Obama's Battle Against Terrorism To Go Beyond Bombs and Bullets

[kpete]

Source: Washington Post

Obama's Battle Against Terrorism To Go Beyond Bombs and Bullets

By Spencer S. Hsu and Joby Warrick
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, August 6, 2009

The U.S. government must fundamentally redefine the struggle against terrorism, replacing the "war on terror" with a campaign combining all facets of national power to defeat the enemy, John O. Brennan, President Obama's senior counterterrorism adviser, said Wednesday.

Previewing what aides said will be the administration's most comprehensive statement to date on its long-term strategy to defeat al-Qaeda and other violent extremists worldwide, Brennan said in an interview that the United States will maintain "unrelenting" pressure on terrorist havens, including those near the Afghan-Pakistani border, in Yemen and in Somalia.

However, Washington must couple the military strikes that have depleted al-Qaeda's middle ranks with more sustained use of economic, diplomatic and cultural levers to diminish Islamist radicalization, he said, exercising "soft power" in ways that President George W. Bush came to embrace but had trouble carrying out.

"It needs to be much more than a kinetic effort, an intelligence, law enforcement effort. It has to be much more comprehensive," said Brennan, who will address the Center for Strategic and International Studies on Thursday. "This is not a 'war on terror.' . . . We cannot let the terror prism guide how we're going to interact and be involved in different parts of the world."

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/05/AR2009080503940.html?hpid=topnews

[saigon68]

1. Fighting against a Religion

With 1 and 1/2 Billion adherents, with 1% of them Fanatics, thats 15 million to WIPE OUT


ya that's fresh

[UrbScotty]

3. But plain-old killing is not his strategy

[ixion]

2. and the fight against the shadows on the wall continues

great. :eyes: