That's what you do after using a toilet, right?
"US officials debate a faster pullout from Afghanistan; Major gains in weakening Al Qaeda cited" by Helene Cooper and Mark Landler, New York Times / June 19, 2011
WASHINGTON — As the Obama administration nears a crucial decision on how rapidly to withdraw combat forces from Afghanistan, high-ranking officials say that Al Qaeda’s original network in the region has been crippled, providing a rationale for an accelerated reduction of troops.
Whatever you want to use, I'll take it.
The officials said the intense campaign of drone strikes and other covert operations in Pakistan — most dramatically the raid that killed Osama bin Laden — had left Al Qaeda paralyzed, with its leaders either dead or pinned down in the frontier area near Afghanistan. Of 30 prominent members of the terrorist organization in the region identified by intelligence agencies as targets, 20 have been killed in the last year and a half, they said, reducing the threat they pose.
Their confidence, these officials said, was buttressed by information found in bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan.
See: Sunday Globe Special: bin Laden's Bunker
They said the material revealed disarray within Al Qaeda’s leadership, with a frustrated bin Laden indicating that he could no longer direct terrorist attacks by lieutenants who feared for their own lives.
The US success in the counterterrorism campaign would seem to bolster arguments for a swift withdrawal from Afghanistan — an issue the administration is examining. The officials emphasized that Obama had not yet made a determination on that question....
The focus on progress against Al Qaeda was also a counter to arguments made by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and other military officials in recent days that the initial drawdown of troops should be modest, and that American combat pressure should be maintained as long as possible so that the gains from the surge in troops are not sacrificed....
Officials acknowledge that worldwide, Al Qaeda is far from broken. They consider Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula to be the most immediate threat to the United States homeland....
The recent success against Al Qaeda also does not guarantee that its militants will not take root again in Afghanistan, particularly as the United States turns security over to a shaky Afghan government.
And a fast drawdown of troops could allow the Taliban, which is stalled but not destroyed, to regain power it recently lost to the surge.
Still, for Obama, who is weighing the heavy costs of the Afghan war as well as an increasingly restive Congress and public, counterterrorism success is a potentially appealing argument for a relatively rapid American withdrawal....
I'll believe it when I see it.
--more--"
