David,
Good find, but my first reaction is this is just the theme from the movie Groundhog Day.
http://www.transparencynow.com/groundhog.htm
Is this Al-Qaeda 3.0 or 4.0, or does it really matter? It is clear our strategic approach to defeat Al-Qaeda by denying them safe haven in Afghanistan failed, and in some respects even backfired because it is draining our collective bank accounts and making us look impotent to no discernible end.And, once again, due to inclement weather, he is forced to spend the night. When he wakes up the next morning, it is the same day as yesterday and the day before, with the same oncoming snowstorm keeping him stuck in town and the same events repeating themselves like a broken record.
Based on the story you posted, some quick observations:
1. Al-Qaeda can't co-exist with us, it is against their core philosophy. The take away is Al-Qaeda continues to be at war with the West. We can't wish the threat away. They may claim they're acting in revenge of certain leaders being killed, but if that wasn't the case they would still attack for some other reason like they did on 9/11/01 (and several other attacks prior to that and our drone program).
2. Our current approach to defeating Al-Qaeda with large occupation efforts to deny safe haven doesn't work and it is too expensive to sustain. The use of drones to disrupt AQ is sustainable if it is done with more caution in the future. Al-Qaeda is wisely using the drone war as justification for a pending attack hoping we'll be pressured by public opinion to stop using drones. We can't afford to play into their hands again by removing one our more effective means to disrupt them. The fact is they will continue to attack us regardless of whether we cancel the drone strikes or not, and while it is uncomfortable with some, our drone strikes have probably saved countless lives in the West. I do agree that more effort must be made to prevent collateral damage, but that is a far step from cancelling the use of drones because it upsets our adversary. We can also use SOF to continue to kill or capture them.
3. We need to accept that this form of terrorism will have a long life span. We have demonstrated we don't know how to defeat them strategically (at least yet), so we need a sustainable approach working with our partners to continue to collect intelligence and disruption operations to protect our citizens.
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