Casablanca bombings: Another resounding success of the 'War on Terror'

The plan is working more effectively than even its authors could have imagined. (See my note of 5/13, below.) To have stimulated suicide bombings in such a laid-back, US-friendly country as Morocco is a phenomenal coup of US foreign policy.

My usual co-conspirator and I were in Morocco in December 2001, just months after the 9/11 attacks, while the US was bombing the bejesus (or is it the bemohammad?) out of Afghanistan to celebrate the last days of Ramadan. Tourism had fallen to practically zero, because Americans were suddenly afraid to fly, especially to any Muslim country, so it was just us and the native in Tangiers, Fez and Marrakesh (we didn't get to Casablanca). People usually took us for French, and we would exchange bad French until it dawned on them that we were having more trouble with the language than they were, and they would ask point blank: "You're not French, are you?" That we were Americans surprised and delighted them. Everybody we met. Sometimes we found someone who could speak Spanish (another former colonial power in the area), sometimes English, but mostly it was bad French. No matter. They always found some way of getting the main idea across -- they were happy to see us, not just our dollars (which were very welcome), but us. I felt they were almost sincere.

But back to my main point: if the Wolfowitz-Cheney-Rumsfeld strategy can stir up terror against westerners in Morocco, then they have succeeded in redefining the War on Terror as the War on Muslim Autonomy, which means it's certain to last long enough for GWB's next electoral campaign. The only problem: It may last a century or two longer.