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Page added on April 9, 2015
CIA Director Says the War on Terror May Never End
Last night, Director of Central Intelligence John Brennan participated in a question-and-answer session at Harvard Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics. The first thirty-seven minutes consisted of an unusually probing exchange between Brennan and Harvard professor Graham Allison (full disclosure: Graham is a former boss of mine). Most notably, between 19:07 and 29:25 in the video, Allison pressed Brennan repeatedly about whether the United States is winning the war on terrorism and why the number of al-Qaeda-affiliated groups has only increased since 9/11: “There seem to be more of them than when we started…How are we doing?”
Brennan replied:
If I look across the board in terms of since 9/11 at terrorist organizations, and if the United States in all of its various forms. In intelligence, military, homeland security, law enforcement, diplomacy. If we were not as engaged against the terrorists, I think we would be facing a horrendous, horrendous environment. Because they would have taken full advantage of the opportunities that they have had across the region…
We have worked collectively as a government but also with our international partners very hard to try and root many of them out. Might some of these actions be stimulants to others joining their ranks? Sure, that’s a possibility. I think, though it has taken off of the battlefield a lot more terrorists, than it has put on.
This statement is impossible to evaluate or measure because the U.S. government has consistently refused to state publicly which terrorist organizations are deemed combatants, and can therefore be “taken out on the battlefield.” However, relying upon the State Department’s annual Country Reports on Terrorism,the estimated strength of all al-Qaeda-affiliated groups has grown or stayed the same since President Obama came into office. Of course, non-al-Qaeda-affiliated groups have arisen since 9/11, including the self-proclaimed Islamic State, which the Central Intelligence Agency estimated last September to contain up to 31,500 fighters, and Boko Haram, which has perhaps 10,000 committed members.
However, the most interesting question posed to Brennan came at the very end from a Harvard freshman who identified himself as Julian: “We’ve been fighting the war on terror since 2001. Is there an end in sight, or should we get used to this new state of existence?
Brennan replied:
It’s a long war, unfortunately. But it’s been a war that has been in existence for millennia, at the same time—the use of violence for political purposes against noncombatants by either a state actor or a subnational group.
Terrorism has taken many forms over the years. What is more challenging now is, again, the technology that is available to terrorists, the great devastation that can be created by even a handful of folks, and also mass communication that just proliferates all of this activity and incitement and encouragement. So you have an environment now that’s very conducive to that type of propaganda and recruitment efforts, as well as the ability to get materials that are going to kill people. And so this is going to be something, I think, that we’re always going to have to be vigilant about. There is evil in the world and some people just want to kill for the sake of killing…This is something that, whether it’s from this group right now or another group, I think the ability to cause damage and violence and kill will be with us for many years to come.
We just have to not kill our way out of this because that’s not going to address it. We need to stop those attacks that are in train but we also have to address some of those underlying factors and conditions. I’m not saying that poverty causes somebody to become a terrorist, or a lack of governance, but they certainly do allow these terrorist organizations to grow and they take full advantage of those opportunities.
To summarize, the war on terrorism is working, compared to inaction or other policies. But, the American people should expect it to continue for millennia, or as long as lethal technologies and mass communication remain available to evil people.
24 Comments on "CIA Director Says the War on Terror May Never End"
Makati1 on Thu, 9th Apr 2015 7:40 pm
As long as the world’s biggest terrorist organization (the UFSA) is still functioning, it will continue, but maybe only in it’s own country as a police state.
I see the end in sight as the world isolates the Us and stops using it’s faux money as a trade currency. Or, if the world war they want so desperately actually happens, the Us will not have the ability to terrorize the world when it is over. I hope it is from financial collapse, not war, as I have family there.
Plantagenet on Thu, 9th Apr 2015 8:25 pm
Its sad that even the CIA director is so deluded as to believe there is a “war on terror”. Terror isn’t an adversary—-terror is a tactic used most recently by Islamist militant groups like al Qaeda and IS.
Poordogabone on Thu, 9th Apr 2015 8:40 pm
The problem is that you can not put a definition on terrorism without describing what the US has been doing for ever unless you specify that it is when they do it to us.
Makati1 on Thu, 9th Apr 2015 8:42 pm
And another terrorist organization upgrades it’s ability to spread terror…
“Germany Provides Dolphin Class Nuclear Powered Submarines to Israeli, Armed with ICB Nuclear Missiles”
http://www.globalresearch.ca/germany-provides-dolphin-class-nuclear-powered-submarines-to-israeli-armed-with-icb-nuclear-missiles/5441929
I now make my probability of a nuclear war at 70% …
hiruitnguyse on Thu, 9th Apr 2015 8:43 pm
Covered well by Mr. O last week….http://cluborlov.blogspot.com/2015/03/license-to-kill.html#more
Hugh Culliton on Thu, 9th Apr 2015 8:48 pm
Of course it’ll never end. Terrorism is a tactic: the use of fear to achieve a political goal. How can you fight a tactic? Might as well fight the wind. But endless war was the objective after all, wasn’t it? A permanent emergency to justify the draconian use of force and limitations on civil liberties.
