Like Michael Myers, al Qaeda lives again!

Yes, despite killing al Qaeda’s leader and well nigh a decade of killing Number Two and Number Three leaders, this Christian Science Monitor reports that like Marvel’s Hydra, we have cut off a limb only to have two take its place! Terrorism experts say that “Those who have been claiming Al Qaeda has been defeated or is on its death bed either have bad analysis or have been dishonest with the American people”
Plus with all that democracy (and/or chaos) replacing police states, the new Al Qaeda is able to operate in more places. And contrary to what some experts who are not quoted say, the new Al Qaeda is not focused on the Middle East, it’s just as determined to attack the US as ever (according to experts who are not quoted).
My first thought is that if after a decade we haven’t wiped out this group, it indicates that not only our government policy but most of the people directing it are really bad at their jobs. Here were are launching drone strikes, backing up right-wing governments, occupying every country we can get our hands on and not leaving if we can help it (the Afghan government asked us to leave a while back. We didn’t. And our diplomatic presence in Iraq will be backed up by around 5,000 troops or private security forces). I’ve read articles over the years that say occupying foreign countries and blowing up teenagers and wedding parties breeds more terrorists than we can kill; maybe they were right.
Yet somehow, I don’t hear the Quoted Terrorism Experts calling on us to change tactics or ease up. In fact they’re warning us to keep up the pressure that’s been so effective in destroying—oh wait, it hasn’t worked, has it? Neither has supporting authoritarian governments that brutalize their own people (and yet people wonder why they hate us …)
And what exactly is a terrorist expert? Glenn Greenwald argues that it’s someone who makes a living and gets media attention giving terrorism advice, so if terrorism actually shut down, they’d be out of a job. One of the Quoted Terrorism Experts works for a foundation specifically created to fight the threat to “Israel, America and the West” according to its website. So yeah, if terrorism gets treated like a police matter, the way it should be, there goes that gig. Judging from the foundation board, it’s a bunch of very pro-war right wingers and authoritarians. The sort who might be very, very upset about Arab terrorism but not so much about US terrorism against other people. Like supporting death squads, using torture or killing innocent people with drone strikes.
And we have the implication that having tyrants run the Middle East is a Good Thing, as long as they’re pro-American tyrants (after all, we can count on long-term allies like Saddam Hussein … oh. Wait). Which is all too often our government’s solution—after all, we are the World’s Policeman.
And the bigger the threat goes, the more the use of extreme tactics will spread. Within a year of the first passage of the Patriot Act, prosecutors and police were using the tools that were supposedly reserved for fighting terrorism in perfectly ordinary criminal cases. And it’s still spreading. And the NSA doesn’t think Congress should get too nosy about stuff either. National security! Al Qaeda still a threat! Be afraid! Be very afraid!