The terrorists had a 15 year start starting in Iranian backed lHezbollah and PLO soviet fukkery in the 80s Makes sense it took another 20 to change the tone on that
U.S. Drone Strike Said to Have Killed Ayman al-Zawahri, Top Qaeda Leader
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It’s like when ppl say we lost the Afghanistan war. How? It’s basically iraq at this point. We can topple the conventional force easily. Unless you mean converting everyone to Christianity then… says a lot when the entire security infrastructure relied on mere pictures of American soldiers to keep most of the bullshyt in line.
That's a detailed, fact-based analysis. You want to tell me what's factually wrong or is this entire thread just going to be more logical fallacies?
Anything I shared leftist would be automatically rejected, so I'm sharing from a source that clearly rejects pacifism and yet comes to the same objective conclusions. CATO is the center-right source with the greatest integrity, I've said numerous times in the past that while I don't agree with their presumptions at all, they're still straight shooters who are committed to maintaining integrity in their analyses. It's hypocritical as fukk that posters like @Pressure are co-signing a Trump supporter here in @ill as he shows complete ignorance about the details of the conflicts and ignorant, racist positions about Muslims, but if I quote a center-right source employing authorities on the subject who are giving clear-headed analysis, I'm in the wrong?
Dr. Thrall's most recent book is US Grand Strategy in the 21st Century: The Case For Restraint, an argument for why we should reduce defense spending and shrink the military. Portraying him as a right-wing idealogue would be complete nonsense.
If you prefer Brookings, arguably the most influential "liberal" think tank in America, here's Dr. William Galston saying that the War on Terror has led to national decline. Of course it's a far less detailed, fact-based analysis, but that apparently doesn't matter here?
How America's response to 9/11 contributed to our national decline | Brookings
In his long war against America, Osama bin Laden has won a sweeping if posthumous victory. The U.S. reaction to the 9/11 attack he masterminded is like the cytokine storm that can occur when COVID-19 attacks us: the defensive measures our bodies mount go too far and damage the vital organs our...
www.brookings.edu
In his long war against America, Osama bin Laden has won a sweeping if posthumous victory. The U.S. reaction to the 9/11 attack he masterminded is like the cytokine storm that can occur when COVID-19 attacks us: the defensive measures our bodies mount go too far and damage the vital organs our antibodies were meant to protect. The 9/11 era began in Afghanistan, and now it has ended there, in humiliating defeat.
The United States is weaker, more divided, and less respected than it was two decades ago, and we have surrendered the unchallenged preeminence we then enjoyed. Although our response to 9/11 is not solely responsible for these negative developments, it has certainly contributed to them.
How about Dr. Rashmi Singh, now Co-Director at the Collaborative Research Network on Terrorism, Radicalisation and Organised Crime, writing at the time for the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Response to Terrorism, explicitly on how to objectively measure success in the war on terror?
Assessing Success and Failure in Terrorism and Counterterrorism: Development of Metrics on the Global War on Terror and the Global Jihad | START.umd.edu
This project sought to generate non-partisan, objective metrics to assess success and failure in the Global War on Terror (GWoT) / Global Jihad for both sides in the conflict from 2001- 2009, through the:
PROJECT DETAILS
Abstract:This project sought to generate non-partisan, objective metrics to assess success and failure in the Global War on Terror (GWoT) / Global Jihad for both sides in the conflict from 2001- 2009, through the:
(1) Creation of an index based on objective indicators regarding the success of the Global War on Terror, and the related Global Jihad, that allows for an assessment of these efforts both from the perspective of the U.S. government, and from the perspective of the jihadists. The index includes information on scope, nature, and frequency of al Qaeda attacks, breadth of the al Qaeda network, and costs (in a range of measures) of efforts on both sides of this conflict;
(2) Compilation of annual data from 2001-2009 on composite measures reflected in the index to allow for analysis of successes and failures over time in this endeavor.
Primary Findings:
The project used both 'hard' and 'soft' indicators of success and failure. Select findings from the project include:
1. The US government's nascent metrics of success and failure in the GWoT reflected its expanding foreign policy interests. Overall, not only did the US not achieve outright success by its own measures, but in constructing an exceptional AQ it arguably empowered its enemy.
2. AQ's assessments of success and failure incorporated both practical and communicative metrics. Arguably the group's rhetoric has successfully contributed to a sense of threat and the discourse of a clash of civilizations, which belies their failure on the ground.
3. The Arab and Western media reflect different ideas about the causes of the conflict and contrasting notions of success and failure. For the Western press, America's military project has led to a degradation of U.S. power and standing in the world; and has betrayed those standards it wished to import to other countries. The Arab press perceived failure in the misdirection of power: America is losing because it prioritized a military response over working for social and political change, and by asserting its hegemony through military might.
4. Western and Arab publics hold negative views of AQ's/ United States' performance in the GWoT. Key drivers of anti-American sentiment among Western publics seem to be the US tendency towards unilateralism in the conduct of its foreign policy under the Bush administration and human rights violations. Non-Western publics view US anti-terrorism efforts as an over-reaction, an attempt to undermine Islam, exert hegemony over large parts of the Islamic world and support aspects of the Al Qaeda agenda.
Or here is a paper published by Dr. Goepner in Parameters, the academic journal of the Army War College, when he was just a professor at George Mason. Does that count?
Measuring the Effectiveness of America’s War on Terror
Abstract: America’s efforts in the war on terror have been substantial and sustained, with more than four trillion dollars spent, two and a half million military members sent into harm’s way, and nearly 7,000 service members losing their lives over the past 15 years. To date, however, few studies have sought to measure the effectiveness of those efforts. This study empirically assesses the extent to which US efforts in the war on terror have achieved the government’s objectives and concludes those endeavors have been largely ineffective.
