By Emile Simpson

Best Defense terrorism movie reviewer

Yemeni security forces recently fired on protesters in the southern Yemeni city of Aden, apparently wounding up to 30 of them. In the Hands of al Qaeda hydrates such headlines: In this gripping documentary film, released last year, Iraqi journalist Ghaith Abdul Ahad unpacks the complex dynamics of the conflict. At its core, this is a film about the fight between al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and the Yemeni Government -- government versus insurgents -- but this polarized dynamic is situated within broader kaleidoscopic elements: How many south Yemenis see the security forces as northern occupiers? Why do some tribes support AQAP and others fight them? This provides a nice illustration of the erosion of the boundary between the military and political domain in contemporary armed conflict.

The centerpiece of the film is Ghaith Abdul Ahad's coverage of the AQAP heartland east of Aden, at the centre of the U.S. drone campaign in Yemen. For example, in Ja'ar we encounter a city of 100,000 fully controlled by AQAP. This is truly fascinating; the tension of the documentary at this point is palpable. Since Ja'ar was retaken by Yemeni forces in the summer of 2012, this film offers a rare glimpse into what ground-holding by the international jihadis of AQAP looked like: While we see an extreme form of sharia law practiced, so too is there an active print and internet media operation, and real efforts to gain local support by AQAP water and electricity projects.

AQAP's carrot and stick approach during their overt, ground-holding phase does not seem so distant from COIN doctrine, albeit in a far more brutal form (an example of mirror imaging?). The film draws out the contrast with the no carrot, big stick, U.S. drone approach that appears to strike fear not just into AQAP, but also into the civilians who live under the drones' gaze: Much of the local population's political support is lost, but U.S. objectives against the AQAP leadership nonetheless appear to be met. Whether this represents campaign success more broadly presumably would depend on how one conceptualizes the conflict -- are you fighting physical networks or an idea? Perhaps too the film illustrates in Yemen a U.S. move back to a more conventional understanding of military effect against an enemy, for better or worse. While the film is not about COIN or drones per se, and is indeed admirable in its objectivity, a viewing would no doubt form an excellent basis for discussion of the pros and cons of these approaches.

In the Hands of Al Qaeda (2012)

Clover Films

Executive Producer: Tracey ‘H' Doran-Carter

Producer: Jamie Doran

Director: Safa Al Ahmad

Emile Simpson served in the British Army as an infantry officer in the Gurkhas from 2006 to 2012. He deployed to southern Afghanistan three times and is the author of War From the Ground Up: Twenty-First Century Combat as Politics (Columbia, 2012).

No Pakistani distributor has bought the rights. I imagine that the Taliban and al Qaeda might violently object.

While Tom Ricks is away from his blog, he has selected a few of his favorite posts to re-run. We will be posting a few every day until he returns. This originally ran on May 9, 2011.

Here is an elaboration on some of what I said yesterday on ABC's This Week. (Also on the show was Lawrence Wright, who has this terrific piece on Pakistan in the new issue of the New Yorker.)

I think we need to have a short-term plan that temporarily keeps us close to Pakistan, followed by a much different long-run strategy that cuts us loose from this wreck of a state.

In the short run, our goal should be to collect our winnings. Pakistan screwed up, bigtime. We have them off balance, and the blustering of their officials isn't helping their cause. Over the next several months, we should aim to use this situation to get the terrorists and information we want. 

And then get out. In the long run, we should back away from Pakistan. They believe they have us over a barrel, that (as Steve Coll has observed) they are too big to fail. They have nuclear warheads and they stand on our supply route to the U.S. troops in Afghanistan. So I think we need to accelerate the troop drawdown in Afghanistan, and move from a large footprint of conventional troops to a smaller footprint of Special Operators and support units conducting counterterror missions. (But note Petraeus' pushback over the weekend: "Targeted military strikes don't produce security on their own.") This reduced force of perhaps 20,000 troops could be supplied by air and through Central Asia. Expensive, yes. But cheaper than giving billions of dollars annually to Pakistan and seeing it spent on its nuclear program and corruption. We also should encourage ties between Afghanistan and Central Asia.

With our military posture in Afghanistan shifted, we then could move to a purely transactional aid plan with Pakistan: "For doing X, you get Y amount of money." No more money for promises, and certainly not $4 billion a year for being a frenemy. In the long run, our interests are much more with India, anyway. If Pakistan wants to retaliate by allying with China -- knock yourselves out, fellas.

The smart money says this is an indication of a split between the Pakistani military/ ISI on the one hand and the Pakistani civilian officials on the other. I don't quite follow that, but it won't be the first time I didn't understand Pakistan.

Sen. John McCain knocks down the idea that torture -- specifically waterboarding -- was essential in getting bin Laden:

Former attorney general Michael Mukasey recently claimed that "the intelligence that led to bin Laden … began with a disclosure from Khalid Sheik Mohammed, who broke like a dam under the pressure of harsh interrogation techniques that included waterboarding. He loosed a torrent of information -- including eventually the nickname of a trusted courier of bin Laden." That is false.

