Al Qaeda Resurgent (NYT)

clueless!

Modern weapons today are too dangerous to allow in the hands of groups large enough to work serious damage. That's the lesson of 9/11.

Retaliation is not the point. Prevention is.

Groups large enough to work serious damage leave financial trails, have informers, and so forth. So long as they're pursued and harassed no matter where on earth they try to operate, they're kept from growing big and organized enough to work serious damage.

This means that the point is to make everyplace on earth hostile to those large groups.

It does not mean eliminating groups, but keeping them from operating. This means keeping them below the critical organized size.

Ineffective groups will always be there. Al Qaeda or otherwise.


Despite years of costly warfare in Afghanistan and Iraq, America today is not significantly closer to taking down the command structure of Al Qaeda.