As the tenth anniversary of the September 11th attacks approaches, I am very heartened to see that the people who attacked us on that day are being taken apart. One of the main reasons why I voted for Barack Obama was his promise to focus more heavily on AfPak (where Al Qaeda actually is) and alter the strategy for dismantling their operational capabilities. His policies have been tremendously effective and much more successful than his predecessor.
Osama bin Laden is dead and the data we seized from his compound that day has led us to strike another crippling blow to Al Qaeda. Atiyah Abd al-Rahman, Al Qaeda's #2, was killed in a recent missile strike in Waziritstan along with four other Al Qaeda members. From the article.
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said last month that al-Qaida's defeat was within reach if the U.S. could mount a string of successful attacks."Now is the moment, following what happened with bin Laden, to put maximum pressure on them," Panetta said, "because I do believe that if we continue this effort we can really cripple al-Qaida as a major threat."
Al Qaeda's defeat within reach? Amazing. There can be no denying that the Obama administration deserves the credit for this and I think that we may very well see Zawahari taken out by next year as well.
Once again, well done!
2 comments:
I would not be so sanguine about this. Terrorists don't need to orchestrate fancy multiple airplane attacks or underwear and shoe to raise havoc. As we have seen again and again, one or two guys with lots of guns can raise holy hell in a few seconds, like Loughner, the Fort Hood shooter and the Norwegian nut job. And someone with body armor could kill dozens or hundreds of people and hold off dozens of well-armed cops for a very long time.
While getting the leaders of Al Qaeda is important, the real solution to ending terrorism is to remove the social causes for it. Al Qaeda is losing steam not so much because of what we might do in Afghanistan, Pakistan or Iraq, but what the people in the streets of Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya have done. Al Qaeda has demonstrated time and again that they are willing to kill regular people with the same impunity as the dictators they claim to despise. The Arabs in the street are realizing that their leaders have been lying to them, and that they have power over their own destiny. That is a huge advancement for people that have long been considered resigned to accept whatever fate Allah has decreed.
I'm sure we won't be totally happy with whatever happens in the Middle East. But as long as they leave us alone, we have no right sticking our noses in their business. And no, "protecting our oil supply" is not sufficient cause to interfere. Our adventures in the 50s in Iran and Bush's invasion of Iraq in 2003 should be ample proof of that. Both of those backfired and caused us far more trouble and money than any temporary rise in oil prices that might have resulted from political instability in the Middle East.
Because in the end, the Middle East has no choice but to sell their oil. The only difference is whether those countries or BP get the profits.
libya was leaving us alone and we are in that country
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