How To Fight Al Qaeda Now

So what it comes down to is, George Bush and his team have been absolutely not up to fighting Al Qaida on any level - militarily, politically, economically or otherwise, which shouldn't be surprising, since the American people screwed up miserably when they voted in a spoiled, underachieving frat boy for President. And any reading of history would tell you that installing a 72 year old man as our leader with an airhead as his second is another recipe for disaster, as there have been only two old guys in the history of the entire planet who've ever been successful military leaders - Narses of Byzantium and Marshal Turenne. The rest of have been disasters. What a heartbreaking shame.

Any vulnerability Al Qaeda has now that we can exploit will not be there in the future. One of the primary characteristics of a successful asymmetrical campaign is to continually change your tactics. When I was in the Air Force our mantra was: "Flexibility is the key to airpower!" That concept goes all the way back to Maxwell and the early foundations of air power doctrine and the Army Air Corps.
Al Qaeda is successful precisely because it is not an organization and is not encumbered by any organizational norms, including the tenets of the religion that they supposedly represent.
We cannot defeat Al Qaeda unless and until we are willing to fight them on their own terms and using their own methods, BUT with the advantage of our advanced technology. Then begins the ethical and moral debate about whether by fighting them in that manner--with the same ferocity and total lack of morality--we become as bad as they are.
Can we fight Al Qaeda and win and then swear off the methods that secured victory? That's a tough question.

McCain quote from second debate:
"I'll get Osama bin Laden, my friends. I'll get him. I know how to get him. I'll get him no matter what and I know how to do it. "
If McCain knows how to get him, why is he keeping it a secret, tell us now, so we can go get him..

Bruce Riedel is an Obama advisor. Of course, Newsweek is far too in the tank and far too devoid of any journalistic integrity to inform the reader of that, so I will.

Newsweek is a disgrace.

see reason #2

In a sick pathetic way the attack of 9/11 worked! It was 19 murderers that boarded commercial liners with absolutely no security and proceeded to hijack them with box-cutters! This was no high tech attack!

The end result, Bush enters a war with heightened presidential powers thus defying the constitution.
He rushes into the war on a premise that was not accurate, he and his staff utilized subversion and duplicity for their pro war effort!
All while this is going on he loses sight of our domestic issues and eventually the financial sectors of our country come tumbling down! if you could ask a fundamental extremist from the middle-east, did the 9/11 attack work, what do you think his answer would be?

Bush and the neocons have failed the nation miserably. Along with Bush, who was one of the strongest advocates for war? Senator John McCain! Enough said!

What separates civilized from uncivilized societies? I believe I have found two things - first, a civilized society dumps its' waste water upstream from where it draws its' drinking water. Second, a civilized society abhors death. In example, my father-in-law passed today after a year long illness and, even though I know he is with God and better off now then before, I still find his death to be mind-numbing and will grieve for him for some time. Life to me - any life - is precious. In further example, I cannot imagine any civilized society extolling the virtues of killing yourself and as many others as you can take with you. Why?

It would appear that the raid along the Syrian border by US SFs that bagged two top al Qaeda leaders in Syria is a measure of how al Qaeda can be effectively fought. A textbook raid,fast and sharp with few casualties[none as far as is known among the Americans],and a quick exit, presents a virtual ''How to''for the next administration.

I can't believe I'm reading this right - it was Osama's master plan to disrupt the housing market! Geez, I thought it was the Democrats and the Republicans. I'll bet they are happy to be off the hook on that. I guess anybody can write a book.

I doubt if there are a 100 people in the USA that could make an intelligent comment about how to beat Al Qaeda. Most of us are simply feeding off the media reports and authors like this one.

"tet.soulo @ 10/27/2008 2:46:17 PM" -Be frank and open towards the Islamic moderate movements as they represent the new "elite" that have gained their peoples confidence. "

What have you done about it? Barry Goldwaters words - You have to be willing to die for freedom - there is no such thing as moderation on that. That means that you have to willing to die for a minority and their beliefs in order to preserve yours. You have to believe in a rule of law that treats everyone the same. Are you will ing to do that or you would parse selective "preferred" privileges of the west and then keep the rest of your customs.

Would you be willing to accept a complete criticism of Islam without getting upset with the originator . Be able to brush off personal attacks as a majority.

