Leah Farrall knows much, much more than you about al-Qaeda

Like, way more. It's not even close. She reads extremist tracts. She emails with jihadi intellectuals and Taliban political philosophers. She's smarter than you.

That's why you should read her new piece in Foreign Affairs, entitled "How al Qaeda Works: What the Organization's Subsidiaries Say About Its Strength." (If you're not a subscriber, it's reprinted in full on Leah's excellent and sadly underpopulated blog.) Here's the gist:

Despite nearly a decade of war, al Qaeda is stronger today than when it carried out the 9/11 attacks. Before 2001, its history was checkered with mostly failed attempts to fulfill its most enduring goal: the unification of other militant Islamist groups under its strategic leadership. However, since fleeing Afghanistan to Pakistan’s tribal areas in late 2001, al Qaeda has founded a regional branch in the Arabian Peninsula and acquired franchises in Iraq and the Maghreb. Today, it has more members, greater geographic reach, and a level of ideological sophistication and influence it lacked ten years ago.

Still, most accounts of the progress of the war against al Qaeda contend that the organization is on the decline, pointing to its degraded capacity to carry out terrorist operations and depleted senior leadership as evidence that the group is at its weakest since 9/11. But such accounts treat the central al Qaeda organization separately from its subsidiaries and overlook its success in expanding its power and influence through them. These groups should not be ignored. All have attacked Western interests in their regions of operation. Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has also long targeted the United States, but its efforts have moved beyond the execution stage only in the last two years, most recently with the foiled plot to bomb cargo planes in October 2010. And although al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) has not yet attacked outside its region, al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) was reportedly involved in the June 2007 London and Glasgow bomb plots.

It is time for an updated conception of al Qaeda’s organization that takes into account its relationships with its subsidiaries. A broader conceptual framework will allow for a greater understanding of how and to what degree it exercises command and control over its expanded structure, the goals driving its expansion strategy, and its tactics.

American politicians, analysts, and commentators blithely assert a number of things about the "terrorist threat" to justify their preferred policy course, and it can be tough to know what's true. Our policy toward central and south Asia (and really, our national security "strategy" writ large, such as we can be said to have one) is defined almost wholly by just such a specious assertion: that the continuation of the war in Afghanistan will contribute to al-Qaeda's weakening and eventual destruction.

There are, of course, competing interpretations and analyses of al-Qaeda's branch/franchise structure (at least so far as I'm aware). But the one Leah offers here is compelling, and it should have a dramatic impact on the way we approach the "struggle against violent extremism." This is must-read stuff.

On counter-terror financing

If Abu Muqawama and Ink Spots didn't solidify it already, this ought to cement the Washington Irish as the go-to rugby club for defense and security analysis: teammate Bob Guido published a paper in SWJ yesterday that seems like just about the best resource I've seen lately on the subject of U.S. efforts to interdict al-Qaeda financing.

U.S. Efforts to Combat Terrorism Financing: Progress Made and Future Challenges

by Robert M. Guido

Download the Full Article (pdf): U.S. Efforts to Combat Terrorism Financing

The United States and the international community have made great strides against al Qaeda since September 11, and counter-terrorist financing policies will remain a vital component of future efforts. The successes in tightening and shoring up the international financial system in the post-September 11 era, however, cannot be taken for granted. Al Qaeda and its affiliates have shown remarkable resilience and an ability to structurally evolve to survive the best efforts of the international community. To maintain progress in squeezing al Qaeda’s finance, governments will need to continually adapt counter-terrorist financing policies to address the simpler but untraceable methods of moving cash and assets such as hawala, and work collaboratively to combat alternative methods of finance that capitalize on the ever-present and growing field of international criminal activity.

Check it out -- a great resource on an under-studied subject, with excellent sourcing for those who want to dig deeper. (And I'm not just saying this because Guido's a friend!)