I asked CIA Director Leon Panetta for the facts, and he told me the following: The trail to bin Laden did not begin with a disclosure from Khalid Sheik Mohammed, who was waterboarded 183 times. The first mention of Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti -- the nickname of the al-Qaeda courier who ultimately led us to bin Laden -- as well as a description of him as an important member of al-Qaeda, came from a detainee held in another country, who we believe was not tortured. None of the three detainees who were waterboarded provided Abu Ahmed's real name, his whereabouts or an accurate description of his role in al-Qaeda.

In fact, the use of "enhanced interrogation techniques" on Khalid Sheik Mohammed produced false and misleading information. He specifically told his interrogators that Abu Ahmed had moved to Peshawar, got married and ceased his role as an al-Qaeda facilitator -- none of which was true. According to the staff of the Senate intelligence committee, the best intelligence gained from a CIA detainee -- information describing Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti's real role in al-Qaeda and his true relationship to bin Laden -- was obtained through standard, noncoercive means.

President Obama on 60 Minutes: "And you know, there were big chunks of time in which all we were doin' was just waiting. And it was the longest 40 minutes of my life with the possible exception of when Sasha got meningitis when she was three months old, and I was waiting for the doctor to tell me that she was all right. It was a very tense situation."

By chance, last night I was reading some material on the failed hostage rescue operating in the Iranian desert in 1980. It was heartbreaking for all concerned, and politically crippling for President Carter. I think one of the unexpected side benefits of getting bin Laden will be that the U.S. military has greater faith in Obama as commander in chief-and Obama in his military:

Q: How much did some of the past failures, like the Iran hostage rescue attempt, how did that weigh on you? I mean...

PRESIDENT OBAMA: I thought about that.

Q: ...was that a factor?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Absolutely. Absolutely. No, I mean you think about Black Hawk Down. You think about what happened with the Iranian rescue. And it, you know, I am very sympathetic to the situation for other presidents where you make a decision, you're making your best call, your best shot, and something goes wrong -- because these are tough, complicated operations. And yeah, absolutely. The day before I was thinkin' about this quite a bit.

I asked Courtney Messerschmidt, AKA gSgF, to explain to Best Defense readers the emotional reaction of her fully crunked peers to the killing of bin Laden:

By Courtney Messerschmidt
Best Defense guest Ute correspondent

For those of us who were 10 or 11 years old on 9/11, the news of bin Laden's death is worthy of celebration. It is a tremendous moral victory for our nation and it validates what so many of us have learned in the past decade -- that America really is a magical nation -- the only one of her kind (more on this in a bit).

It's the triumph of good over evil. Sound passé'? Au contraire -- most of us reject moral relativism.

It's because for half of our entire lives we have lived with scary and creepy stuff like Taliban, al Qaeda, jihad, and the threat of terrorism on a mass attack scale from the indescribable horrors we saw live on TV that day -- with almost daily threats from various branches of aQ that they would gladly kill more Americans anyway and anytime they could.

Unlike the Soviet threat in ancient times -- al Qaeda had no embassies or diplomats at U.N. to double talk and speak of peaceful coexistence. aQ was always intolerant, and totally hot for murderous activities that targeted innocents by design.

9/11 was the pivotal day in our very young lives and OBL's timely demise seems to have closed a chapter that lasted forever.

This is significant.

1st off -- pretty cool to realize that OBL realized his death was imminent. Like il Duce, der führer, or S'Ddam -- the awesome knowledge that the end was at hand as America confronted him for a haj to the perfumed gardens of paradise. And like al Zarqawi in Iraq -- the last thing OBL ever saw was a po'd American about to kill him. Oh, that is sweet.

Equally hot -- of all the nations that aQ has attacked and tormented over the years -- only Great Satan had the brain power, will power, staying power, and fire power to hunt him down, choppering in less than 30 guys into a veritable Pakistani Army base with nearly 10 thousand troops stationed blocks away to visit death upon him. And in a fun, friendly 'forget you' way -- hauled off the body as booty and chucked it overboard from an American aircraft carrier (sovereign American turf -- no less) as shark bait.

Many think the war is over -- or almost over -- as the recent Yemen drone strikes hoping to kill al Awlaki indicate.

Others realize in a Churchillian way -- it isn't the end -- or even the beginning of the end, yet it may well be the end of the beginning.

So we celebrate the victory of good over evil via bin Laden's death repeatedly, without modesty or restraint. Not to put too fine a point on it -- when the 'funintended consequences' erupted on TV later in the week in the form of rowdy foreigners protesting America's righteous hit, we reveled in their dismay.

And when frightened teachers and the elderly gave us the old 'shame shame' meme for partying about the death of a mass murder engineer we joyously pointed out -- sometimes -- our enemies need killing. 

Two shots and a splash of water, reports GSGF at WOI.

I have been struck all week at how people in their teens and twenties have reacted to the killing of bin Laden. A shadow that had hung over their entire conscious lives has been removed.

If I could short a relationship, it would be the United States with Pakistan. I think the jig is up. Of course, a collapse of relations with Pakistan means we would not longer be able to supply the U.S. military in Afghanistan through Pakistan. And that means the war there is likely going to end sooner rather than later.

