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So al-Qa'ida's defeated, eh? Go tell it to the marines

You can count on Robert Fisk to call a spade a shovel! To the point, and with gravitas and background knowledge, to show, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that most of the what the Americans are "spinning" out there is nothing but bull....t [no other word for it!].

Fisk writes in today's The Independent under the headline "So al-Qa'ida's defeated, eh? Gotell it to the marines":

"So al-Qa'ida is "almost defeated", is it? Major gains against al-Qa'ida. Essentially defeated. "On balance, we are doing pretty well," the CIA's boss, Michael Hayden, tells The Washington Post. "Near strategic defeat of al-Qa'ida in Iraq. Near strategic defeat for al-Qa'ida in Saudi Arabia. Significant setbacks for al-Qa'ida globally – and here I'm going to use the word 'ideologically' – as a lot of the Islamic world pushes back on their form of Islam." Well, you could have fooled me.

Six thousand dead in Afghanistan, tens of thousands dead in Iraq, a suicide bombing a day in Mesopotamia, the highest level of suicides ever in the US military – the Arab press wisely ran this story head to head with Hayden's boasts – and permanent US bases in Iraq after 31 December. And we've won?

Less than two years ago, we had an equally insane assessment of the war when General Peter Pace, the weird (and now mercifully retired) chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, said of the American war in Iraq that "we are not winning but we are not losing". At which point, George Bush's Defence Secretary, Robert Gates, said he agreed with Pace that "we are not winning but we are not losing".

James Baker, who had just produced his own messy report on Iraq then said – reader, please do not laugh or cry – "I don't think you can say we're losing. By the same token, I'm not sure we're winning." Then Bush himself proclaimed, "We're not winning; we're not losing." Pity about the Iraqis. But anyway, now we really, really are winning. Or at least al-Qa'ida is "almost" – note the "almost", folks – defeated. So Mike Hayden tells us.

Am I alone in finding this stuff infantile to the point of madness? As long as there is injustice in the Middle East, al-Qa'ida will win. As long as we have 22 times as many Western forces in the Muslim world as we did at the time of the Crusades – my calculations are pretty accurate – we are going to be at war with Muslims. The hell-disaster of the Middle East is now spread across Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Gaza, even Lebanon. And we are winning?"

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