Captain's Quarters -

So far so good, and I don't want to rain on the parade, but all the costs of watching and guarding are enormous, while costs of making bomb are miniscule in comparison. I think we have to start thinking how to improve all the economics of this surveillance and security, since it is here to stay.

"At this point, though, it's AQ that looks impotent and unable to move without the US and its allies tracking their moves and thwarting their designs."

Sooner or later, though, AQ will pull off an attack somewhere. Their failures are never as important as their successes. We have to get it right each time (preventing an attack) while they only have to succeed occasionally.

I always wonder, are they driven to try more and more when they do fail? So that this will never stop as long as we play only defense.

TomB,
According to the democrats, we should be saving a lot of money on surveillance and the other preventions and disruptions by simply halting.
If we are rolling up their network to the extent implied by this string of great successes, then something tells me that we are closer to rolling up the leaders than the BDS/pro-defeat mobs would like to believe.

"...this will never stop as long as we play only defense." - Bennett

Where this war is concerned, methinks no truer words have been spoken.

Our biggest problem has been, and continues to be, fear of going too far - winning to big, being too decisive, being too brutal against the most brutal enemy the world has ever seen.

I call it the wimp-factor - and we've seen it time after time, from before the first most obvious - Fallujah - through giving al-Sadr a pass, the Iranians and Syrians a pass - and Democrat traitors a pass.

Offense is the best weapon we have - and it has scarcely seen proper service in the cause.

Case in point - two and half months at top 'surge' and the wimp-factor strikes again - on American soil.

Every time a anti-war type rants about the failure of the surge they give the enemy hope and support, aid and comfort, and dispirit our own troops.

Start arresting them, and charging them with their crime - and they will stop, and the war will be shortened by many years.

I think maybe we're approaching it as a war of attrition, meaning AQ will wear out before we do.

Perhaps this is how it will be. But I don't think so. Not the way we're going about it now.

But then, what choice do we have? We're not fighting this war on a fixed battlefield, one army marching towards another, the only casualties those who choose to participate in the fight. So far, AQ picks the site of engagement and we try to figure out where that might be and get there ahead of them. Other than the obvious exceptions, we don't go to where they live, we wait for them to come to us.

That's it! I've had it. NO MORE TIMETABLES ON REPORTS.

The only timetable that should be stepped up is the the one that sends Osama and Zawahiri to Allah and his diminishing virgins.

The problem with Muslim militants is, that like the robots send from the future in the "Terminator", they will never stop, for religious reasons. The other, bigger problem is that they have passive or forced support of large percentage of Muslims, providing logistics and crowds to hide in. We, infidels, have to somehow convince these populations, that it is not healthy to support extremists and that it is profitable to support us.
And this is a high call.

Infidel dog! Your kennels shall burn! Your Kibbles and Bits shall be bitter!

Lol

The report deadline gave authorities control over timing of the terrorist attacks. It is no accident both that it was uncertain and near Sept 11.

That reduced uncertainty and permitted concentration of assets during a time of known increased threat. This is a gem of great price.

Iraq is the ideal of strategic offense combined with tactical defense. It's a meatgrinder for terrorists to shove themselves into.

By attacking deployed regular army troops in open country subject to air support the terrorists are fighting in their worst possible tactical environment.

It is the most egregious strategic and tactical mistake since Stalingrad.

By attacking the terrorists solve the most difficult anti-terrorist problems: identification, processing, tactical handling, justification, final processing with minimal legal intervention.

The USA news media has convinced the terrorists to keep fighting under these conditions.

The surge exploited further weaknesses in terrorist organization. The obvious answer would be to break contact and wait patiently for US forces to withdraw. Media propaganda has helped prevent this.

Cornellian's comment made me think: don't Muslims have a thing about dogs? That they're unclean or something like that (an unfortunate fact that can be demonstrated by the condition of my hallway carpet, I'm sorry to say)?

So, having Fido sniff out the bomb is kind of a two-fer!

Can we train pigs to do this, too? If they can be trained to find truffles in Fwance, perhaps they CAN be trained to find bombs in airports. Oh, the mental images THAT brings up!

Yes muslims love dogs as much as Michael Vick does. Unfortunately this is an attitude that goes way back in the ME, and is a negative mental state that is representative among Orthodox Jews and even is encapsulated in the Gospels, with Jesus' episode with the Samaritan woman seeking healing for her daughter, she won the Savoir's heart and blessing when she said, 'even dog's get crumbs from the Master's table.' Unfortunately it does not seem that muslims even have that sense of caring for dogs, and again, as we've seen with countless dog haters, if you have that amount of heartlessness towards canines, the odds are that your love for humans is very low as well.

So far the West's luck (and good investigations) are defeating the Muslim "God's Warriors".

But there is still today and other days. Sooner or later they will succeed again in killing hundreds if not thousands of those that are too ignorant to even know that the Islamics want to them to be dead.

After all, everyone knows and that Islam is the religion of peace and that most Muslims don't want to kill us, What they don't understand is that the rest of the Muslims just want to make us pay their tributes, taxes and to bow down and submit to the cult of Islam.

Ignorance now and in the future about the cult of Islam is not acceptable.

Educate yourself and your family

Papa Ray

I think maybe we're approaching it as a war of attrition, meaning AQ will wear out before we do.

I keep thinking that surely there's a maturity factor, too -- that as time goes by, the teenaged mujahadeen will grow up and decide "is that all there is" to life, building IEDs and getting shot at, and want to move on to maybe doing more normal things like getting married, having babies, and making enough money to buy a cool car.

Captain .. don't forget this story.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have been informed that there is “a credible security risk with this aircraft” and we are returning to the terminal.

looking glass:

you got it.

well put in civilized language. people will actually read yours and ponder it.

i've been screaming the same thing for years but i tend to use flame throwers instead of your genteel and ordered prose.

good enough.

C

looking glass:

tell you what we do.

get limbaugh to make up some tshirts with the alquida symbol on the front (you know, the central dot with two concentric black circles around it.)

tell the "warriors" to wear it and go to the "spot" 100 yards out from the gate guard position at the local u.s. base. shoot two rounds in the air with their trusty, rusty, rifle and scream the secret word (hey M@#her$%$#ers) while displaying the symbol on thier chest.

the gate guards will be happy to grant thier greatest wish.

C

Very well written Looking Glass. The added benefit is to show reasonable Muslims the true nature of the fanatics. Thus enlisting the moderates in the battle to defeat the extremists.
And to show true Americans where the traitors lurk in their midst and today their are a great many of these.
History will not suffer traitors or their fools lightly.

"They enjoy dying. We enjoy killing them. You’d think we’d get along better." - FrankJ

I think we're getting along just fine.