Apneaman on Thu, 9th Apr 2015 9:26 pm
Israel’s Unsavory New ‘Allies’
April 7, 2015
The American people, who still want to stop Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State, are only dimly aware that longtime U.S. “allies” – Israel and Saudi Arabia – have shifted into an effective alliance with those Sunni jihadists as part of their regional war against Iran and Shiite Islam, as Lawrence Davidson explains.
https://consortiumnews.com/2015/04/07/israels-unsavory-new-allies/
BobInget on Thu, 9th Apr 2015 10:03 pm
How’s that ‘little’ war on Yemen we sponsored going?
https://foreignpolicy.com/2015/04/09/saudi_arabias_american_backed_war_in_yemen_went_really_badly_today/
If you care about seven million people stuck with No Food or Water. Worry no more.
Soon, they could be dead.
“One death is a tragedy, one million just a statistic”. Joe Stalin
Iran has sent war ships to the region. (always
good when people are without water of food.
Most interesting here: The Saudis have laid down the law. NO Iranian ships will be allowed (permitted) in Yemen waters.
Get ready for a long distance sea battle fought with missiles.
OMG, what would happen perchance, if a few of those missiles went wild and landed on a Saudi oil well? Or tanker? Or Pipeline ?
WE are about to find out.
BobInget on Thu, 9th Apr 2015 10:07 pm
Makati1,
I’ll see that 70% and raise you 10%.
dashster on Thu, 9th Apr 2015 10:11 pm
“As long as the world’s biggest terrorist organization (the UFSA) is still functioning, it will continue, but maybe only in it’s own country as a police state.”
It’s true. We assassinate them which gets other people mad at us, why we then assassinate, and the cycle continues.
ghung on Thu, 9th Apr 2015 10:32 pm
Yemen crisis reignites fear of al-Qaeda global threat
Dredd on Fri, 10th Apr 2015 6:17 am
There is a movement to rename Washington to Stalingrad (The Queens of Stalingrad, 2, 3, 4, 5).
The lying CIA Director position will be renamed the “Czar In Amurka.”
Jack on Fri, 10th Apr 2015 7:06 am
Hey Plant you need to get a life your always the first or nearly to post on hear . Either your a troll a shill or some loser living in his moms basement
peakyeast on Fri, 10th Apr 2015 7:57 am
Imagine – even the CIA can get it wrong.
Its the war using terrorism that will never end.
Its the good ol’ bathroom metaphor: Democracy cannot survice overpopulation. The same with human dignity and freedom.
Thanks to the human rats to strive for goals like that.
Rodster on Fri, 10th Apr 2015 8:50 am
Poordogabone – “The problem is that you can not put a definition on terrorism without describing what the US has been doing for ever unless you specify that it is when they do it to us.”
Thank you for summing it up !
Lawfish1964 on Fri, 10th Apr 2015 11:19 am
The CIA director isn’t deluded. He’s deliberately marching out the party line so the endless wars and enrichment of the 1% can continue.
Speculawyer on Fri, 10th Apr 2015 12:03 pm
Well stop calling it a “war on terror”. The current military action against ISIS will end eventually. But there always will be covert operations against terrorist groups. That existed before 9/11 and it will always exist. But there is no reason to call it a ‘war on terror’. That is just stupid since it is not a war and you can’t attack a tactic.
BobInget on Fri, 10th Apr 2015 12:14 pm
In the mist of a Yemen crisis… Millions in peril, we, who have a problem with complicated ‘foreign policy’ issues, forget what got us into this mess.
Here’s recent news out of Iraq:
BAGHDAD, April 10 (Reuters) – Islamic State militants attacked the capital of Iraq’s vast Anbar province on multiple fronts on Friday, seizing two areas on the city outskirts in a setback for a government campaign to retake the desert terrain.
The jihadists deployed vehicle and suicide bombs to tear through Iraqi government lines north of the city of Ramadi overnight before attacking on foot, said security officials and a hospital source.
The head of Anbar’s provincial council, Sabah Karhout, called on Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to send urgent military reinforcements and supplies to fighters, saying they were running low on ammunition.
Abadi visited Anbar on Tuesday and declared the start of the operation to liberate the Sunni Muslim heartland, seeking to build on a victory over the extremist Islamic State last week in the city of Tikrit.
But a police source in Ramadi said early on Friday the insurgents had taken half of the Albu Faraj area, and provincial council member Athal al-Fahdawi later said it had been overrun completely.
Hundreds of families were fleeing Albu Faraj, just north of Ramadi and a car bomb blew up the bridge linking the two places across the Euphrates river, a police source said.
An army officer and the police source blamed members of the Albu Faraj tribe who live in that area for letting the militants infiltrate their area. The insurgents also took over the adjacent Albu Aitha area, according to Fahdawi and local tribal leader Sheik Ghassan al-Ithawi.
