Al-Qaeda, Obama, and MADD

Major Mike

To A Hipper Al-Qaeda (HT Brit Hume)

This one almost slipped through. While somewhat anecdotal, this little piece about Al-Qaeda recruiting woes, may make the case for “stay the course.” After five years of delivering a wave of homicidal human bombs, it seems the luster may be wearing off of suicidal detonation specifically, and the Jihadi movement in general. Bouchaib Silm writes about bin Laden's diminishing pull amongst potential self-exploders…

"The young of today will not listen to him," he said. "They will get bored. So the recruiters need something new to attract them."

It is quite possible that the Jihadi movement is on the verge of being spent. They started with limited resources, and our constant pressure across the globe, and their choice to engage us directly in Iraq may be having its effects on the movement. There is nothing attractive in the long term, about your impending death, and when combined with no real measurable success around the globe for AQ in nearly five years, it is likely we are at a tipping point with AQ. Our intelligence agencies need to press this angle hard to get a realistic assessment as to where the war is heading for AQ.

For the MSM…don’t pooh-pooh this story…this is an exact measurement you would use to measure our morale and effectiveness. This is important…let’s run this to ground a bit more.

Obama Desimus Meridius

Great piece here on renowned strategic mind Barack Obama laying out our exit strategy for Iraq. I guess his extensive experience in Chicago politics and four years in the Senate make him a strategic savant. I am sure his rhetoric about being privy to classified briefings will mollify the MSM, and it may be enough to get him some early attention as a Presidential candidate, and it will surely impress the Hillary VP search committee, but I doubt it will impress those knowledgeable about such matters.

Asymmetrical war is a difficult conundrum for even our brightest military and strategic thinkers to crack, so it pains me to hear someone with all of the military and strategic experience of a walnut, blather on about his “strategic" plan. Get some experience, then get a “strategic plan.”

MADD To Get Your Rights

Hugh Hewitt did an excellent job yesterday of stirring the pot on the in-car breathalyzer technology that MADD is embracing, which holds promise for reducing injuries and fatalities caused by drunk drivers.

I think it is fair to say that MADDs motives are fairly altruistic, but at what cost to individual liberties? Yes, reducing highway deaths by a number in the thousands, is a compelling reason to allow additional governmental intrusion into our lives, but isn’t preventing the next terror strike against the US also compelling?

It seems a natural for this issue to move to the front of the liberal agenda, in an effort to garner the hardcore MADD crowd vote, and to try to motivate casual sympathizers to the cause. But, why is it then that liberals are sympathetic to giving up a significant stake in our Constitutional liberties to domestic do-gooders, but go out of their way to protect the “liberties” of non-citizens, and those who are a direct threat to the Constitution? They don’t want the government in their bedrooms, but welcome them in our cars without direct cause.

I am all for these devices for convicted DUI artists, but DO NOT make a move to threaten my civil liberties at the very same time you are going out of your way to hamstring the government in its efforts to protect me in its fight against terror.