Al Qaeda docs

If you've become much of a student of Al Qaeda you're probably already aware how big a role the U.S.'s ignominous withdrawal from Somalia plays in terrorist thinking. To them it showed that the U.S., from from unstoppable, still suffers from the Vietnam syndrome.

Captured Al Qaeda documents confirm this:

The Somali experience confirmed the spurious nature of American power and that it has not recovered from the Vietnam complex. It fears getting bogged down in a real war that would reveal its psychological collapse at the level of personnel and leadership.

Reviewing these documents the Weekly Standard declares "What's clear is that the supposed 'stability' of the 1990s was illusory."

That's true. But I think this also reinforces just how critical it is that we withdraw from Iraq on our own terms and with the mission accomplished (and no, it hasn't been). I also think that Al Qaeda is on to something, and that victory in Iraq will go a long ways towards banishing the Vietnam bogeyman that continues to linger in U.S. thinking.