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The WashPost is out with an article, sourced by the CIA and others, indicating that the US is, indeed, winning the war against al Queda, the organization that Bin Laden founded and funded. Here is a clip from their story, with a comment and a link below.
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U.S. officials believe al-Qaeda on brink of collapse
By Greg Miller, Tuesday, July 26, 10:01 PM
U.S. counterterrorism officials are increasingly convinced that the killing of Osama bin Laden and the toll of seven years of CIA drone strikes have pushed alQaeda to the brink of collapse.
The assessment reflects a widespread view at the CIA and other agencies that a relatively small number of additional blows could effectively extinguish the Pakistan-based organization that carried out the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, an outcome that was seen as a distant prospect for much of the past decade.
U.S. officials said that al-Qaeda might yet rally and that even its demise would not end the terrorist threat, which is increasingly driven by radicalized individuals as well as aggressive affiliates. Indeed, officials said that al Qaeda’s offshoot in Yemen is now seen as a greater counterterrorism challenge than the organization’s traditional base.
CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE POST ARTICLE
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What has been missing in public statements about the terrorism threat, ever since 9-12, 2001, in fact, is clear information about the nature of the threat. Al Queda was built by and centered on one man, Bin Laden who had experience in war, charisma and, most importantly, family money to back terrorism. Bin Laden is gone. Captured documents taken at the time of his death indicated that al Queda was having serious money problems. Equally important, man of the people who helped Bin Laden and joined in his cause are either dead or in prison.
Bin Laden had turned himself into a prisoner in his own compound in Pakistan for five years before he was discovered and killed. The 9-11, 2001 attacks on America were a huge miscalculation on the part of Bin Laden. He should have left “the far enemy” alone. He and his supporters lacked true knowledge of America and its power and, despite the spectacular nature of his attacks, he lacked the ability to truly reach his goal, which was to so deeply wound our country that we would “withdraw from the world stage”. This was a stupid and foolish goal. He thought if he could reach that goal, then his power would be so greatly increased in the middle-east that nothing could stand in his way.
The threat from terrorism was always, always, overstated by our government. For the defense establishment, for presidential power and for providing for massive expenditures on security and war, terrorism was one of the greatest gifts that could ever have been given to G.W. Bush. At first it was a national nightmare, but for the policy types and war planners, it became a gift from heaven.
In the shocking aftermath of the 2001 attacks, terrorism seemed to be something strange, new and almost incomprehensible to average citizens. What was forgotten is that it was a specific thing, a specific threat made by people far away from America. It was something that we could understand and deal with bit by bit, with hard work and dedication.
There are lots of serious problems in the world that, at first, appear to have no solution. Doctors, nurses, scientists and ordinary people deal with cancer every day. They attack it, they endure it and, in millions of cases, they live on. So it is and shall be with terrorism.
Breaking the threat down into component parts and attacking those components around the world has had good results, far more good results than going into two wars which have cost the US somewhere around 1.3 trillion dollars. We should not be surprised at these good results. In fact, I had expected some of them to come sooner, but perhaps all we are seeing now is the acknowledgment that, indeed, some of them did. Bin Laden’s death merely put the punctuation on the matter.
Doug Terry 7.27.11
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