Algeria

So, the depth of Bush's failure in containing terrorism gets worse. I have been reporting how on every front Islamic fundamentalists, often linked to al-Qaeda, are expanding and thriving while Bush diddles in Iraq.

We were attacked by al-Qaeda on 9/11. Bush's first actions were taken against al-Qaeda, primarily in Afghanistan. This was reasonable. Everyone, even Lybia, agreed we were justified.

Then Bush left the war against al-Qaeda unfinished and invaded Iraq. Why? We know the WMD excuse was a bald faced lie. We also know, as many of us knew at the time, that there never was a connection between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda and, in fact, Hussein, as a secular leader, was keeping fundamentalism at bay in Iraq. Doesn't change the fact that he was a violent dictator, but when it comes to fighting al-Qaeda, the people who attacked us, invading Iraq was counter productive. And I said so at the time.

Now Iraq is opened up to al-Qaeda thanks to the fact we removed the secular power...and put nothing effective in return. Islamic fundamentalism is on the rise in a place it never had been before.

As I have been covering almost constantly, Islamic fundamentalism, often linked to al-Qaeda, is on the rise throughout the Muslim world. I have discussed its rise in Pakistan and Afghanistan thanks to Bush's failure to finish the job there before invading Iraq. I have discussed the victory of what I call the Somali Taliban. Somalia is now a battle ground with warlords fighting Islamists with Ethiopia intervening, which has threatened to bring Eritrea into the fray on the side of the Islamists. The Somali civil war is something Bush did nothing to prevent and it threatens to create a regional war with al-Qaeda linked Islamists gaining ground. I have covered the rise to power of fundamentalists in Bahrain, formerly a bastion of moderate Islam. In Bangladesh, foremerly one of the more democratic Muslim states, corruption and the rise of a previously absent fundamentalist terrorist group has led to the military to take control and declare democracy a failed experiment. So Bangladesh, like Pakistan and now Iraq, becomes yet another battle ground between military strongmen and fundamentalist Islam with democracy the loser. And just yesterday I discussed a wave of bombings in Morocco, usually a fairly quiet Middle Eastern nation.

All Sisyphus' silent joy is contained therein. His fate belongs to him. His rock is his thing. Likewise, the absurd man, when he contemplates his torment, silences all the idols. In the universe suddenly restored to its silence, the myriad wondering little voices of the earth rise up. Unconscious, secret calls, invitations from all the faces, they are the necessary reverse and price of victory. There is no sun without shadow, and it is essential to know the night. The absurd man says yes and his effort will henceforth be unceasing.

I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain! One always finds one's burden again. But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He too concludes that all is well. This universe henceforth wihtout a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night-filled mountain, in itself forms a world. The struggle toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart.

One must imagine Sisyphus happy.

"The Myth of Sisyphus"

Albert Camus

born on this day in 1913.