More Libthink
WASHINGTON (al Reuters) – President George W. Bush's administration has crippled al Qaeda's ability to carry out major attacks on U.S. soil but at a political and economic cost that could leave the country more vulnerable in years to come, experts say.
Even as al Qaeda tries to rebuild operations in Pakistan, experts including current and former intelligence officials believe the group would have a hard time staging another September 11 because of U.S. success at killing or capturing senior members whose skills and experience have not been replaced.
"If the question is why al Qaeda hasn't carried out another 9/11 attack, the answer I think is that if they could have, they would have," said a former senior U.S. intelligence official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
OK, so the Bush admin is doing what it set out to do. But, hold on a sec!
Some experts warn that the successes of Bush's war on terrorism have been undercut by huge security costs, strains on the U.S. military from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and resentment of the United States abroad.
"Look at al Qaeda's plans," said Michael Scheuer, who once led the CIA team devoted to finding al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. "They're very simply defined in two phrases: spread out America's forces and bleed the United States to bankruptcy. I'd argue America has been under attack successfully every day since 9/11 from that perspective.
"If you're looking at it from the cave, or wherever al Qaeda is hiding at the moment, you have to be pretty happy with the way the world is moving," he said.
So, by being succesful in damaging Al Qaeda, we are losing? You have got to be kidding me. What do these liberals want us to do? I would really like to know, since they never really have released any sort of plan. To misquote John Kerry a bit, the Democrats have no plan in the war on terror evidently, except "no." "No" is not a policy.
Libthink at its best.
Hot Air regarding Scheuer:
Remember him, author of Imperial Hubris? That book made essentially the same argument, which is that we can’t win for losing. Whatever we do won’t work. Whatever we try will fail. &c. In Scheuer’s world, everything works to bin Laden’s benefit, including Israel’s self-defensive actions against Hezbollah. And to think, Scheuer was once the CIA’s go-to guy on the bin Laden hunt. Maybe he was Valerie Plame’s mystery walkabout guy.
And, I swear I wrote mine before reading Bryan's post on this subject.
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