Gingrich/bin Laden: your respective Civilizations aren't interested in your Clash

I've tried to avoid weighing in on this subject in any depth, simply because I get too outraged and find it nearly impossible to think, speak, or write clearly after that. But as you'll surely have heard, Newt Gingrich made a speech last week at the American Enterprise Institute entitled "America at Risk: Camus, National Security, and Afghanistan" (pdf). Take a look at it if you like, or just trust my summary: Gingrich thinks we're at war with Islam (or as he would draw the difference-less distinction, with "Islamism") and believes it's necessary to mobilize all of our national resources to combat the creeping destruction of our civilization. Sounds like someone else I know. William Saletan and Max Fisher do a great job of drawing out the parallels. Here's Saletan:

In the years since 9/11, Osama Bin Laden has issued more than 20 audio and video statements to spread his view of the conflict between the United States and al-Qaida. According to his worldview, the United States represents Christianity, al-Qaida represents Muslims, Christians won't protect Muslims, the West hates mosques, peaceful coexistence is a fraud, and the "war on terrorism" is really a war on Islam. By spreading this message, Bin Laden works to turn Muslims against the United States and rally them to al-Qaida.

Now Bin Laden has an ally in this propaganda campaign: Newt Gingrich.

Over the past two weeks, in a series of articles and speeches, Gingrich has declared a religious war that suits al-Qaida's agenda almost perfectly. While denouncing "Islamists" rather than Islam, Gingrich has blurred the distinction by selecting as his initial target the construction of a mosque near Ground Zero. Everything Bin Laden says about the United States, Gingrich validates.

He then presents a side-by-side comparison of bin Laden and Gingrich's thoughts on the subject of culture/civilizational war. The similarities are striking. Read it.

Max has more here on how Gingrich's speech fits into the broader picture of his own political ambitions and divisions within the GOP on security policy.

As I've said in the comments to this post, I think this issue is a vitally important one. I'm going to continue my policy of relative silence, though, because as I've said, I lose my mind when I start thinking about Newt effing Gingrich or the people opposing Muslim Day at Six Flags as the vanguard of a civilizational army fighting for ME. F that noise.

(And while we're on the subject, check out what Ex has to say about the mosque controversy. I think he's a little too focused on the Establishment Clause but completely agree on the broader sentiment.)

Paul Pillar wrote the essay I should've written six months ago

I never sat down and did it, and then it was December. By then I would've just looked like a bandwagoner, right? Oh well. Mine would have been an obnoxiously over-sourced 9,000-word jeremiad, totally lacking in the clarity and elegance of Pillar's piece. So go read his. Here's a taste:

It would be fruitless to search the contours of current international terrorism for a compelling explanation of why the United States is escalating a military campaign in Afghanistan. Clearly there is a disconnect between where war is being waged and where terrorism is rearing its ugly head. The appropriate response is not to run off, guns blazing, to find new battlefields, be they in Yemen or anywhere else. The U.S. military, pressing the limits of sustainability and winding up one war while slowly winding down another, does not have the resources to open a new front in every territory that may become associated with terrorism. There is no shortage of such places.

Regardless of the available resources, it is a mistake to think of counterterrorism primarily, as Americans have become wont to do, as the application of military force to particular pieces of real estate. This pattern of thinking is rooted in a history in which the vanquishing of threats to U.S. security has consisted chiefly of armed expeditions to conquer or liberate foreign territory. The pattern has been exacerbated by the unfortunate “war on terror” terminology, which confuses and conflates the seriousness of, the nature of and the means used to counter the threat.

The strength of a terrorist adversary, al-Qaeda or any other, does not correlate with control of a piece of territory in Afghanistan or elsewhere. If a terrorist group has a physical safe haven available, it will use it. But of all the assets that make a group a threat—including ideological appeal and a supply of already-radicalized recruits—occupation of acreage is one of the least important. Past terrorist attacks, including 9/11 (most of the preparations for which took place in scattered locations in the West), demonstrate this.

