Quote:blackaeronaut wrote:I really can't agree. Al-Qaeda as an organisation has been moribund for years. They blew all their assets on several large flashy attacks early on and then suffered from probably the largest manhunt in the history of the world, and predictably dropped off the radar. It's true random jihadis have called themselves al-Qaeda in various places, but they usually don't seem to have anything to do with the recently deceased leadership in Pakistan. Nor have they shown any evidence of being well-organised or even particularly well-funded (by terrorist standards). Al-Q aren't comic book supervillains or ubermensch; they were a small group of well-funded people with political goals who pulled off spectacular strikes with sleeper agents they'd inserted when nobody thought they were a big deal. But all those sleeper agents are dead or imprisoned, and you can't replace that kind of asset when you're being hunted.
Ayiekie Wrote:Eh, to be honest, al-Q's been fairly irrelevant for years now. Not much a small group can actually do when they're hiding in the mountains in Pakistan. I suppose some of that pressure will be off now that the US got the top guy, but it remains to be seen if they even possess enough remaining assets to be a factor in Afghanistan, let alone further afield.Not as small as your state. They still have active cells in all the hot spots - most worrisome to me is Somalia and Pakistan. (In fact, I'm never gonna feel anything but leery about Pakistan until that place has a revolution all its own.)
Still, time will tell who is right.
Quote:This is the second or third time that's happened and it's kind of funny to me. Blackaeronaut, I have to ask: do you seriously think that by expressing my incredibly low opinion of Barack Obama's administration that I am praising Bush, as if they're some sort of "pick one or the other" choice? I dislike the Obama administration because on the issues of primary concern to me, notably international policy and civil rights, it is exactly like the Bush administration. In fact, in many ways it is worse, but it is a matter of degree, and that's certainly no compliment to Bush.Quote:Ayiekie wrote:Oh, as if that never applied to the Bush Jr. administration. I can point out all kinds of things there. This is tame by comparison.
As far as Bin Laden goes, in theory I'd have preferred it if he'd been
taken alive and tried in a proper court, but LOL at the concept of rule
of law applying to Barack Obama's America.
I do not call out Obama for being an authoritarian piece of shit who wipes his ass with your precious constitution because I think Bush was better. How quickly people forget I am one of the most left-wing posters here when I criticise Barack Obama. It's funny, but it's also sad, and cuts to the exact problem of what's so broken with the two-party system in the US. Anyway, long story short: I disagree - Obama's administration is not "tame" in comparison to Bush (insofar as respecting the rule of law goes), but just as bad. A pox on both their houses.
Quote:There I have to disagree as well. This isn't a struggle that really has an end, because it's not driven by any particular cause but rather by colliding geopolitical imperatives. You can kill everyone who's ever so much as read Bin Laden's newsletter, but this will not stop or even particularly stem resistance against US control of the region. Bin Laden was just a guy. A guy who did some very bad things, but not only did he not run said resistance against the US, he and other notable "names" in the struggle were not even particularly in agreement on much of anything. Furthermore, he was even less in agreement with the huge majorities of the populace in the Middle East who are generally hostile to the US and its goals in the region, but who are not currently engaged in violent activity in the US (for instance, the vast majority of the population of the recently democratic Egypt, who are witheringly anti-US).Ayiekie Wrote:Despite Bin Laden's generalDefinitely agree with you on that one. With him out of the way, Al-Q's lost some serious momentum - their figurehead, so to speak. While the war is going to be far from over (plenty of 2nd-in-commands to snipe) I definitely feel we've hit a mid-way point.
irrelevance, he had value as a symbol and would certainly have plotted
to kill more people had he remained alive to do so, so it's good he's
gone
No single man, nor even any group of men, will by their death change that attitude toward the US. Only an actual change of policy will, and that won't happen under Obama. Or, most likely, his successor.