If Peter Bergen is right and Ayman al-Zawahiri is the only still-living al-Qaeda leader of any consequence, then the president deserves some serious credit for getting the military focused on the main post-9/11 goal. And if Peter Bergen is right that we are 30 times more likely to be killed by lightning than to be killed by a jihadist terrorist, then I expect these drone strikes to stop. They appear to have been very effective in decimating al-Qaeda. They were certainly more effective than invading and occupying Afghanistan for eleven years. They were more effective than bombing pharmaceutical plants in Sudan or empty training camps. They were more effective than getting lost in Mesopotamia for eight years. But they come with a heavy cost, too. And they set dangerous precedents. Congress authorized “all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons [the president] determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons.”
Unless we want to go into Pakistan and destroy Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), our work here is done. If we find Zawahiri, we will kill him. Other than that, there’s no need to be doing drone strikes in Pakistan.
What about the Taliban, you ask? Well, until our last forces are out of Afghanistan, they have to protect themselves. If the Taliban tries to train in the open, they’ll be targeted. But we don’t need to be doing drone strikes in Pakistan to kill them. If they’re in Pakistan, they’re not bothering our troops. Let them stay there.
We still have bad guys in Yemen who seem intent on attacking civilian aircraft. Obviously, we’re going to continue to hunt them down. But the War on Terror is basically complete. We should begin to treat it that way. And that includes ending all this bedwetting about the people at Gitmo. If the president wins a second term, he needs to tell Congress to man-up and stop acting like cowards.
Ayman al-Zawahiri?
Take out scheduled for late October.
that would be nice timing.
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Dream on guys
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."reminds me of a Samuel L Jackson comment about the President. He approved of what POTUS was doing, but, and I’m parphrasing, ‘ He shoulda put that mofo Bin Laden on ice and defrosted his ass the first week in November’.
LOL
Love that. LOL. The freezer must have been on the fritz.
I don’t know how 2012 campaign details will play out, but I thought the 2008 campaign showed extraordinary attention to the details of planning the path and timeline. I think we’re going to be OK.
Inshallah, it will be done.
Can we repeal the Patriot Act, end the wiretaps and allow more than 4oz of liquids on planes too?
It has historically been the case that, just as war brings greater restrictions on liberties, those restrictions go away when the war ends. The internment of the Japanese is perhaps the most extreme example of this.
We should absolutely be talking about wrapping up the war against al Qaeda as an honest-to-God end of a war, which should have its own “return to normalcy.”
If we return to normalcy, it will be the first time since World War I.
The problem now is that our economy is so dependent on military-industrial goods and military equipment exports, it is going to be hard to return to normalcy.
But boy-oh are you right that that is what we need to do.
I’d say that we had a “return to normalcy” during the 1990s, when the Cold War ended.
We cut the military budget by over 20% in constant dollars, and from nearly 6% of GDP in the middle of Reagan’s term to 3% at the end of Clinton’s.
We did not significantly downsize the scope of the national security institutions, which led to the creation by their interest of the Project for the New American Century and its program to reinflate the military budget through a war in Iraq.
This time we need to dismantle the institutions and rebuild from scratch so that there is not the political momentum for recklessness for profit.
I would say that the normalcy was an illusion.
We did not significantly downsize the scope of the national security institutions
Could you be a little more specific?
There was enough of an established constituency to use PNAC to gin up another expansion. We were still on a limited war footing — I believe “fighting two conventional regional wars” was the way it was expressed. That is not normalcy; that is a state of war.
What I meant was, could you be more specific about who the national security institutions and an established constituency refers to? What, exactly, was not “downsized” when we downsized the military – its budget (and therefore the income of the defense contractors), its overall size, the number of generals – in the 1990s?
I understand the overarching theme. I’m trying to figure out who or what, exactly, was somehow left alone, and what should have happened to them instead.
The intelligence community was not downsized. The military budget was downsized and the military head count were downsized, but you began to see more use of contractors for government services during the Clinton administration.
I don’t know what should have happened then or should happen now. I think we need to have that conversation and Zbigniev Brezinski’s latest book Strategic Vision at least has started that conversation in foreign policy circles.
But the idea of a two-war capability. Where exactly did that come from? What geopolitical necessity? And the complete ignoring the possibility of non-state terrorist actors being a vulnerability even after the 1993 WTC bombing. It seems that the defense of budgets was more important than smartly scaling down.
The established constituency was the policy decision to try to hold harmless the defense industry and defense contractors as much as possible. And then there is the Congressional constituency that jealously guards local military bases.
All of the high-tech manifestations of the intelligence community seem not to have been scaled back. And have now gotten so entrenched as to threaten civil liberties.