Also, if you're interested, John Nagl disagrees. (Or as Josh Foust put it, Nagl says we're at war because the President says we're at war. Or something like that.)

A couple more things on al-Qaeda

I wanted to highlight two more recent publications related to the theme I discussed in yesterday's post; really they're suited to go in that one -- I can't believe I didn't think to include them -- but I figured no one would notice if I just updated.

First is Steve Coll's brief Talk of the Town piece for last week's New Yorker, "Threats":

The attempted Christmas attack also put Al Qaeda’s resourcefulness on full display. In its third decade, under severe pressure, it has evolved into a jihadi version of an Internet-enabled direct-marketing corporation structured like Mary Kay, but with martyrdom in place of pink Cadillacs. Al Qaeda shifts shapes and seizes opportunities, characteristics that argue for its longevity. It will be able to wreak havoc periodically for as long as it can recruit suicide bombers and well-educated talent, as it has done consistently.

Yet Al Qaeda is also weakening. Osama bin Laden sought to lead the vanguard of a spreading revolution. Instead, he and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, are hunkered down, presumably along the Afghan-Pakistani border, surrounded by only about two hundred hard-core followers. Their adherents in Yemen and Africa number no more than a few thousand. Al Qaeda in Iraq is a tiny fragment of its former self. Bin Laden’s relations with the Taliban seem brittle. Unlike Hezbollah, Al Qaeda provides no social services and thus has built no political movement. Unlike Hamas, its bloody nihilism has attracted no states that are willing to defend its legitimacy. In a world of at least one and a half billion Muslims, this does not a revolution, or even a vanguard, make.

Next is Thomas Rid's most recent article for The Wilson Quarterly, "Cracks in the Jihad." This is a much more well-developed essay than Coll's, as you might imagine from the different format, and it expands on the same themes referenced in the passage I've cited above. Here's a highlight:

In the years since late 2001, when U.S. and coalition forces toppled the Taliban regime and all but destroyed Al Qaeda’s core organization in Afghan­istan, the bin Laden brand has been bleeding popularity across the Muslim world. The global jihad, as a result, has been torn by mounting internal tensions. Today, the holy war is set to slip into three distinct ideological and organizational niches. The U.S. surge in Afghanistan, whether successful or not, is likely to affect this development only marginally.

The first niche is occupied by local Islamist insurgencies, fueled by grievances against “apostate” regimes that are authoritarian, corrupt, or backed by “infidel” outside powers (or any combination of the three). Filling the second niche is terrorism-cum–organized crime, most visible in Afghanistan and Indonesia but also seen in Europe, fueled by narcotics, extortion, and other ordinary illicit activities. In the final niche are people who barely qualify as a group: young second- and third-generation Muslims in the diaspora who are engaged in a more amateurish but persistent holy war, fueled by their own complex personal discontents. Al Qaeda’s challenge is to encompass the jihadis who drift to the criminal and eccentric fringe while keeping alive its appeal to the Muslim mainstream and a rhetoric of high aspiration and promise.

The most visible divide separates the local and global jihadis. Historically, Islamist groups tended to bud locally, and assumed a global outlook only later, if they did so at all. All the groups that have been affiliated with Al Qaeda either predate the birth of the global jihad in the early 1990s or grew later out of local causes and concerns, only subsequently attaching the bin Laden logo. Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, for example, started out in 1998 as the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, an offshoot of another militant group that had roots in Algeria’s vicious civil war during the early 1990s. Pakistan’s Lashkar-e-Taiba, the force allegedly behind the 2008 attacks in Mumbai, India, that killed more than 170 people, was formed in the 1990s to fight for a united Kashmir under Pakistani rule. In Somalia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and other countries, the Al Qaeda brand has been attractive to groups born out of local concerns.

By joining Al Qaeda and stepping up violence, local insurgents have long risked placing themselves on the target lists of governments and law enforcement organizations. More recently, however, they have run what may be an even more consequential risk, that of removing themselves from the social mainstream and losing popular support...

