Juan Cole sees UK terror plot as result of not capturing Bin Laden

Interesting logic:

The failure of the Bush administration to take the threat of Bin Laden and Zawahiri seriously and to capture them continues to leave Americans and others at risk.

British authorities have arrested 21 members of a terror cell, apparently British-born or British-bred persons of Pakistani or South Asian origin. They were planning to hijack 6 to 10 American planes at Heathrow Airport in London, and to bring on board liquid-based explosives that they would mix while sitting in their seats.

Regular readers know that I believe that Ayman al-Zawahiri has been recruiting terrorists in Britain, using al-Qaeda-affiliated radical Pakistani groups such as Lashkar-e Tayyiba or Jaish Muhammad . . .

Even if this cell is not directly connected to Zawahiri, that he and Bin Laden can come on television and the internet and continue to encourage copycate al-Qaeda-style attacks is a huge security problem that needs to be solved much more urgently than the problem of which clans rule the small city of Ramadi in Iraq.

US failure to capture Bin Laden is a big talking-point for the left. Otherwise, the left tends to downplay the capture or killing of terrorist leaders, reasoning instead that terrorist leaders can be replaced endlessly and that terror is fought by addressing "root-causes."

Tags: Juan Cole, UK, terror, Bin Laden, Zawahiri