Panetta Says Defeat of Al Qaeda 'Within Reach'

Hugh Pickens writes "Newly installed Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta, on an unannounced trip to Afghanistan, says the United States was "within reach of strategically defeating Al Qaeda" and that the American focus had narrowed to capturing or killing 10 to 20 crucial leaders of the terrorist group in Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen. Panetta, who rarely spoke on the record as CIA director, offered few details to bolster his assessment but intelligence officials say that computer files retrieved from Bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, showed that the organization was in dire need of money and struggling under persistent American drone strikes on its leadership."

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[hairyfeet]

"the Viet Cong has been defeated" and that "He can't get food and he can't recruit. He has been forced to change his strategy from trying to control the people on the coast to trying to survive in the mountains."....Gen Westmoreland before the Tet Offensive.

The problem is there really isn't any way to "win" against religious wackos short of wiping out the religion. We won WWII by basically wiping out the religions of our enemy, Nazism and by removing Shintoism as the dominant religion in Japan which was decreed by the state. Compare this to Islam, where they have been slaughtering each other for over 700 years over which of Muhammad's relatives should have led when he bought the farm. And I'm sure I'll get hate for pointing this out but as long as the moderates tolerate and give shelter and aid to the extremists there is NO "religion of peace" when it comes to Islam, as it is the tolerance of hatred and aid to killers that gives Islamist extremists their power.

So with all due respect to Panetta I don't see it happening, not as long as hatred is allowed to be taught in mosques and tolerated by the masses, as long as having a different belief system is not a protected right on Muslim soil, not as long as basic human rights are ignored. You simply can't make peace with a group the refuses to acknowledge your right to exist and that is what we have now with Islam.

Read the Hadiths, read what the Mullahs are preaching, for they make it quite clear: There shall be NO PEACE until Muhammad is acknowledged as the prophet and Sharia as the law of Allah upon the entire earth. This is in direct opposition to our western right to believe as you will and the protection of minorities under the law. Personally I believe it is only a matter of time before a terrorist gets the bomb (which they WILL use) and then the west will turn in mass against Islam and it will be total war as in WWII.