Richard Delevan has some thoughts on why the Bush administration are still losing the metaphorical War on Terror:

"They're winning.

And tomorrow, when the papers and RTE and the blogs and the Indymedia playpens are filled to capacity with the sadly predictable rhetoric blaming the victims for living in a 'crusader' capital, blaming Tony Blair, blaming George W Bush, blaming Western capitalism, blaming oil companies, blaming everyone -- except the people who actually set off the bombs killing, at last count, nearly 50 people; except the people who taught them to kill as an act of worship -- they will have won again.

Already the dominant metaphor is the goalkeeper. Some will inevitably get by, it's said. Nothing we can do about it. Bollocks.

There is an alternative. And it isn't finding out what it is they want us to do and doing it as quickly as possible.

It is what some are already doing, at great cost. Go where they come from. Stop them there. Persuade, cajole, bribe or if necessary force change in the societies that produce them. So that the clearest path to paradise doesn't run through twisted metal and mangled flesh.

But because the means to that end are not always pretty, or noble, we'll hear more tomorrow that those means "provoked" this attack.

They're winning.

Not through their force of arms. Through our lack of courage."

This is a load of rubbish. Blaming the Democrats pinko leftie traitor media is a GOP trick that passed its sell-by date around 1972 or so (it's unsurprising that the Freedom Institute's Richard Waghorne enthusiastically concurs with this nonsense in comments).

The bald fact is that Osama Bin Laden tonight is somewhere free and snug, laughing his ass off at all of us. Going into Afghanistan was the right thing to do; however the Bushies couldn't wait to fuck up, and promptly let Bin Laden and his lieutenants escape from Tora Bora to fight another day.

Afghanistan was then swiftly abandoned to re-encroaching Taliban by this US administration, eager to seize the moment to invade Iraq under a (knowingly?) false premise. And that's where we stand today, with a good portion of the US military marooned under virtual siege while Al Qaeda continue to thrive. I wonder how the Iraqis feel about being sacrificed as flypaper?

The US Congress and people were hoodwinked into Iraq, where neither the WMD or Al Qaeda were. Building a working democracy there out of the resulting Bush-driven clusterfuck - and we cannot afford to fail - will be a long haul of a decade or more, taking up a majority of US energy and attention. Advocating invading yet more Muslim countries is utter insanity.

Al Qaeda appear to be holding all the cards, now. And whose fault is that? Who is to be held accountable?

Not powerless fools like George Galloway, or Michael D. Higgins. Not Indymedia, or the Irish Times.

President George W. Bush and the ruling US Republican Party. No-one else. Just what happened to the Party of Personal Responsibility?


UPDATE: More on how the Bush administration is 'winning' the "War on Terror" here

UPDATE: Why is Fox News pleased to see innocent Londoners murdered today?

UPDATE: Talk about inappropriate comments. Fox News again, this time yesterday.

(Multiple hat-tips to Eschaton)

UPDATE: Best of Both Worlds blog has tracked down the genesis of the Flypaper theory.

UPDATE: Tuppenceworth agrees.