The jokes always fly when US drone attacks claim to dispatch an al-Qaedan of supposed rank. “How many 3rd in command does al-Qaeda have?” -asks the too-clever saw. As Mohammad approaches infinity, I believe, is the inconvenient answer. When a sports competitor disqualifies from the rankings, another moves up. The military intelligence which charts our adversary’s chain of command has me thinking about our own. Our grunts overseas fight under exasperating tiers of pay grades, but we know our number one in command is President Obama. Do you suppose Americans expect that al-Qaeda or the Taliban have every license to hunt and execute our number one and his aids, through number 99, including their families?
The latest number three, Sheikh Sa’id al-Masri, also known as Mustafa al-Yazid, was killed along with his wife, three daughters, a grandchild and other men, women and children.
If one could indeed rank a command structure in a single line, I bet not many could guess what it really is. Americans know there’s an official chain of authority which Al Haig violated so famously, but the political hierarchy is a facade. I would be most interested to hear what foreign intelligence determines to be the chain of command in the west.
Allegedly we have a cooperative governance. So like when Kennedy was shot, the mechanisms of government, including the War Machine (especially the War Machine) ground on apace.
When Nixon ascended the throne, same thing.
I think the Brilliant Think-Tank Denizens aren’t considering the notion that since Jihad didn’t die with Mohammad, nor with Saladin, nor a long line of Turkish emperors, maybe it’s something beyond fixing by the Strategic Use of High Explosives.
You might see it as obvious that nobody is going to be driven into the dust of history by the removal of one king after another. I might see it. They probably see it but won’t say it.
That’s probably why we don’t work for the Pentagon. Since their business success depends on continual warfare and killing lots of people, they’re going to put forth any excuse they can find to go on killing people. If peace broke out across the globe they’d have to find REAL Jobs.
Does al Qa’eda realize this? I think so. They’re not going on the same tactics that the Pentagoons use because somebody or a lot of somebodies in their Circle of Friends know how badly the Pentagoon tactics are losing. Combined with an unrestricted “free” market capitalist system all al Qa’eda has to do is sit back and occasionally jump up and put on the Gorilla Mask, make threatening noises and next thing you know Our Fearful Leaders are spending us into the dirt.
We the taxpayers are paying billions of dollars so teams can watch the reservoirs to prevent al Qa’eda from slipping in a hundred pounds of poison or so, and every day allowing Big Industry to dump tons of poison into the water.
The bit with BP is just icing on the cake. Easy to see and thus get people to care about… for a while. But don’t worry, they’ll pull another Tiger Woods out into the spotlight to distract us.
Bread and Circuses only they’re going to cut the bread off.
America’s been had more often than a $2 whore. And by whom? Our Leaders. Every al Qa’eda operative could disappear from the planet and they would still win.