David Ignatius: Another Al-Qaeda Leader Falls

[babylonsister]

With all the Irene coverage, this seems to have slipped through the cracks.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2011/08/28/another_al-qaeda_leader_falls_111116.html

August 28, 2011

Another Al-Qaeda Leader Falls
By David Ignatius


WASHINGTON -- The death of Atiyah Abd al-Rahman in an Aug. 22 drone attack in Pakistan may appear to be just another in the revolving-door fatalities among al-Qaeda's operations chiefs. But it was a crucial blow to the core group that once surrounded Osama bin Laden.

Atiyah, as he was known to analysts, was bin Laden's channel to the world. Their correspondence was the most important prize taken from bin Laden's compound when he was killed May 2. They talked about everything: strategy, personnel, operations, political setbacks. Whatever thread still held al-Qaeda together passed from bin Laden through to Atiyah.

The Libyan-born Atiyah's death blunts al-Qaeda's ability to stage a new mega-attack against America; it brings the top leadership of the group closer to extinction; and it increases the likelihood that the organization's center of gravity will shift from Pakistan's tribal areas to one of the affiliates, such as the robust al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, based in Yemen.

snip//

Atiyah fell to a Predator drone attack, the weapon that he and bin Laden had complained about so bitterly in their correspondence. Atiyah had told his boss that this U.S. "intelligence war," as bin Laden had called it, had made it nearly impossible for al-Qaeda to move, communicate, recruit or train in the tribal areas of Pakistan. They had discussed whether al-Qaeda should move its headquarters to someplace safer. That relocation seems more likely, now that the man who anchored the group's presence in Pakistan is dead.

[trumad]

1. I always picture a game of hot potato

when the discussion turns to who will be number two.

[Loge23]

2. One thing we can count on...

In the midst of a often chaotic chain of events - almost daily now - we can always rely on the old consistent standby of regular news: al-qaeda's #2 has been killed!
Ten years from now, as ten years before, we'll still be killing off #2's.

[Inuca]

4. Not sure what your point is...

We DID get to #1, if I remember correctly, didn't we? Moreover, logically speaking, if we keep killing various #2s, there is another that takes the spot, right?

[Loge23]

7. It will never end.

That's the point.

[bread_and_roses]

3. So what? And are we celebrating drone attacks now?

So what if another "#2" is dead? We've been reading about the dead #2s for - oh, ten years now? And the dead #1s and the dead #3s and so on. So what? So "the organization's center of gravity will shift from Pakistan's tribal areas to one of the affiliates, such as the robust al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, based in Yemen." Nothing changes. Nor will it. The rapacious and destructive policies of the US abroad continue unabated, new spears spring up from the blood-soaked earth.

Celebrating war under the Peace President.

[babylonsister]

5. So sue me: I like the idea that a new mega-attack may have been

blunted. Am I too paranoid because these guys might be out to get us? Maybe. But they are out there; that seems to me to be the point of us being there in the first place.

[Name removed]

8. Deleted message

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[bread_and_roses]

6. "Ten Years Later, Americans Still Stupid and Vulnerable"

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/08/28

Published on Sunday, August 28, 2011 by CommonDreams.org
9/11: Ten Years Later, Americans Still Stupid and Vulnerable
by Ted Rall

They say everything changed on 9/11. No one can dispute that. But we didn't learn anything.

... The century of U.S. foreign policy that led to 9/11—supporting dictators, crushing democratic movements, spreading gangster capitalism at the point of a thousand nukes—should and could have been put on hold and reassessed in the wake of 9/11.

It wasn't time to act. It was time to think.

... By 2003 the world hated us more than ever. A BBC poll showed that people in Jordan and Indonesia—moderate Muslim countries where Al Qaeda had killed locals with bombs—considered the U.S. a bigger security threat than the terrorist group

... 9/11 was "blowback"—proof that the U.S. can't wage its wars overseas without suffering consequences at home. But we still haven't learned that lesson. Ten years later, a "Democratic" president is fighting Bush's wars as well as new ones against Libya, Somalia and Yemen. Now he's saber-rattling against Syria.

War is Peace!