Rid explores the local/global split and briefly touches on takfir (there's really a LOT in common with Bobby's thesis that I mentioned yesterday); this obviously overlaps significantly with the ideas I sort of inelegantly explored in the post about Yemen, too.

So in short, go read!

Franchise vs. conglomerate, strategy vs. ideology, IO vs. material gain

While this Yemen thing is at the top of the news, I think it's worth taking a look at a couple of different things on the subject of al-Qaeda's organization, direction, and strategy. A lot of people are working on the question of how meaningful the links are between AQ Central and its affiliates; I don't have anything to offer on this, but I'd direct you towards a couple of posts from Josh McLaughlin at al-Sahwa:

Al Qaeda: Franchise or Conglomerate?, 10 January

A Follow-up to "Al Qaeda: Franchise or Conglomerate?" Comments, 11 January

Also worth checking out another al-Sahwa post, this one from DP: AQAP & A Central Question We Must Ask, 08 January.

All in all, al-Sahwa is doing really great stuff on this subject, so check them out.

I also want to direct your attention to something else that I've previously linked to in passing: a friend's Masters thesis on the question of how well AQ and Associated Movements' actions harmonize with their stated strategic goals, and on the importance of ideology within the operational construct of what he calls the Global Jihadist Movement.

To Kill or Not to Kill - The Global Jihadist Movement and the Doctrine of Takfir, Robert A. Williams, University of St Andrews

Here's the abstract:

Since 9/11, many within Western defense and counterterrorism communities have approached al-Qaeda simply as an operational problem with only scant attention paid to the ideology behind their operations. This study intends to partially remedy this deficiency by analyzing how a portion of jihadist ideology—the doctrine of takfir—has been interpreted and implemented organizationally and strategically by the post 9/11 Global Jihadist Movement (GJM). Drawing on the theory of Netwar, this study examines the historical and contemporary jihadist narratives of takfir, the place of takfir in the organizational strategies laid out by GJM strategists, and the implementation of takfir by a GJM-affiliated group, al-Qaeda in Iraq. From this analysis it is concluded that disagreements within the GJM over the definition and implementation of takfir are emblematic of greater fissures within the movement at large.

Like I said, Bobby's a friend of mine, but this is really outstanding and ground-breaking work. He got some great feedback from Dave Kilcullen, who has really been responsible for popularizing the "takfiri" concept in the West. I know it's a bit long for train reading, probably (59 pages), but you should check it out.

Yemen's accidental guerillas?

I've noticed a trend in the Yemen stories lately: there's almost always mention of someone -- putatively anti-extremist, often associated with the government or other traditional power structures -- saying that all of this trouble could be spared if we'd just let them bring the bad guys in peacefully, just have a chat with them and get them to stand down. Here are a couple of examples, first from an article entitled "Yemen's President Says Government is Willing to Talk to Disarmed Qaeda Fighters" from Monday's New York Times:

In the interview with Abu Dhabi TV, [Yemeni president Ali Abdullah] Saleh, 67, vowed that his security services would hunt down those Qaeda members who refused to renounce violence. But “dialogue is the best way,” he insisted, “even with Al Qaeda, if they set aside their weapons and return to reason.” He said that Yemen is “ready to reach understanding with anyone who renounces violence and terrorism.”

While apparently anodyne, Mr. Saleh’s comments were viewed with some skepticism by Western diplomats here. He has run Yemen for more than 30 years, and he has remained in power by balancing tribal, religious and political powers and often buying their loyalty — and that includes radical Islamic leaders as well as Al Qaeda.

The United States has complained that Yemen struck deals in the past with Qaeda followers and released them from prison for promises of peace, while some have returned to terrorism or later traveled to Iraq to fight against American forces. A large group involved in Al Qaeda’s attack on the American Navy destroyer Cole in 2000 escaped from a high-security prison in February 2006, reportedly with help from the security services. Two of them who evaded later government raids against the group have become key figures of Al Qaeda, including its leader here, Nasser al-Wuhayshi.

