Are we winning or losing the war on terror?

Finally, bin Laden knew that to destroy the western world he would need the cooperation of western countries. Empire dies through suicide and not murder.

The media have played along with the Islamicists by providing them with the oxygen of publicity. "Kill one – and scare a million". The average American stands a far great chance of dying from food poisoning than from terrorism – but the media focus on terrorism. Far more people die on the roads than die in wars – but wars sell newspapers.

Governments have played along by eroding civil liberties in the name of "national security". All of the new legislation will remain in place forever (or until it is replaced by even more strict legislation). This is going to be a "long war". A new "security-industrial complex" has been built on top of the "military-industrial complex". People will not want to lose their jobs no matter how irrelevant their work is.

Governments and media are playing according to the Islamicist game. The Islamicist leaders know they may not have long for this earth and so they write a great deal on their strategy and tactics for their successors to learn from. Many of the readings are available and interpreted into English.

For example, the new Caliph, then writing under the name of Abu Bakr Naji, set out in 2004 (The Management of Savagery) how he would defeat the US. The US should be provoked into invading the Middle East where the troops are easier to kill than back in the US. (The current beheadings are not just insane acts of violence – they are done with the deliberate intention of engendering anger in the west). The US can be counted on to use excessive violence and so alienate a lot of Arabs. The retaliatory violence inflicted on the US troops will in turn lead to social unrest back in the US and so the US will be defeated. This would provide evidence that the Islamicists were on a winning streak. Moderate Sunnis will realize that they would be better off supporting the Islamic State.

In short, the west is engaged in a "long war" of low intensity conflict. But politicians and media just bounce along from one event to another without seeing the big picture. The west needs clear war aims and a clearer perception of the conflict in which it is now engaged.