The formula still works on a bipartisan basis.
The latest CIA Director, whose agency has failed miserably to capture or even locate anyone in al-Qaeda’s top leadership, now says the terrorists are “on the run, but still coming after us”.
Putting aside the curious logic (which direction are they running?), what this says is that al-Qaeda was never a serious, existential threat to the United States or anyone else. They were and are a terrorist group who occasionally get lucky, but remain a very low-tech, very fifth-rate collection of psychopaths.
We’ve spent trillions on catching them and haven’t caught them. The chances of being killed by a terrorist are less than the chances of being killed by falling out of bed. But we must remain afraid and give the Pentagon a blank check to fail.
Gorilla asks: “When will we change fear and loathing to loathing of fear?”
