al-Qaeda in Norway? You bet!!!
Another excellent win for law enforcement, who seem to have no great difficulty finding and capturing these would be terrorists…
And another rebuke for the notion that the war in Afghanistan matters at all, because the “senior al-Qaeda figures” who planned these attacks is free to do so in Pakistan.
Gorilla says: “War is not catching criminals by other means!”
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?”
Well, the White House sure isn’t leading this week!
It’s all about spinning the President and the Democratic Party away from the “soft on terror” thing, even though the Know Nothings making that accusation presided over the two greatest national security failures in American history: 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq.
It’s not about challenge, and it’s certainly not about change…
So, the underwear bomber’s visa is revoked and Yemeni detainees at Gitmo won’t be repatriated for the time being.
Oh yes, and presumably big profits for the body scanning industry (by contrast, the body tanning industry will pay more tax under health care reform).
Lots of new lines at the airport, 14 countries, their visitors, and citizens now eligible for pat downs, and as usual no serious progress in capturing or even finding al-Qaeda leaders from our gazillion dollar national security apparatus.
Gorilla thinks: “Fear America! Et voila, you, underwear bomber, are now an illegal alien, but you get to stay here anyway!”
al-Qaeda’s not got as much cash as it used to, according to the US Treasury.
Several fundraising appeals have been made this year. The Taliban’s apparently doing better, mainly because they have direct access to the narcotics trade.
What isn’t mentioned in the Treasury report, of course, are the trillions of dollars being spent by the US in Iraq and Afghanistan to rid the planet of these very small time outfits. So far, all that cash hasn’t had much effect on either al-Qaeda or the Taliban.
You don’t need much money to unleash havoc, as we know from our experiences in Goingbackwardville. 9/11 likely cost less than a million dollars to plan and execute. The Madrid and London bombings cost a few thousand each.
One might conclude therefore that it’s a waste of time and resources for the Pentagon to be leading the anti-terror campaign, when economic development in backward lands, combined with better law enforcement and intelligence gathering at home and abroad, could do the job at least as ineffectively for far less moolah.
But that’s not a debate anyone in Movingforwardville wants to have, much better for the Treasury to claim they’ve succeeded in reducing financial resources for insurgent and terrorist groups. Victory is mine, sayeth the Geithner!
Gorilla says: “If only we’d gotten Wells Fargo to do Option ARMS in Afghanistan and Pakistan, we’d have wiped these guys out by now!”
The Pakistani government declared success after the three-month offensive in the Swat Valley.
Oops! A massive bombing today, following on the attack on Pakistani army headquarters over the weekend.
Hopefully, the Pakistani government will recognize that the main threat to the country comes from within, first from the Taliban and al-Qaeda, and second from the Pakistani military and intelligence officers who support terrorism at home and abroad.
At some point, every nation must recognize that cheap, ineffective nationalistic chest thumping is about as much use to development and stability as testing nuclear weapons that will never be used against nonexistent regional enemies.
Gorilla thinks: “So far, the score is Taliban/al-Qaeda 1, Indo-Pakistani War 4, and America knocked for 6!”
How many? Enough to bring the Afghan army/police up to over 400,000 and the US/NATO contingent to over 100,000.
But there’s a lot of skepticism in DC (and in Europe) about putting in additional troops, starting with the teachable bartender who ran on that platform.
Seems Afghanistan is the central front in the war on terror, but not a place where we actually want to fight, let alone think we can win.
Don’t want to see American girls and boys being killed to preserve the heroin trade, a magnificently corrupt and ineffective government, and a warlordocracy, much less to find a handful of al-Qaeda leaders across the border in Pakistan (why did we go in, again?).
So, it’s drones today and drones forever.
Gorilla says: “The military-industrial complex works for America! Under the new scheme, we’ll finally be matching the Soviets body for body and losing just as well or better!”
Seems our ally in Pakistan is complaining, yet again, that the double standards we each deploy against terrorism must be more engaging.
America, having attacked the Taliban, must be sure they don’t end up retreating over the border to Pakistan. Pakistan, having helped to create the Taliban, wants to be sure they stay on the right side of the border, which would be in Afghanistan, making as much trouble as possible for Karzai and his Western puppeteers.
What’s necessary in Islamabad is that terrorism must be fought, but the fighting not actually be seen, or conducted by foreigners, or far removed from the border with India.
In Washington, the view is that terrorism must be fought, but the fighting not actually lead to the defeat of the Taliban, or the capture of al-Qaeda leaders, or to a defense budget somewhat less than the rest of the world’s combined.
“Exit strategies depend on where you’re leaving”, says Gorilla, “we’d really rather be in Pakistan, and the Pakistanis would prefer being in Afghanistan. Guess we’ll both need Somali pirates to make that happen!”
The chance of an al-Qaeda attack on Britain, which means we all can now exhale carefully.
Meanwhile, a bipartisan, top-level review of the color wheel is underway on this side of the pond.
Gorilla is confused by the terminology: “Are the shoots now strongly possible verging on highly likely, or will they even remain green?”