And another mention in an article today about the killing of a suspected al-Qaeda fighter in a raid by Yemeni security forces:

In a sign of the sensitivities such operations raise, the tribal chief of the Maysaa area complained about the raid, insisting that Mihzar and the others were not "active members" of al-Qaida. He warned that the use of force in tribal regions could spark a backlash.

"They were young men who went astray but I don't think they were really members of al-Qaida," Sheik Atiq Baadha told The Associated Press. "The authorities should have contacted the families and local leaders so we could hand them over. ... We're ready to talk to the government about this."

"If things continue like this, other tribes might become sympathetic with these people" against the government, he said of the raid.

We've gotten accustomed to talk like this in Afghanistan and Iraq, understanding that victory in counterinsurgency campaigns will almost always involve convincing a significant portion of the bad guys that continued resistance is a bad idea, and that they should integrate into mainstream society. But what about when we're talking about al-Qaeda? What about the one group that we all unashamedly and unequivocally call "terrorists," that we tend to identify as America's number one enemy right now? Can we talk to those guys? Can we bring them in?

This is where things start to get sticky, and why I think it's so important to be precise in the way we use language (particularly words like "terrorist"). No one is interested in dialogue with Osama bin Laden, that much is clear, and we're probably not going to have a conversation with anyone associated with "AQ Central." But what about these Yemeni guys, who -- if they were in Afghanistan or Pakistan -- would probably be considered Taliban rather than al-Qaeda? Who are most likely the sort of "accidental guerillas" that are attracted to the cause by myriad material grievances (perhaps with a little religious fundamentalism mixed in) rather than the animating spirit of Wahhabism and rejection of the modern global power structure? It's probably worth considering, as the tribal leader in the second article suggests, the impact of our actions on the appeal of al-Qaeda to an even larger segment of the population in Yemen and elsewhere.

The first article brings up a good point, too: the political leadership in many of the places from which al-Qaeda threats could emanate will often have risen to and maintained power through their ability to balance threats and concessions among a wide range of interest groups, including violent ones and those with which the U.S. will have no truck. If we're to base our foreign and security policies on a construct in which foreign governments are held responsible for securing their own territory, political maneuvering of this sort is often going to be essential. Can we hold it against a Yemeni president, for example, if he wants to negotiate? Can we draw a red line and say "no talks with anyone who calls themselves al-Qaeda," even if it advances our aims?

I guess the question is this: where do you draw the line between reconcilable and irreconcilable, or rather between those who we would be willing to reconcile and those who we're only interested in killing or imprisoning?

Sorry for all the question marks, but I don't have this one close to figured out.

"Somalia for Yemen is becoming like what Pakistan is for Afghanistan"

This according to Saeed Obaid, a "Yemeni terrorism expert who wrote a book on al-Qaeda's Yemen affiliate," quoted in Sudarsan Raghavan's piece in today's Washington Post.

Thousands of Somali boys and teenagers fleeing war and chaos at home are sailing to Yemen, where officials who have long welcomed Somali refugees now worry that the new arrivals could become the next generation of al-Qaeda fighters.

As the United States deepens its counterterrorism operations in Yemen, officials are concerned that extremists could find growing Somali refugee camps fertile ground for recruiting. U.S. and Yemeni authorities also fear that Islamist fighters from Somalia could slip into the country among the throngs of refugees, deepening ties between al-Qaeda leaders in Yemen and the particularly hard-line militants of Somalia.

Fleeing a failed state for a failing one, the Somali youths arrive daily in this refugee outpost, which is filled with rickety tents and tales of misery, in the vast desert of southern Yemen. They bring stories of brutality and forced conscription by al-Shabab, an Islamist force battling Somalia's U.S.-backed transitional government.

Considering the national media's Yemen-gasm over the last couple of weeks, I suppose it's about time we linked to something on the subject. Here's a start.

