Are we caving to AQ threats?

[Tom Odom]

Here's how CBC is spinning it


Tom, while you are quite right that "closing" doesn't mean "evacuating", that distinction just isn't made by most of the civilian population outside of people who work with foreign affairs types. If you look at the first paragraph of the CBC story, the implication is that the US is running away because of a (failed) threat.

I've argued in other places that there is a serious difference in perception of what exactly constitutes the AO between Western and AQ perceptions and, to me at least, I think that this type of action will be spun by AQ and their fellow travellers both as a tactical victory and as continuing "proof" that the US is "weak".

All of which while true does not change the security aspects that take priority over what it looks like to AQ or the media...both of whom would indeed make IO hay if there was an attack against the mission(s) that actually suceeded.

Sometimes you have to make the call to put lives over image; in the longer term, if this results in a cleared deck for the mission, as in reduced staff, then all the better.

As for weakness, let the Predators do the talking...

Tom