Large parts of Anbar had slipped from the government’s grasp even before Islamic State overran the northern city of Mosul last June and surged through Sunni areas of Iraq.
The Islamic State controls large swathes of both Syria and Iraq, last year declaring a caliphate across the territory.
Security forces and Shi’ite Muslim paramilitaries have since regained some ground in Iraq, although core Sunni territories remain under Islamic State control including Anbar and the northern province of Nineveh.
In Anbar, which shares a long border with Syria, Saudi Arabia and Jordan, pockets of territory have remained under government control and Ramadi itself has been contested.
Shi’ite militia have played a leading role in reversing the insurgents’ advances elsewhere, but officials from predominantly Sunni Anbar have expressed reservations about a role for the paramilitary forces on the battlefield.
In the capital Baghdad, 13 people were killed in three separate explosions, medical and security sources said. (Reporting by Saif Hameed; Writing by Isabel Coles; Editing by Crispian Balmer)
BobInget on Fri, 10th Apr 2015 1:00 pm
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/iran-calls-for-end-of-saudi-led-airstrikes-on-yemen-after-sending-two-warships/2015/04/09/8a0ab446-de8d-11e4-be40-566e2653afe5_story.html
When told the Vatican disproved of the way Soviet Troops were taking revenge on captured Nazis, Stalin replied, “How many devisions does the Pope have?”
So it is today, hard-liners, them with all the corrupting power they ordered up, rejecting compromise.
The alternative according to Israel
and many in the US Senate, is apocalypse.
Apparently, certain Senators or Iran’s ‘Ultimate Leader’ learned nothing from Vietnam or Syria.
Fash-points face us this week-end.
Israel has been threatening Iran for more then a decade. Dare they wait longer? Once Israeli’s ‘great Allie’, Saudi Arabia faces-off against Iran, (bound to happen) will Israel
now attack Iran by air?
Saudi Arabian and Iranian warships are finally meeting directly off shore Yemen.
Watch for Iran to request a humanitarian
relief ship and have Saudis reject the ‘offer’.
Should re-supply aircraft or shipping be attacked by Saudis, this will constitute genuine ‘casus belli’.
From charts: We see the shorts carrying on like nothing new happened.
http://www.livecharts.co.uk/MarketCharts/crude.php
So much money is betting on crude ‘over supply’ that never truly existed, it almost impossible for these oily punters to get out now with their underpants.
Can hedge funds unring those bells?
First of all most Americans don’t realize how deeply the US is involved.. (in Yemen)
Most folks have no idea of the seriousness.
(few people in the West notice when black people die of starvation and thirst)
Proof? Google South Sudan’s oil war.
It would be better were oil allowed to go higher slowly. Evidently, that isn’t going to happen.
Fasten your seat belts.
Davy on Fri, 10th Apr 2015 1:51 pm
Bobby, did you see the Frontline piece on Yemen earlier in the week. It was an excellent documentary. I was surprised how good some of the infrastructure in Yemen still is.
The situation in Yemen is approaching a free-for-all with various waring tribes making unusual alliances. You then include the west, KSA, and Iran. That sounds like ugly to me but cooler heads may prevail?
J-Gav on Fri, 10th Apr 2015 4:10 pm
Davy – yep – does look ugly.
Very complex sitch there but, taking a step back and doing some research, it seems that a ‘proxy’ Yemen victim suits just about everybody in the region (and beyond)for the time being. Otherwise the potential for much nastier shit could gain rapid traction.
Who cares about a few thousand more victims of ‘collateral damage’? Apparently nobody as long as it contributes to keeping the heavier conflicts on the back burner for the while.
J-Gav on Fri, 10th Apr 2015 4:18 pm
Oh, I almost forgot. The DCI head honcho saying that this may be a conflict that never ends is a wonderful portent, isn’t it?
Interesting that we ‘civilized’ nations can’t come up with better than that, i.e. war-mongering assholes looking to cash in on their stock market weaponry investments.
Apneaman on Fri, 10th Apr 2015 5:31 pm
Yemen’s collapse is a taste of things to come
“Welcome to the post-oil future
Yemen’s story is one of protracted, inexorable collapse. Around 2001, Yemen’s oil production reached its peak, since then declining from 450,000 barrels per day (bbd), to 259,000 bpd in 2010, and as of last year hitting 100,000 bpd. Production is expected to plummet to zero in two years.”
http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/yemen-s-collapse-taste-things-come-456530551
Makati1 on Fri, 10th Apr 2015 7:34 pm
Getting close to another big false flag event in the UFSA. The sheeple are getting complacent and even the Russian propaganda is not working. The Western allies are moving East and joining the new Chinese/Russian banking/trade systems, adding Yuan to their Reserves and other anti-American activities.
Getting real interesting! Even Iran is mixing their navy with US war ships off the Yemen coast and the Chinese are evacuating all nationalities from the new American war zone there. South America is starting to demand that all US military bases leave their countries. And the Western Us is drying up.