Greg Miller, of The Washington Post, reports that U.S. officials believe al-Qaeda on brink of collapse.
Largely because of bin Laden’s death, “we can even see the end of al-Qaeda as the global, borderless, united jihad,” said another U.S. official, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity. “What that doesn’t mean is an end to terrorists and people targeting the United States.”
Officials also point to the cumulative effect of CIA drone strikes in Pakistan. Missiles fired by the unmanned aircraft have killed at least 1,200 militants since 2004, including 224 this year, according to figures compiled by the New America Foundation.
Beyond bin Laden, “we have eliminated a number of generations of leaders,” said the senior U.S. counterterrorism official. “They have not had a successful operation in a long time. You at some point have to ask yourself, ‘What else do we have to do?’ ”
While these predator drone attacks have taken a heavy toll on Al Qaeda, they have also generated resentment among the Pakistani civilians, due to collateral damage, and from the Pakistani government over issues of sovereign control. Even though Pakistan is an ally, and a recipient of large amounts of US aid, many Pakistani's are ambivalent about this "assistance" from the US.
For example, some estimates indicate that as many as a half of Pakistan's intelligence officers have some sympathies for Al Qaeda.
One exception, to this latest optimistic assessment of this significant reduction of the treat of Al Qaeda, is the Al Qaeda group of Yeman, AQAP.
AQAP, as the Yemen-based group is known, has emerged as the most dangerous of those affiliates. The group is responsible for recent plots, including the attempted bombing of a Detroit-bound airliner in 2009 and the attempt to mail parcels packed with explosives to U.S. addresses last year.
The U.S. Joint Special Operations Command, the elite military unit that carried out the bin Laden raid, has led the pursuit of AQAP with Special Operations advisers working alongside Yemeni forces, and both piloted and drone aircraft patrolling from above.
The US is increasing out CIA's focus on Yemen, building a new secret base, to launch more predator drone attacks on the AQAP.
The great success of these precision predator strikes, combined with the success of our JSOC special forces killing of Osama bin Laden, and many other targets raises urgent questions about the need for large expensive standing armies, in Afghanistan, and other fronts.
Especially, given our domestic financial crisis, perhaps, it is time for a top to bottom review of the efficacy, of our extensive overseas deployments of troops. Not just in Afghanistan, and Iraq, but also our NATO expenses in Europe, and deployments in Japan, and South Korea.
Perhaps, it is time to declare World War II over.
We need to expand the approach of the surgically precise elite Joint Special Operations Command, and reduce outdated reliance on expensive conventional forces.
And, I heard a TV report this morning on MSNBC, that North Korea has proposed an end to the Korean War.
Surely, we can manage to squeeze $200 billion/year out of the military budget, as we complete the withdrawal from Iraq, accelerate the withdrawal from Afghanistan, and consider withdrawing substantial forces from Europe, Japan, and Korea.
How many grandmothers would you like to leave homeless, and without healthcare in order to protect Europe from a tank blitz from the U.S.S.R that doesn't even exist anymore! Many of the former east-bloc alliance, are not members of the European community, and trying to get into NATO.
It's time to bring out troops home, and deploy their talents on rebuilding our American infrastructure and economy.
The days of unlimited and perpetual expansion of US military deployments around the world should come to an end.
Not only can we not afford this, but it is no longer needs as our special forces, and modern technologies have proven that large deployments of traditional armies are no longer needed our best suited to our 21st century national security needs.