Stupid question, unbelievable answer

Have you ever heard of a media interview with a public official being embargoed until after the announcement of some major policy decision? Me neither, but that's apparently what happened after Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Trudy Rubin spent two hours with GEN McChrystal last month.

Our interview was off the record, because President Obama hadn't yet laid out his Afghan strategy.

But now that the strategy is unveiled, and McChrystal has testified before Congress, I'm free to use some of the conversation.

Uh, ok. Anyway, the part that's interesting is what COMISAF actually said:

What will happen if we don't try to stabilize Afghanistan, I ask? His sober answer: "Civil war that kills . . . one million? No side can win. Al-Qaeda will come back. If Afghanistan implodes, I'm not sure Pakistan would survive."

Why in the hell would you ask what will happen "if we don't try"? Who gives a damn about trying?? Have you considered the possibility that we may try and still fail, and that precisely the same conditions will obtain afterwards, only we'll have wasted $100 billion and 1,000 or so American lives? Is trying going to prevent civil war, or the return of al-Qaeda, or the much-feared collapse of Pakistan?

The phrasing of the question is telling, really -- it's revelatory of the way that we tend to think about asymmetric wars, about conflicts with seemingly disorganized armed bands in what we like to think of as backwater countries: we couldn't possibly lose if we're just trying hard enough.

Maybe I'm making too much out of this. And I haven't even really addressed GEN McChrystal's scaremongering. (Why would al-Qaeda return when the absolute best-case scenario they could hope for in Afghanistan is to replicate the conditions that presently exist in Pakistan?) But really, shouldn't we be asking the question "what is going to happen if we can't achieve our objectives?", rather than "what happens if we don't try?" And then, better yet: how much can we hope to accomplish even if we are trying?

Yemen: Operation Scorched Earth failing to scorch earth, defeat insurgents

Not many people noticed, but the Saudi air force blew up 40-odd Houthi rebels inside Yemen last week. Now Sana'a is telling everyone to mind their own business (and the Iranians agree).

Yemen told outside powers Wednesday to stay out of its battle with a Shiite rebel group in its northwest amid concerns that Iran and Saudi Arabia are being drawn into the conflict.

The statement, carried by the state news agency Saba and attributed to a Foreign Ministry source, followed a statement of concern for Yemen's "national unity and territorial integrity" by Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki on Tuesday.

"We welcome what Mottaki affirmed about Iran's position towards Yemen's unity and stability, and Yemen reaffirms that it definitely rejects the interference in its internal affairs by any party," the statement said. It said Yemen's battle with the Houthi, a Shiite Muslim rebel movement, is "an internal Yemeni affair, and Yemen can solve its issues without any interference from others."

Here's the basic story: Yemen was ruled for a millennium by adherents of the Zaydi sect of Shi'a Islam. A 1962 revolution changed that, and the government has been Sunni-majority -- and according to some, anti-Shi'a -- ever since. (Greater Yemen would not be united as one country until 1990: South Yemen remained an independent, Soviet-aligned state from the time of the British departure from the region through the remainder of the Cold War.)

When civil war broke out in 1994, the northern government was aided by Saudi Wahhabis in its efforts to quell the southern rebellion. Yemeni Zaydis accuse Sana'a of snuggling up too closely to the Wahhabis as a result, which is a problem for them for pretty obvious reasons. Since then, a succession of Zaydi religious and political leaders have railed against alleged anti-Shi'a discrimination by the government. This resentment boiled over into insurgency in 2004, when Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi -- leader of the Zaydis, hence the "Houthi insurgency" -- mobilized an armed group called Shabab al-Mumineen. He got got later that year, but his brothers have picked up the banner.

