[release]WASHINGTON — A week after President Obama announced the initial drawdown of American troops from Afghanistan, his top counterterrorism adviser described plans to rely more heavily on a largely clandestine campaign to destroy Al Qaeda’s network, which he described as already “in its decline.”
Related
Laying out the administration’s plan to battle Al Qaeda in the era after Osama bin Laden and at a time of declining public support for costly wars, Mr. Brennan outlined a White House counterterrorism strategy that formalized a governmentwide approach that had been evolving in practice since Mr. Obama took office.
He talked of hitting Al Qaeda “hard enough and often enough” with increased numbers of Special Operations forces and speedy deployments of “unique assets” (presumably drone aircraft), and he underscored that military commandos and intelligence operatives were working more closely than ever before on the battlefield.
“It will take time, but make no mistake, Al Qaeda is in its decline,” he said in a speech at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies.
But this wide-ranging strategy — relying on often unreliable allies, sometimes sketchy intelligence and a clandestine American force already strained by a decade of secretive wars — has its limitations, American officials have said in recent days.
Mr. Brennan acknowledged as much in his remarks, noting the collapsing government in Yemen and the United States’ deteriorating relationship with Pakistan. Although he said that the United States must remain committed to Pakistan, Mr. Brennan voiced exasperation at one point, saying, “I’m hoping that the Pakistani people and the services are going to realize this really is a war.”
He said that the terrorist threat emanating from both countries was so serious that the United States had little choice but to deliver aid and military support to bolster its faltering counterterrorism partners.
The Bin Laden raid has further fractured America’s shaky alliance with Pakistan, and top military commanders are convinced that some of Pakistan’s military and intelligence services continue to provide financial and military support to groups like the Taliban and other militants in Afghanistan.
The officer who commanded the raid, Vice Adm. William H. McRaven, told senators on Tuesday that he believed that Mullah Muhammad Omar, the Taliban’s leader, was hiding in Pakistan.
“I believe that the Pakistanis know that he is in Pakistan,” he said, but he did not specify whether he believed that Pakistan’s government was harboring the Taliban leader or simply had been unable to find him.
Admiral McRaven, the commander of the military’s clandestine Special Operations forces, said that pulling thousands of American ground troops out of Afghanistan would place further pressure on Navy Seal units and other commandos who will be called on to carry out secret missions. A reminder of the continued violence in Afghanistan came hours after his testimony, when militants attacked an Afghan hotel in Kabul on Tuesday night.
Admiral McRaven also told senators that military operations in Yemen and Somalia were constrained by limited numbers of intelligence and surveillance aircraft like Predator drones.
Further complicating matters is the uncertainty surrounding America’s detention policy. During his testimony, the admiral disclosed the somewhat ad hoc arrangements for handling detainees captured outside of Iraq and Afghanistan.
In many cases, he said, detainees are kept on Navy ships until the Justice Department can build a case against them, or they are transferred to other countries for detention.
“If we can’t do either one of those, then we will release that individual,” he said. “I mean, that becomes the unenviable option, but it is an option.”
Mr. Brennan, at times sounding triumphal during his 35-minute speech, said that the American and allied counterterrorism operations had made it harder for Al Qaeda to recruit fighters, raise money and communicate.
Over the past two and a half years, he said, Al Qaeda’s leadership has been “decimated,” and virtually every affiliate has lost a top leader or operational commander.
Despite such successes and some public sentiment that Bin Laden’s death ends the threat from Al Qaeda, Mr. Brennan said the United States and its allies must keep the pressure on terrorist networks.
“If we hit Al Qaeda hard enough and often enough, there will come a time when they simply can no longer replenish their ranks with the skilled leaders that they need to sustain their operations,” he said.
Mr. Brennan’s speech highlighted themes contained in a 19-page document, “National Strategy for Counterterrorism,” which the White House released on Wednesday. It replaces a strategy President George W. Bush approved in 2006.
Obama administration officials have implicitly criticized Mr. Bush’s “global war” on terrorism as lacking focus on what Obama aides say are the main threats to the United States: Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan; its regional affiliates in Yemen, Somalia and northern Africa; and individual followers who are increasingly inspired by videos and extremist sermons over the Internet.
“Precisely because its leadership is under such pressure in Afghanistan and Pakistan, Al Qaeda has increasingly sought to inspire others to commit attacks in its name,” the strategy document said. Mr. Brennan said the administration would announce its approach this summer on combating violent extremism in the United States.
Juan Zarate, a senior counterterrorism official under President Bush, said that by narrowing its counterterrorism focus to Al Qaeda, its affiliates and individual followers, the Obama administration underestimated the power of Al Qaeda’s ideology.
“To narrow the focus has the potential to inadvertently blind us to the underlying ideological struggle that still exists as well as to terrorist threats on the horizon that neither begin nor end with Al Qaeda,” Mr. Zarate said. “This focus also inadvertently aggrandizes Al Qaeda at a time when we want to emphasize its irrelevance.”[/release]
[url=http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/30/world/30terror.html]Source[/url]
Cool, I guess. Although this world will always have organized terrorism, and I think it's a waste of money to try and prevent it EVERYWHERE. It's like trying to prevent bullying.
[sp]GTFO[/sp]
That should have been the approach since 2001.
won't work, as long as the idea remains, people will fight, only way to truly kill an idea like Al Qaeda is through mass brainwashing and/or mind control.
i smell covert operations
[QUOTE=zombini;30791650]won't work, as long as the idea remains, people will fight, only way to truly kill an idea like Al Qaeda is through mass brainwashing and/or mind control.[/QUOTE]
or just telling the people what they are doing is wrong en masse. its bassically brianwashing, but brainwashing is a much harder word for what some others would call education. i mean, is telling a bunch of cavemen how to make fire brainwashing?
[QUOTE=zombini;30791650]won't work, as long as the idea remains, people will fight, only way to truly kill an idea like Al Qaeda is through mass brainwashing and/or mind control.[/QUOTE]
You can disrupt their operations though, especially when it comes to fighters in Afghanistan
Why not give up. Lives would be saved.
edit: it's not like terrorism happens for no reason at all. Some guy just wont decide to take some bombs and go to EU or america to blow up some people without a reason. Every day of occupation in the middle-east is giving the rebels and terrorists one more reason for attacks against foreigners.
Edit2: The whole war is about retribution and revenge for things performed by both parties. Anyways now that Osama Bin Laden is dead they are just chasing a dead man. The revenge is already performed and it changed little.
[QUOTE=zombini;30791650]won't work, as long as the idea remains, people will fight, only way to truly kill an idea like Al Qaeda is through mass brainwashing and/or mind control.[/QUOTE]
I'm sorry but during the several thousands of years that people have waged wars, a shitload of them have been won just because the enemy eventually becomes fed up with all the losses and surrender, you're telling me that somehow Al'Qaeda is different?
It is possible...but it is in no way worth it.
[QUOTE=AtomicWaffle;30791616]That should have been the approach since 2001.[/QUOTE]
Yeah, but Bush was in office then. We went into Iraq for no reason.
Sorry, you need to Log In to post a reply to this thread.
