Smart Power: Nat’l Intel Director Says Al Qaeda Diminished Because They Use Inexperienced Operatives

Wonders never cease. File this one under “Are you f’reaking kidding me?” Pardon my French.

By this logic, al Qaeda could argue that the US is diminished thanks to incompetent operators.

Commentary in red provided by Weasel Zippers.

Politico – TERROR NETWORK “DIMINISHED”? Embattled U.S. Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair, in a letter yesterday employees of the U.S. Intelligence Community: “Al Qa’ida is diminished as evidenced by the fact they are sending inexperienced individuals without long association with al Qa’ida, but susceptible to jihadist ideology. Unfortunately, even unsophisticated terrorists can kill many Americans.” PDF
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PLAYING ROUGH – A U.S. counterterrorism official, to Playbook: “Blair should, at a minimum, take a mulligan on this. He seems to be suggesting here that al-Qaeda is somehow less of a threat these days. That just ain’t so. And someone should remind him that inexperienced individuals have been responsible for carrying out major attacks. That includes the muscle men on 9/11 and a number of other terrorist attacks since then. And oh by the way, it’s often the sophistication of the plan. I can only presume that he had a bad day at the computer screen. He knows better.”

GLOBAL REVIEW, from release: “Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano announced that she is dispatching Deputy Secretary Jane Holl Lute, Assistant Secretary for Policy David Heyman and other senior Department officials on a broad international outreach effort to meet with leaders from major international airports in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East and South America to review security procedures and technology being used to screen passengers on flights bound for the U.S.”  (Why the hell wasn’t this done when Janet first took over? -ed) First stop: Europe, with officials departing Monday.