Now as you might imagine, there are outside players that have an interest in how this whole thing turns out. Yemen is a U.S. ally, however weak, and we're dependent upon that government to secure its own territory, aid in the fight against global terrorism, etc etc. (The more you learn about the specifics of the Yemeni situation, obviously, the less sensible it seems to consider insurgency and civil strife there as just another manifestation of some kind of global jihad. Not that any sensible people still look at the world that way anyway, but I digress...) The Saudis support the Yemeni government against the rebels for the same reason they're uncomfortable with Shi'a sectarians and revivalist movements in other neighboring countries: the monarchy fears anything that may inflame its own Shi'a minority and destabilize the Kingdom. And then there's Iran (and allegedly Hizballah, maybe?), which is thought to provide some support to its Shi'a co-religionists.

So now you've got a sort of surprising turn of events: Sana'a is getting bent out of shape at the Saudis, who support the Yemeni government, for going vigilante on the Houthis -- that is, for killing their shared enemy. But there's the whole sovereignty and territorial integrity thing, and it's bad PR for the world to see that Yemen is incapable of handling its own business. Ironically, in the long term the Saudi military might be negatively impacting the Yemeni government's ability to maintain whatever scraps of legitimacy it still holds on to and thus to effectively deal with its own insurgency. (Sound familiar, Pakistan watchers?)

Of course you've probably already picked up on the biggest irony of all of this, as far as U.S. policy goes: we support the Yemeni government, which in the past has received support from Saudi Wahhabis, in its efforts to quell a Shi'a insurgency (aligned with Iran and perhaps Hizballah) and secure its territory against al-Qaeda and other transnational terrorists... who are fundamentalist Sunnis (and sometimes maybe even Wahhabis).

If you're not with us, you're against us!

Oh yeah, and then there's this (since we're supposedly a COIN blog and all):

"This gets played off as Sunni-Shia, and it's wrong," says Hiltermann of ICG. "The Shia of Yemen are more Sunni than any other Shia in the world. And the Sunni of Yemen are more Shia than any Sunni in the world."

Despite some boilerplate anti-Western and anti-Israeli statements, the Houthis "don't have any serious ideology or set of grievances, for that matter," argues Hiltermann.

"It was just a few angry guys who in 2004 stepped out of the political process and started a little rebellion."

But the government response has aggravated matters. "Due to the heavyhanded techniques of the government, over time, this has grown into an entirely different thing," he adds. "Now the population has been bombed into a major grievance. Their houses are gone and they have no compensation, so now you have a real conflict."

But none of this is our problem, right? Proxy war in the Arabian Peninsula always goes down smooth!

Yes, Geoff, it's a serious question

This exchange took place during Geoff Morrell's press briefing yesterday. (You've got to sort of fight through the garbled question, but you get the idea.)

Q As far as Afghanistan war is concerned, many, many think tanks are having discussions and also assessments, are bringing high-class experts, including Wesley Clark and others. What they are saying is that including President Obama and secretary of State and secretary of Defense -- that at peak of -- center of terrorism is not Afghanistan or enemies are not Afghanistan but in Pakistan. But why the war is going on in Afghanistan?

MR. MORRELL: Well, this, I mean -- I mean, are you serious? Is this a serious question?

Q That's what they are saying -- really, why they are fighting the war --

MR. MORRELL: We're fighting in Afghanistan because we were attacked from Afghanistan on 9/11. I'm not going to go re-litigate the history of why we're in Afghanistan at this hour.

Well maybe you ought to, dude.

Obviously we all understand why the war isn't happening in Pakistan: that country has a government that is capable of preventing us from operating on its territory (or that would, at the very least, object to something like that). Afghanistan does not. So terrorist safe-havens and ungoverned territory and blah blah blah. But the fact of the matter remains that those who are responsible for the 9/11 attacks are IN PAKISTAN. Al-Qaeda is currently based IN PAKISTAN. The major threat to South Asian regional stability is IN PAKISTAN.

Can we stop dealing in facile cliches like "we're fighting in Afghanistan because we were attacked from there"? Yeah, we were attacked from there, so we fought there. In 2001-2002. And then the guys who attacked us weren't there anymore. So why are we still fighting there?

