AFGHANISTAN: Taliban Claims Responsibility for Blast
Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said in a statement that an Afghan National Army officer wearing a suicide vest entered the base and blew himself up inside the gym. A U.S. official who was briefed on Wednesday’s blast also said it took place in the gym.
COMMENT
I am coming to feel that we need to revise our understanding and suspend a military approach to the “war on terror”. What makes it a war is precisely that we are employing military means. The alternative is to reform our intelligence operations so they work. And to engage in joint missions with a clear invitation from the involved country.
Our stance needs to be that we do not seek military victories, we seek only to act with others to oppose specific hostile efforts. And reserve the right to attack preemptively when we are attacked and can pinpoint the launch sites.
The sad truth is that Sherlock Holmes-level intelligence, aka acumen, rather than overlapping bureaucracies, is the only thing that will prevent things like the latest near miss over Detroit. And the sadder truth is that if such an attack succeeds, we will face a crisis similar to that which followed 9/11.
Had Bush adopted the policy I advocate then, we might we through the worst of it by now. I think President Obama still has time to take this approach.
If the residual argument is that we need to aid the people and so forth, this should be done via the UN in cooperation with others.