Also, IMO a 20% cut from Cold War levels is not a return to normalcy.
But the idea of a two-war capability. Where exactly did that come from? What geopolitical necessity?
As I recall, from having Iraq and Korea both potentially breaking out into war at the same time.
Also, IMO a 20% cut from Cold War levels is not a return to normalcy.
It was a 20% cut in dollars, but over the 12-15 years between Reykjavik and the end of the Clinton administration, it was cut in half as a % GDP. That’s not minimal.
It has historically been the case that, just as war brings greater restrictions on liberties, those restrictions go away when the war ends.
And you think all these restrictions that have been passed will be repealed if Booman is right? Hahahahahaha!!!!!
I remember you doing that same forced-laughter thing about Obama ending the Iraq War.
Has it really ended? How much are we still spending there? How many mercs are there now?
Yes, it has really ended.
Your goal-post-moving notwithstanding, we are not fighting a war in Iraq. We are not even close to fighting a war in Iraq. People like you have to very carefully choose the correct language to even make it kinda sound like we’re doing something sort of like fighting a war in Iraq.
I like the way that shooting missiles at militants in armed camps in Yemen is not a war, but having a big security force for an embassy in a really dangerous city is fighting a war.
Agreed, but forget it- the Pentagon doesn’t listen to people like Bergen.
The sad fact is the number of predator drone attacks and subsequent killing of innocents in the same general area of the target has gone wayyyyyyyy up under the Obama admin, compared to the bush admin.
Baffling is our POTUS is getting (for now) a free pass on this from the various human rights agencies. had the level of collateral damage gone up several notches under the bush admin, they would have been ALL over bush/cheney like a bad suit.
al Qaeda is supposedly in Iraq now– that will be used as an excuse to keep the predator/reaper program going there, Pakistan, etc.
Agreed, but forget it- the Pentagon doesn’t listen to people like Bergen.
How about people like Leon Panetta and David Patraeus?
http://thinkprogress.org/security/2011/07/09/264572/new-defense-chief-panetta-al-qaeda-defeat-within
-reach/&sa=U&ei=SabPT_ziE4qf6QHDueWEDA&ved=0CBcQFjAD&usg=AFQjCNG45FkSgsigs1IRV2EVQTE
uak6wpg
This isn’t something that Bergen and BooMan dreamed up by themselves. While your initial impression seems to be that this is some radical anti-establishment position, it’s actually the very doctrine announced almost a year ago by the Secretary of Defense and Director of Central Intelligence.
So why is the predator program expanding?
Love Panetta’s phrasing: “we’re close to strategically defeating al Qaeda”.
“strategically defeating”? sounds like the typical bureaucratic MIC doublespeak.
Keep in mind the old adage: “all wars are about real estate” (in this case, it’s the commodities under the dirt).
Everyone continues to ignore one of the main reasons we’re in Afghanistan is to protect the oil/gas pipelines, and make it possible for mining companies (preferably U.S. companies) to come in and “affordably” get at the enormous mineral wealth in Afghanistan.
There’s currently a massive copper mine there being run by the Chinese.
So why is the predator program expanding?
It’s not.
It expanded between 2010 and last year because that was the method they are using to accomplish the victory conditions they defined, and are close to achieving.
Your question is like asking, if the 1978 Pittsburgh Steelers have a big lead in the fourth quarter, why are they running the ball so much? Um, because that’s how they got, and are keeping, that big lead.
“strategically defeating”? sounds like the typical bureaucratic MIC doublespeak.
If you are this proud of being ignorant about military terminology, perhaps you aren’t the best person to be holding forth on what it means, or on the value of the ideas contained therein.
Shorter Superpole: “I don’t understand what you just said, so it must be stupid.”
Whatever.
You’re hopelessly naive if you think the predator program is going away just because the POTUS says it is. you’re conveniently ignoring a hundred years of MIC history.
Panetta, HRClinton, etc., are now making more noise regarding the terrorist Haqqani network– which translated means more predator attacks against them, since our “friends” in Pakistan aren’t doing crap about this group.
You’re also forgetting Panetta was just in Afghanistan this week- promising the hand-wringers there that “we aren’t going anywhere”– regarding U.S. military presence there.
Only fantasy land residents such as you translate this into less predator attacks.
Gimme a break.