I would bet NOT!

comments: Al Qaeda has no political, economical, social and educational project. truth to tell they are living out of history.

Their interpretation and understanding of Islam is very shocking to the Muslins themselves. Their rejection to the modern civilization shows how narrow minded they are.
propositions: the Americans must stop supporting the dictator regimes in the Islamic world.
must avoid imposing its outlook, especially in politics, upon others.
must think profoundly and accurately about the palestinian historical affair.
Be frank and open towards the Islamic moderate movements as they represent the new "elite" that have gained their peoples confidence.

I disagree that the military or the political should be the focus of the war on terrorism.. Al Qaeda is motivated 100% by their religion. They have been saying this tirelessly for decades. We need to cut off their ability to recruit among the Muslim middle class by promoting secular government. We should set the world standard of secular government right here in the United States. Executive Order #1 for the new President: Religion has no legal standing. By privatizing religion, getting it completely out of government, we can show the Muslim middle class that what they want (mortgages, car loans, good jobs, education for their kids) can only be acquired through secular government. Religious government in the Muslim world cannot provide for these basic needs. Turkey has a secular government, they are 99.9% Muslim, they are right there on Iraq's northern border, and they have no suicide bombers. We should make secular government the centerpiece of our 'war on terrorism'.

That is a bunch of hogwash. The analyst has a bigoted view of the world- which is western centric. If that was the case, where were the feelings for the Hindus in both Pakistans, or the Bhuddhists in southern Thailand, or the whole of Indonesia/malasia which was primarily Hondu/Bhuddism. It is the Dhimmitude that the Islamist have. Go live in Saudi or any majority Arab as a Hindu and you will meet utter rascism.
Islamist do not like being in the minority. It DOES not suit them and their political customes. What is this that you cannot eat outside in deference to the folks who are "fasting " during Ramadhan. It is there a church, synagogue or a Temple in Saudia - ask this fundament questions?

Ask the greeks, or the Serbian or any one else who was under the Ottmann emprire. They hate the turks

Al Qaeda has wde support among all Muslim nations of the world. It would be next to impossible to win over Al Qaeda unless we look for the root causes of dissatisfaction among all Muslim nations of the world. We have been ignoring the methodology in solving problem. This wanton neglect has been causing us human carnage, loss of capital and the unpopularity with the rest of the world except Israel. We seem to forget that violence begets violence. There are 1.2 billion Muslims in this world. One cannot ignore such huge population. Our Mavrick and unitarian policy have been causing us financial disaster. We had no business in attacking Iraq for any reason.

"Warmonger" Bush has done more to aid and comfort Al Qaeda with his clueless war in Iraq than anything else. Plus his stupid premature declaration of victory in Afghanistan has helped the Taliban reconstitute and become stronger than before 9/11. Not getting Osama bin Laden at Tora Bora because "Warmonger" Bush wanted to outsource our dirty work allowed Osama to escape from our clutches. He doesn't want to catch or kill Osama because he's the convenient boogeyman to scare the little children of the repugnant one's party to support our clueless leader. The more troops we have in the Middle East the more extremist Muslims will become and the more they will hate our contry.

We need to get American combat troops out of the Middle East in order for the moderates and liberals there to overcome the extremist factions. Kind of like here where the moderates and liberals need to reestablish law and order after the lawlessness of the repugnant ones.

First: Get the hell out of the Middle East. Those people want to live in their 2000 year old past, with their old ways. (Women/children of less real value than cattle).
Second: The U.S. needs to get over this "we can save the world crap from itself", and get ourselves back where we were, at the top of the food chain not at the bottom.
Third: Put all our efforts into alternative energy so that when those governments that support Al-Qaeda don't get our oil money anymore they will take care of their own trouble their own way.
Fourth: Yes, education and then more education. Not for them, but for us to learn how to let those people, and Europe settle their own ***.
Fifth: Guard our boarders and spend our tax money here, no more giving it to the poor countries that set up one butchering regime after another. That would mean no more sending money to any country period, for any reason.

Fascinating to hear a CIA analyst say the best way to combat Al Queda is with schools, roads, infrastructure and financial aid.

You would think the man was advocating hope instead of warfare.

But this is America - what is he thinking?

We aren't even doing it for our own country.