Clark goes on to recount the Karzai government's dependence on warlords, the perils facing humanitarian workers in the country, the virtual stagnation of the economic development program, the inadequate levels of international economic assistance. And: "By mid-August Taliban and Al Qaeda forces had staged successful large-scale attacks against government, police, and military outposts."
And now, a few months later? Garance Franke-Ruta (Safety Numbers American Prospect online 03/24/04) gives us a current round-up:
"Some two-thirds of al-Qaeda's key leaders have been captured or killed. The rest of them hear us breathing down their neck," the president told Department of Homeland Security employees on March 2. But that may not be as important as it once was. There may have been a moment in time when if you cut off the head, the snake would die. According to al-Qaeda expert Peter Bergen, author of Holy War, Inc.: Inside the Secret World of Osama bin Laden, though, "If there was a time, it was Tora Bora," the pivotal battle in the 2001 Afghanistan war in which al-Qaeda's leadership slipped from America's grasp. But more than two years later, the group is a hydra-headed monster that has allied itself with local terrorist groups and militias around the world. "The train is long out of the station," says Bergen. "This isn't the Gambino crime family; it's an ideological movement."
And she provides a list of suspected al-Qaeda attacks, noting that "there were at least five major attacks linked to groups or individuals affiliated with al-Qaeda in the eight years before 9-11, and there have been at least 15 such attacks in the two and a half years since then."
I hope Kerry and the Democrats use the opportunity the elections present to drive home the need to focus on fighting terrorist threats to America and not grandiose imperial schemes to spread democracy in the Middle East with a series of Napoleanic wars.
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