Posted on 07/11/2009 7:31:42 AM PDT by DGHoodini
(CBS) It's not often the enemy tells you something you're doing - strikes by CIA drones against al Qaeda sanctuaries in Pakistan - is working.
But in this document posted on the Web, a top al Qaeda commander writes: "The harm is alarming. The matter is very grave."
Both senior government officials and outside experts say it is an extraordinary confession, reports CBS News correspondent David Martin.
"It exposes for the first time a level of paranoia and a level of self-consciousness and a lack of confidence in al Qaeda's leadership in their propaganda that we just haven't seen up until now," said Nicholas Schmidle, the author of "To Live or to Perish Forever: Two Tumultuous Years in Pakistan."
In the past year, the CIA has flown more than 50 drone strikes in Pakistan, killing half of al Qaeda's top leaders and hundreds of its fighters. One senior official said the central leadership of al Qaeda is under more pressure now than at any time since the bombing of Tora Bora in 2001. The document blames the accuracy of the strikes on "spies … (who) have spread throughout the land like locusts … So many brave commanders have been snatched away … so many hidden homes have been leveled."
(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...
Obama is in charge now. Everything is working.
Not to some Bozo who just happened upon the scene and has 3.5 years left in office (may sooner, through impeachment).
Funny how when Bush was President we only hit weddings, now we can’t miss Al Qaeda.
Mosquitoes, I think
Those must be some really big (boom)
This article seems to be pretty much a rework of the Fox News story from the previous day, other than the claim that half of Al Qaeda’s chain of command are dead.
This is good news.Our drones take out Al Queda’s leadership and recruits while Al Queda conducts it’s own internal purges to find the spies in their ranks.
No effing $hit.
No effing $hit.
“Those are our drones now”
Terminator HK’s coming soon...
I was just thinking - don’t tell the o that it is working, or he will make them stop being ‘mean’.
Maybe when there is a mysterious explosion in a Taliban-area of Afghanistan - it is just another meteor impact!
Brought to you by US armed forces: Lightening for all occasions
Because Al Queda knows they don’t have an adversarial press to play on, there is a fawning press that dislikes bad news about the Emperor Jones. Intensely frustrating for them, let the fire bombs drop!
Just being counterintuitive to cause problems — I’m very happy that according to this report our military appears to be successfully killing the terrorists.
But perhaps this is just propoganda to praise the strikes in order to avoid more successful US strategies like occupying areas and building up support for local officials.
That is what has worked (so far) in Iraq and the policy we are currently expanding in Afghanistan.
IOW, the strikes could be working, but AQ fears a more permanent solution and so is trying to manipulate opinion in support of strikes which they can survive in the long run.
I know that my answer to you may be considered as subjective, but it doesn’t seem to me that it would be something that they would do. i think they would be repulsed by the idea. It goes against their self image. But that’s just my opinion. In a way, they do have their own code of honesty, and this would violate it as it would a knight violating the code of chivalry. Not unheard of, but considered shameful among those who followed the code...and we’re talking about people who consult their religious leaders about the fact of whether it is allowable to eat your enemies bodies if you’re starving in the mountains.
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