There are good answers to this question. There are even good twenty-second answers that can be given in a press conference. Maybe try this one on for size: "As the President made clear during his speech back in March, our goal is to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and to prevent their return. Abandoning Afghanistan to the Taliban, who lest we forget were the state sponsors of the same al-Qaeda terrorists who killed 3,000 Americans just eight years ago, would allow terrorist organizations the freedom of movement and material resources they require to strike at Americans around the world. We're not going to permit that to happen."

Seriously, I don't even buy this and I came up with it in about ten seconds. So maybe stop being so effing glib and acknowledge that not everyone is quite so willing to accept your first principles and Ethical Appeal.* I know you can't be laying all this out every single day, but it's a well-intentioned question and it deserves a serious answer. Yes, mouthpiece of the Defense Department, it is possible for someone to be seriously curious about why we're fighting a war in a separate country from our main enemy.

*(To better make sense of this little bit of rhetorical cunning, see David Foster Wallace: "What the Ethical Appeal amounts to is a complex and sophisticated 'Trust me.' It's the boldest, most ambitious, and also most distinctively American of rhetorical Appeals, because it requires the rhetor to convince us not just of his intellectual acuity or technical competence but of his basic decency and fairness and sensitivity to the audience's own hopes and fears." And dude, consider this: maybe we're not so convinced of all that when it comes to our government.)

This is exactly why a light footprint counterterror campaign will never work in Afghanistan!

Stand-off CT missions lack necessary intelligence. We can't get to targets in time. We'll never tell friend from foe. The bad guys will never show their faces if they're allowed to live in places controlled by sympathetic regimes or factions. Al-Qaeda is too capable and dangerous to try to fight from the other side of the globe. Large troop commitments are necessary to sustain the logistics and support operations that accompany counterterrorist trigger-pullers. Like so:

American commandos killed one of the most wanted Islamic militants in Africa in a daylight raid in southern Somalia on Monday, according to American and Somali officials, an indication of the Obama administration’s willingness to use combat troops strategically against Al Qaeda’s growing influence in the region.

Western intelligence agents have described the militant, Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, as the ringleader of a Qaeda cell in Kenya responsible for the bombing of an Israeli hotel on the Kenyan coast in 2002. Mr. Nabhan may have also played a role in the attacks on two American embassies in East Africa in 1998.

American military forces have been hunting him for years, and on Monday, around 1 p.m., villagers near the town of Baraawe said four military helicopters suddenly materialized over the horizon and shot at two trucks rumbling through the desert. The trucks were carrying leaders of the Shabab, an Islamist extremist group fighting to overthrow Somalia’s weak but internationally recognized government. The Shabab work hand-in-hand with foreign terrorists, according to Western and Somali agents, and in the past few months, as the battle for control of Somalia has intensified, the group seems to be drawing increasingly close to Al Qaeda.

American officials on Monday provided few details, but confirmed that Special Operations forces, operating from a nearby American warship, participated in the helicopter raid.

Whoops. Turns out all that stuff I said up there was wrong, and this is an example of exactly how the light footprint can be done.

Ok, ok, I'm being smarmy and I'm not really engaging substantively in this debate. I get it. And just because you can do it in one place doesn't mean you can do it -- or that it's the best way to do it -- in another place. The Afghanistan-Pakistan frontier is less accessible to offshore assets. There are more targets there. Surveillance is probably more difficult than in the desert of Somalia. I get all of this.

But please, please, can we stop dealing in self-assured assertions like "remote, kinetic counterterrorism would never work in South Asia"? Killing one guy ain't the same as winning the war, I know. But until we (all of us that are involved in this debate, I mean) stop taking everything so personally and clutching on to our beliefs like baby birds, stop refusing to accept anything that doesn't fit into our construct, stop labeling people as "gets it" or "doesn't get it," it's going to be really difficult to make any progress.