Maybe we need to hear from Kanwal Sibal, who served in the Indian Foreign Service for 40 years including as Foreign Secretary of India when the War on Terror started:
The striking failure of the US war on terror
Kanwal Sibal writes: The gap between its stated objectives and the actual outcome is clear in the rise of terrorism and religious extremism in West Asia, Africa and South Asia.
indianexpress.com
Measured by its stated objectives and international consequences, the global war on terror has failed strikingly. Bin Laden’s elimination might have provided a trophy to display, but Islamist terrorism and religious extremism got a tremendous boost with the rise of the Islamic State in parts of Iraq and Syria, and after its elimination, the pronounced spread in Africa of extremist movements affiliated with the al Qaeda and the Islamic State. Islamist terrorism has viciously struck Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, and has targeted Southeast Asia. Europe has suffered dramatic terrorist attacks and an influx of refugees, with political and social consequences marked by the rise of anti-Islamic sentiment and right-wing nationalist forces...
The gap between the objectives of America’s war on terror and actual achievement is clear in our region. The terrorists have neither been defeated nor their organisations destroyed, either in Pakistan or Afghanistan. Despite Pakistan’s state sponsorship of terrorism, not only against India but also against US forces in Afghanistan, the US has looked to Pakistan to facilitate its withdrawal from Afghanistan through its Taliban links, allowing it in the process to obtain its longed for “strategic depth” in Afghanistan against India. The US has failed to “abolish terrorist sanctuaries and havens” in Pakistan, or to compel an unwilling Pakistan to act against the Haqqani group, which now controls Afghanistan’s interior ministry. Ironically, whereas the US acted to destroy the Islamic State in West Asia, it has handed over a state to the Taliban, with the new Afghanistan government liberally composed of UN-designated terrorists. Ironically, Islamist extremists and terrorists have taken over a country without any democratic process with the consent of an America committed to democratic values.
Let's take a look at Dr. Bruce Hoffman, Professor at Georgetown University's Walsh School of Foreign Service and Senior Fellow for Counterterrorism and Homeland Security at the Council on Foreign Relations?
The War on Terror 20 Years on: Crossroads or Cul-De-Sac?
institute.global
Twenty years of fighting have produced mixed results. Bin Laden and al-Baghdadi are dead. But the movements they each founded and led remain active. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Ramzi bin al-Shibh and other al-Qaeda operatives responsible for the 9/11 attacks are imprisoned. But none have stood trial much less been convicted of their crimes. Tens of thousands of terrorists have been killed. But hundreds of thousands of civilians have also lost their lives – both from terrorism and as collateral casualties in military operations.4 And, despite it all, there are now at least four times as many Salafi-Jihadi terrorist organisations as there were on 9/11.
Bin Laden would likely be pleased if he were alive today. The war he proclaimed a quarter of a century ago continues. Al-Qaeda has survived arguably the greatest onslaught in history directed against a terrorist group. A new generation of recruits currently fights in a conflict that began before many of them were born. On the eve of the 9/11 attacks, bin Laden predicted that his martyrdom when it came “will create more Osama bin Ladens.” He was correct.
Okay, I'll end with a good one. Ali Soufan, chairman and CEO of The Soufan Group, a national-security and counterterrorism consulting firm, and former FBI special agent who made major breaks in the Jordan Millennium Bombing, USS Cole bombing, and 9/11 investigations:
Has the War on Terrorism Failed?
A Q&A with former FBI special agent Ali Soufan on how Western governments fumbled the response to 9/11 and made the jihadist movement more dangerous than ever.
www.bloomberg.com
They won, we lost. We left Afghanistan and they are back. This by itself strengthens their propaganda. Before 9/11, there were maybe 400 terrorists who pledged allegiance to Osama bin Laden. Now we have thousands of people around the world who pledge their allegiance to him. There are even more who believe bin Laden is their idol.
Before 9/11, you could say there was one country controlled by militants: Afghanistan. Today, you look at what’s happening in the Sahel region of Africa, you look at Libya, Yemen, Somalia, Syria… there are so many Afghanistans. The incubating factors that allowed these terrorist groups to function in Afghanistan exist in so many different places around the world.
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ISIS killed an AL QAEDA cleric... 
ADevilYouKhow
Rhyme Reason
Suspected British IS group 'Beatle' arrested upon return to UK
A British man accused of being part of an Islamic State (IS) group kidnap-and-murder cell known as the "Beatles" has been charged with terrorism offences after returning to the UK, police said Thursday.
www.france24.com
I suppose Zawahiri could’ve flown the US and turned himself in
Domestic maga terrorist wouldn't exist if we invested more in them.Suspected British IS group 'Beatle' arrested upon return to UK
A British man accused of being part of an Islamic State (IS) group kidnap-and-murder cell known as the "Beatles" has been charged with terrorism offences after returning to the UK, police said Thursday.
I suppose Zawahiri could’ve flown the US and turned himself in
88m3
Fast Money & Foreign Objects
Rahimullah Haqqani: Afghan cleric killed by bomb hidden in artificial leg - reports
Sheikh Rahimullah Haqqani, who had close ties with the Taliban, was a supporter of girls' education.
www.bbc.com
Hood Critic
The Power Circle
Oh
ISIS killed an AL QAEDA cleric...
There was a pretty big fight between Taliban elements and IS in Kunar a little while back. The fact that they killed someone with the Haqqani last name should make things fun for everyone in the east smh.
ADevilYouKhow
Rhyme Reason
Austin Orders Overhaul to Better Protect Civilians During U.S. Combat Operations
A Pentagon plan envisions broad changes to military doctrine, planning and training aimed at mitigating the risk of harm to noncombatants.
A masterclass