The Peter Bergen piece on CNN demonstrates the Western bias towards the Muslim world. Somehow we have to think of al Qaeda as a group that wants to directly attack the United States. Bergen does not consider how the US has been drawn out and forced to spends billions of dollars and lose thousands of lives on both sides. The US policy has to adopt to the lack of public support for sending more troops into harms way. There is victory when you force a superpower to start doing things on the cheap.
The drone campaign Bergen fawns over is the exact reason why we continue to have pop up skirmishes. You push a button, you take out a terrorist. The problem is the world isn't that simple. The drone may take out the individual but not the motivation.
Bergen also thinks that the quiet validates the success of the Obama administration when it may simply mean tactics have changed. I also disagree about his assessment of Mali and Syria. Yes, they don't act like al Qaeda in Pakistan but are their goals the same? What if the goal is to keep the Arab spring alive for reasons other than attacking the United States?
Should we still fear al Qaeda?
“If you would not be forgotten, as soon as you are dead and rotten, either write things worth reading, or do things worth the writing.”--Benjamin Franklin
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