from Jeff Jacoby at the Boston Globe….

War on terror is working
By Jeff Jacoby, Globe Columnist September 9, 2007

Had Al Qaeda known that 9/11 would lead to the toppling of its Taliban protectors, the strangling of its financial network, and the death or detention of thousands of its lieutenants and foot soldiers, would it have gone forward? Having reaped the whirlwind once, would it be more inclined to risk it again? Or less so?

It is a contrarian thought, but Daniel Pipes argues that “terrorism does radical Islam more harm than good.” That is partly because “it alarms and galvanizes Westerners,” stiffening their resolve and intensifying their counterterrorist efforts, and partly because “terrorism obstructs the quiet work of political Islamism” – it impedes the radicals’ long-term goal of making Islam ever more dominant within Western society.

What is in the enemy’s mind we cannot know for sure. What we do know – what 9/11 made brutally clear – is that we are at war. The enemy is in this till the finish. We had better be, too.

for the rest of the article http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2007/09/09/war_on_terror_is_working/

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