Buried beneath the news of the Wisconsin recall election and Republicans blocking equal pay for women in the Senate was perhaps the most significant news in the war on terror since the death of Osama bin Laden : Abu Yahya al-Libi was killed in a drone strike in the Waziristan region of Pakistan.
Al-Libi was a top deputy to Osama bin Laden, and widely seen as the second in command of al Qaeda, the terrorist network that has crumbled into shambles under the Obama administration. Remember when Republicans from John McCain to Rudy Giuliani said that President Obama would be weak on terror, and the U.S. would be on the defense?
Wonder how Osama bin Laden, Abu Yahya al-Libi, Anwar al-Awlaki, the leader of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, chief of Pakistan operations Abu Hafs al-Shahri, 'Atiyah 'Abd al-Rahman, Ilyas Kashmiri, Ammar al-Wa'ili, Abu Ali al-Harithi, Ali Saleh Farhan, Harun Fazul, Younis al-Mauritani, Baitullah Mahsud, Noordin Muhammad Top, Saleh al-Somali, Muhammad Haqqani, Qari Zafar, Iraqi al Qaeda leaders Abu Ayyub al-Masri and Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, Sheik Saeed al-Masri, and Hamza al-Jawfi feel about that?
Those are the top al Qaeda commanders who met their demise under the leadership of President Obama.
More importantly, I hope that President Obama and advisors around him recognize that the killing of al-Libi had no connection to counter-insurgency operations in Afghanistan. The drone killing of him, like the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, were examples of what a counter-terror strategy could do, even if we were to transition to an end of the war in Afghanistan more quickly than currently planned.
The killing of al-Libi has nothing to do with the planned summer offensive we're about to undertake, to stretch out across Afghanistan in an attempt to take areas of the country we haven't taken.
In short, while this is another momentous moment for President Obama, and his stellar record of keeping America safe by systematically taking out al Qaeda leadership, it is happening outside and not connected to our Afghanistan operations. It can continue to happen, even if we begin to leave.
That's why VoteVets.org has always called on President Obama to adopt a counter-terror mission in the region. Counter-terror operations target the enemy where they are, and take them out. It's the strategy that led to the killing of top al-Qaeda targets around the world, like today. It costs less in money and lives. It doesn't deplete our troops and our military. And it doesn't put military men and women in the position of having to win over an entire country -- a mission that, in the case of Afghanistan, will take hundreds of thousands more men and women, and decades.
Whatever one says about President Obama, no one can argue that he hasn't been deliberate and proactive about taking out the terror network that killed over 3,000 Americans on 9/11. I hope he takes a moment to put the same deliberate and clear thought towards the future of the war, in light of this latest strike against al Qaeda. If he does, there would be no doubt that he would cancel our planned summer offensive, and speed up our transition to an advise, train, and assist role -- the bridge to ending the war in Afghanistan.
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Daphne Eviatar: The Death of al Qaeda's #2: Time to Wind Down the War on Terror
Worked for dubya and he could not of done a much worse job.
It's time to get out. Stop killing people. All we do is create more terrorists. It is impossible to kill them all.
Who believes the Pentagon?
What the ancients called a clever fighter is one who not only wins, but excels in winning with ease.
Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win.
There is no instance of a nation benefitting from prolonged warfare.
-SunTzu
I think some of our military leaders could use a refresher.
I really feel badly for the families of the servicemen and women who will lose a loved one because of this stupid summer offensive. Because when the US pulls out the combat troops (supposedly by 2014), the Taliban will retake any areas our troops take during this offensive (because the Afghan army is both incompetent and riddled with Taliban sympathizers). Those families will lose loved ones for nothing. Nothing! And it makes me sick to my stomach!
Semper Fidelis
Correction: They WERE the top al Qaeda commanders. That is the one of the effects of killing them. They no longer can be one of those commanders.
I don't think any president should be given a "free pass" on the use of drone strikes. When used, it has to be through a thorough vetting process and the individual at the controls of that drone should be American military--this is not something that should ever be farmed out to a military contractor.
Killing innocent civilians only creates more terrorists. That is why the use of this strategy should be severely limited.
Thank you, Jon Soltz, for all the work you do on behalf of our veterans!
Obama should send a message to the civilians (if they haven't figured it out by now): STAY AWAY FROM AL-QAEDA DUDES. THEY CAN BE DRONECUTED AT ANY TIME...
Doubling down on failure, and running an American meat grinder during campaign season is no way to run a country.
The Republicans have failed, the Democrats have failed, lets try something else.
We're doing all this because Corporate Airlines wouldn't spend the money to reinforce their cockpit doors.
19 guys couldn't do so much damage in a country that wasn't stressed to the point of oblivion by the relentless pace of corporate-driven avarice. The doors couldn't be cost justified in a corporate values system so we spend 3 trillion dollars now killing a bunch of people to respond. If our leaders were smart and honest we could start working on the restoration of human values to governmental concerns in addition to accounting, and graft by other names.
Wait, WHAT?
Have these military generals never played Risk?