

On October 10, I attended a forum organized by the New America Foundation and the Center on Law and Security called "Al Qaeda 3.0," which brought together terrorism experts of all sorts, both sensible and not-so-sensible. Fran Townsend, the long-time adviser to the Bush administration -- who bailed out earlier this year -- spewed doom-and-gloom about AQ's new potential to attack us, especially in the midst of an economic crisis. "Imagine, then, the vulnerability," she warned.

And Bruce Hoffman, who is a lynchpin of the terrorism-industrial complex, warned darkly against complacency about Al Qaeda. "Al Qaeda has been written off before," he said, adding that the organization's "hard core" remains intact.

True enough, Al Qaeda can cause trouble, and the United States needs to be vigilant. But there is vigilance, and then there is insanity, paranoia, and, well, the creation of the Homeland Security Department and the passage of the Patriot Act. There is also the militarization of the anti-Al Qaeda effort, including the senseless and destructive war in Afghanistan. As Ray Bonner reports in the Times today, a top former British intelligence official is warning the United States that its counterterrorism strategy is wrong-headed:


"Stella Rimington, a former director general of Britain's domestic intelligence agency, said in an interview published over the weekend that she hoped the next American president 'would stop using the phrase "war on terror." She also said there had been a 'huge overreaction' to the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001

If Hussien does indeed become president there will be no more war on terror no more attacks and killing of al queda and talban leaders.He will not attack his own people no matter what words he speaks. alqueda in iraq has been decimated . Had he been in charge it would have been the united states that was decimated. Joe the rewriter of history the plagerist has said there will be major crisis to test Obama. No doubt there will be and he (obama) will be true to his roots and surrender the united states.

Duane have you updated your passport and are you ready to leave the country...I know a few countres who may be interested in taking you in

Quano has a very screwed up view of the US government. He apparently lives in fear of having some sort of Great Leader who is capable of surrendering the United States to whichever enemy that Quano is currently afraid of.

Let's see Stella said what! Overreaction to 9-11? Shouldnt have to overreact to 4000 dead? Also lets not offend anyone by using the term war on terror? Is this PC run amuck or what? What a dumb ass wimp this woman is. Thought I heard everything guess I didnt. JMHO.

Mike Ivy i dont have a passport. The United states is my country and i will be here to do all i can to defeat hussiens islamic death squads. and almost all the people in the west will do the same. There are a few democrats who will swallow Hussiens promises of giving them everything.
i do believe hussien will surrender the u s to iran. They had to have been the ones that gave him 650 million dollars. Where else could it have come from?
The BROOTHAS and the SISTAHS in the hood. Do you think they gave up their drug money for hussien?

Duane: It sounds like you are intending to contest the results of the election with violence, if it doesn't go the way you want. THAT IS TREASON! You froth at the mouth accusing anyone who doesn't agree with you of treason, yet you continually insinuate that the "real patriots" in this country will not abide the results if they lose. Exactly what do you, and other members of The Hooded Brotherhood of Putz Heads, have in mind?

What do you expect from a Bozo that comes from a state that has maybe less than 2% Black Population.

Always talking about the "SISTAHS",,,,,,,Duane wouldn't know a "SISTAH",,, even if she fell out of the sky and wiggled on his face! Although that might be a big improvement on his overall disposition!

Gary, the problem with the phrase "War on Terror" is not any concern about offending anyone - it is that the term is meaningless.

War is made on an enemy - a national enemy. There is no enemy in that useless phrase, only the name of a weapon that can be wielded by any potential enemy. War on Terror is a lovely phrase for stirring up emotions, particularly for political purposes, and essentially useless in actually achieving anything useful.

Had we been sensible, and had a "War on Al-queda", then we would have had Bin Laden's head on a stick years ago and would could have nipped the organization in the bud early on.

By using the meaningless term "War on Terror", Bush - or more accurately, Cheney and Rumsfeld, were able to effectively abandon any serious action against the people who attacked us to try a social science experiment in Iraq.

And once we were studidly involved in Iraq, they were able to use the "War on Terror" concept to put us in the untenable position of fighing a war against a small element of a population while pretending to raise up the rest of the population - another truly stupid act in the name of a meaningless phrase.

The fact is that the majority of truly significant results in this "War on Terror" have been achieved by police style actions by small, highly trained units. Those same results could have been achieved without breaking our military and our treasury.