The flaw in bin Laden's strategy of trying to capture the imagination of the Muslim masses through spectacular acts of terror was obvious even in the immediate wake of 9/11. In much of the Arab and Muslim world, there was a pervasive refusal to believe that Muslims had been responsible for the attacks, even after bin Laden claimed responsibility. The denial inherent in the tendency common from Egypt to Indonesia to blame the Mossad or the CIA for 9/11 reveal a damning negation of al-Qaeda's tactics — so repulsive was the mass murder of innocents to ordinary Muslims that most refused to celebrate the attacks, as bin Laden had hoped they might, but instead sought to blame them on those deemed enemies of Islam.

Even in countries where al-Qaeda had hoped to capitalize on resentment against American influence, its networks were largely rolled up by security services as the population looked on, indifferent. By invading Iraq, the Bush Administration arguably did a far more effective job than bin Laden had of weakening U.S. influence in the Muslim world and rallying its youth to resistance. Yet, even in Iraq, al-Qaeda's effort to gain control of the resistance failed because its ideology and tactics were so loathsome even to the bulk of the Sunni insurgents fighting the Americans that they eventually made common cause with the U.S. against the jihadists.

www.time.com/time/nation...1758,00.html

If you ever want to become an international pariah, go out and slaughter a lot of people . . . we hate the Nazis because they killed so many . . . same with Pol Pot and many others . . . the U.S. military tries hard to avoid civilian casualties, doesn't always succeed, but it tries . . . imagining you can become a hero by murdering thousands of innocent people has to be one of history's greatest delusions . . .