So naïve it makes me cry

From Strategy Page

Al Qaeda Getting Tagged as Losers

October 18, 2005: The referendum on the Iraqi constitution is over, with a turnout of 63 percent, compared with 58 percent in the January elections to select the transitional government. The al Qaeda and Baathist terrorists launched a total of 13 attacks – compared with 347 during the January elections. In essence, for the fourth time in the past twelve months, al Qaeda has failed to halt an election in either Afghanistan or Iraq….

The successful referendum underscores just how impotent al Qaeda has become since the attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001.... Al Qaeda has been rejected by the people of Afghanistan and Iraq.

The American strategy of bringing democracy to Iraq is succeeding. So are the tactics that are being used to implement it.... [T]he United States is achieving its objectives, while al Qaeda is not – al Qaeda is even failing to prevent the American objectives from being met.

By any objective standard, al Qaeda is losing the war on terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan. The only places they seem to be winning are in a number of newsrooms in the United States….

I'm willing to bet a few Iraqi dinars that 5 or 10 years from now, the author of this piece, Harold C. Hutchison, will still be wondering what the hell happened -- especially since all the Western-style objective standards he studied clearly showed that Iraq and Afghanistan were "won" on Dubya's watch.