The Exquisite Contrarian

Drones are effective. Should we be centering our strategy around them?  Are we already?

Relentless attacks against al-Qaeda in the Pakistan tribal region appear to have driven Osama bin Laden and other top leaders deeper into hiding, leaving the organization rudderless and less capable of planning sophisticated operations, CIA Director Leon Panetta said Wednesday. More at Al-Qaeda crippled as leaders stay in hiding, CIA chief says – washingtonpost.com.

Apparently OBL’s used wording in his most recent tape that implies an imminent attack.  Not sure if this is why the UK alert level has been raised, but definitely hit the radars of most western nations.  Here’s more from The Telegraph.

Osama bin Laden purportedly claimed responsibility for the attempt to bomb a Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas in a new audio message released Sunday threatening more attacks on the United States. Scared?

We’re still asking questions about what went on at Gitmo, and that’s never the wrong thing to do.  However, make no mistake, its inhabitants were brought there as suspected mass murderers. Now we’re hearing there was another site that’s been kept under wraps.  More on the previously undisclosed location and the suicides of 2006 in [...]

Al-Qaeda has successfully restructured its global network and now has the capability to carry out a wide range of terror attacks against Western targets, according to a detailed U.S. intelligence assessment that has been conducted in the wake of the failed Christmas Day Detroit bomb plot. Here’s the full story.

‘Among other things, writes professor Hoffman, Al Qaeda “seeks to flood our already information-overloaded national intelligence systems with myriad threats and background noise … has stepped up a strategy of economic warfare … is still trying to create divisions within the global alliance arrayed against it by targeting key coalition partners … is aggressively seeking [...]