Al Quaeda meow meow. Has Al Quaeda just become some umbrella term for non-cooperative Arabs? Afghan War Faltering, Military Leader Says: Myers Cites Al Qaeda’s Ability to Adapt:
The U.S. military is losing momentum in the war on terrorism in Afghanistan because the remnants of al Qaeda and the Taliban have proven more successful in adapting to U.S. tactics than the U.S. military has to theirs, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said this week.
Gen. Richard B. Myers also said there is a debate taking place within the Pentagon about whether the United States needs to change its priorities in Afghanistan and de-emphasize military operations in favor of more support for reconstruction efforts.
“I think in a sense we’ve lost a little momentum there, to be frank,” Myers said in after-dinner comments Monday night at the Brookings Institution. “They’ve made lots of adaptations to our tactics, and we’ve got to continue to think and try to out-think them and to be faster at it.” …
In his remarks at Brookings, Myers said al Qaeda has proven to be an agile adversary, adapting its electronic communications to prevent intercepts and securing the way it passes money. His comments, released by Brookings on Wednesday, reflect a concern that many senior U.S. officials have expressed privately in recent months that the military establishment has been too slow to adapt in its response to the al Qaeda threat, both in its special operations tactics and its weapons procurement.
One official close to Rumsfeld said this week that, in his view, the military still is largely geared to changing at the glacial pace of the Cold War, during which shifts in military doctrine and weaponry in the Soviet Union occurred generationally. Al Qaeda and its allies have shown “an ability to change by the month,” the official said.
A detailed analysis just released by the U.S. Army War College reported that al Qaeda fighters have been quick to adapt to the high-tech weaponry the United States used in its attack on the network. When the United States first began bombing in Afghanistan last October, the report said, Taliban and al Qaeda fighters made easy targets, even standing on ridges where they were visible to Special Operations spotters miles away.
Stephen Biddle, the report’s author, wrote that by March, during the last major U.S.-led offensive against al Qaeda in southeastern Afghanistan, “Al Qaeda forces were practicing systematic communications security, dispersal, camouflage discipline, use of cover and concealment, and exploitation of dummy fighting positions to draw fire and attention from their real positions.”
Added one senior officer: “It’s the general consensus within the [special operations] community that al Qaeda is extremely adaptive and very cagey. These guys are not weekend terrorists.”
No, you guys are the well-fed, well-heeled weekend terrorists.
I’m a weekend terrorist??
I’m a weekend terrorist??
You’ll have to be more specific.