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Hillary Clinton wants the removal of Assad in Syria saying it’s natural for citizens to back their President as they are afraid of what change might bring. Once Assad is removed, his backers will appreciate the blessings of democracy. Clinton refers to the succes in Yemen as model for transfer of power in Syria.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."http://blogs.cfr.org/zenko/2012/06/05/how-many-americans-are-killed-by-terrorism/
I’ve been predicting this for a while, so here I go again:
I think Obama will declare the war against al Qaeda over during his second term, in accordance with the achievement of the victory conditions Panetta and Patraeus described last year:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/10/world/asia/10military.html&sa=U&ei=bKnPT-2fD7DF0AHK9_CsCA&
amp;ved=0CBEQFjAA&usg=AFQjCNHOJuYUAS54ufKVV40iHDN5Q97P3w
The question I have is, what do the six-year-old-girls-in-pink-dresses-who-just-fell-off-their-tricycles in Congress do when Obama makes that declaration?
I can answer that question! They will declare it a Muslim plot by a Muslim President. Just wait for Speaker Cantor.
They will declare it a Muslim plot by a Muslim President.
I’m laughing to stop the sobs. Of course they will.
Weak assumptions lead to low credibility.
First of all, you’re Assuming Obama is a lock; he isn’t.
For the fantasy landers who assume he is and are making grand plans beyond 2012: Sorry, I’ve heard this all before.
Back in 1999-2000, when some of you were watching Power Rangers on tee vee, I was part of the open forum on Salon’s website.
There, 1,000’s of progressives were guffawing and slapping their knees over “that dumb hick governor from TX” and stating over and over “Gore will win in a landslide victory”.
Well? what happened?
Let us not forget that George Bush was a criminally-incompetent President:
A Libyan citizen and an Islamic scholar, al-Libi bolstered his credibility within jihad groups after escaping from U.S. custody in Afghanistan in 2005.
Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi (Arabic: ابن الشیخ الليبی; born Ali Mohamed al-Fakheri, 1963 – 10 May 2009) was a Libyan captured and interrogated by the American and Egyptian forces. The false information he gave under torture by Egyptian authorities[1][2] was cited by the George W. Bush Administration in the months preceding the 2003 invasion of Iraq as evidence of a connection between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda.[3] That information was frequently repeated by members of the Bush Administration even though then-classified reports from both the Central Intelligence Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency strongly questioned its credibility, suggesting that al-Libi was “intentionally misleading” interrogators.[4]
One might be tempted to think that the Tora Bora travesty was a fluke. One would be mistaken.
And if Peter Bergen is right that we are 30 times more likely to be killed by lightning than to be killed by a jihadist terrorist, then I expect these drone strikes to stop.
And the Pentagon(or CIA .. or whomever) to give up its rationale for newer and shiny toys?
Did someone say “Pentagon and CIA?”
http://thinkprogress.org/security/2011/07/09/264572/new-defense-chief-panetta-al-qaeda-defeat-within
-reach/&sa=U&ei=SabPT_ziE4qf6QHDueWEDA&ved=0CBcQFjAD&usg=AFQjCNG45FkSgsigs1IRV2EVQTE
uak6wpg
You should have seen the Iron Triangle try to stop the defense cuts in the 1990s. Sure, they’re going to fight like hell. That doesn’t mean they’re going to win.
I remember when the vaunted MIC was never going to allow Obama to abandon those permanent bases in Iraq, or those missile defense bases in Poland and the Czech Republic.
How about the BRIC process – how’d that ever happen?
Let’s not pre-emptively declare defeat here.
I think it was more that the Iraqis said to GTFO. IIRC, they passed a law, over U.S. objections, that would make U.S. troops(or U.S. sponsored mercs) liable for any civilian deaths they happened to commit(Remember that Blackwater incident .. and the aftermath that got Markos of TGOS fame in trouble?).
I think it was more that the Iraqis said to GTFO.
Why would the United States, having taken over the country by making war against it’s military, and then sustaining an occupation for several years, be forced, against our will, to leave Iraq because the Iraqis passed a law?
Is that how imperialism works? The invader is forced to leave if the government of the occupied country asks nicely?
An Iraqi law. Yeah, that’s what happened. Obama truly, desperately wanted to remain in Iraq, but goshdarnit, SOFA, whattyagonnado?
But let’s say that’s actually the case, for the sake of argument. Where’s your vaunted MIC now? The MIC can be slapped down by the Iraqi Parliament (to hear you tell it) – so why should I consider it hopeless to expect a peace dividend when the current war ends?
Look at it another way: everyone we can put Al Queda next to is either a smear on a blasted dry ravine, or sleeping with the fishes. We ghosted them all. So get the hell out right now. The only “Al Queda” left are fantasy world creatures lurking in neocon/security state spook fiction. Scientifically, al queada is extinct.
So obviously we need to monitor every digital communication worldwide and store it all in an installation in Utah.