I've never seen a bipartisan consensus emerge so quickly on Capitol Hill. Also, I think the leaders in both parties are trailing the mood of the rank and file. Here's Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D., NJ) on MSNBC: "they are among the largest recipients of foreign aid, $8 billion; over eight years, $20 billion. And proposed now, almost 4 billion (dollars). We don't have that kind of money to spend around with people who are not our friends."

Meanwhile, Rep. Peter King (R., NY) said on Fox that, "Pakistan should also realize that many members in Congress are raising serious questions, why should we be giving $3 billion every year to Pakistan if they can't capture the world's most notorious terrorist living right in their midst? Now, I believe we have to maintain a relationship with Pakistan. I want to do it. But it's becoming harder and harder to continue it under these circumstances. I don't know of anyone in the administration who believes what President Zardari is saying." Rep. Allen West (R., Fla.) went even further, saying that, "I'm not willing to open up the American taxpayer dollars to Pakistan any further."

And here's the pathetic response of the Pakistani ambassador to the United States, Husain Haqqani, to Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC :

If Americans are upset about having giving assistance and aid to Pakistan, there are Pakistanis who are also very upset that, despite all that Pakistan has done, despite the fact that we are the only country that has lost generals in fighting terrorism, despite the fact that our leader Benazir Bhutto was killed by terrorists, despite fact that we are as much victims of terrorism as Americans are, that there are people in America who think a Pakistani life is worth less than an American life.

So this is something that is at an emotional level. Let's not get into that.

Tom again: Too late for that, Mr. Ambassador. It gets emotional when 3,000 innocents are killed in the heart of our biggest city, and the perp hides out in an area of your country that had to be under the surveillance of your security apparatus. If you don't know why it is emotional, you should not be the ambassador to the United States. You've got to do better than that.  

I was reading a detailed, thoughtful survey of Yemeni public opinion conducted by Glevum Associates, and was struck that Osama bin Laden is more popular with older Yemenis than with the youths. He is rated favorably by just 3 percent of the 15 to 25 year olds but by 17 percent of the 31 to 40 year olds.

On the downside, Yemenis are close to unanimous (99 percent) that the United States is a baleful cultural influence on the world. Indeed, they are a bit more irked by American culture than they are by American economic and military power. Almost as many (96 percent) think the West is at war with Islam. Those of youse who are tempted to agree should keep in mind Krepinevich's law of the disaggregation of enemies: Never have any more than you really need to.

As if there were not enough going on: Proven provider John McCreary sends up a rocket over an Asia Times report that bin Laden has been hotfooting it all over the Durand Line. Not clear whether the terrorist is policing up internal problems of his infernal organization, or winding up to try to reclaim the global spotlight. Let's hope it is the former.

Asia Times Online on 24 March published an article by Syed Saleem Shahzad, who is an insightful commentator on South Asian affairs, as well as the publication's Pakistan Bureau Chief. He has studied al Qaida a long time.  He wrote that US intelligence has actionable information that Osama bin Laden has been "criss-crossing" the Pakistan -- Afghanistan border region in northwestern Pakistan during the past few weeks.

Shahzad wrote that US officials are "stunned" by bin Laden's visibility and the frequency of his movements. Bin Laden's purposes are not known. Terrorist analysts reportedly think the new level of activity means bin Laden is planning another large attack, though the 9/11 planning was actually not done by bin Laden. The South Asia analysts think he is meeting with friendly Afghan warlords to bring the Afghan War to a favorable conclusion for the Taliban.

More evidence seeps out of how the Bush Administration led and even fanned a national panic after 9/11. Turns out, according to a very interesting article in the Sunday New York Times, that one of the people who claimed he had developed software to uncover terrorist threats likely was peddling hogwash.

"For eight years, government officials turned to Dennis Montgomery, a California computer programmer, for eye-popping technology that he said could catch terrorists," write the intrepid Eric Lichtblau and James Risen. "Now, federal officials want nothing to do with him and are going to extraordinary lengths to ensure that his dealings with Washington stay secret."

The U.S. government even acted on the things he told them, and the guy apparently made a bundle of our tax dollars-he and his homeys made $20 million off scaring the Bush Administration. His former lawyer now contends he is a "con man," the article says. But don't think you're gonna get a rebate-the guy is in bankruptcy and about to go on trial for allegedly trying to pass $1.8 million in bad checks in Las Vegas casinos. The casinos, they don't like that sort of thing.  

In this case, it appears to be French intelligence that concluded that the Americans were being played: "Mon cher monsieur Tenet, we are thinking very much what you have -- how do I say? -- un boule des cambres, another ball of curves." That is, in both cases, liars appear to have prospered by selling to the Bush Administration scary tales that they knew it wanted to hear.

The CIA apparently has never conducted an inquiry into how it got fooled by this guy. Maybe we should hire some of them casino guys to work at the CIA.

Counterterrorism without counterinsurgency is alluring -- it seems cheaper and easier -- but it is usually pretty meaningless and in fact can be very counterproductive. People who advocate just doing counterterror generally don't understand that. This is one of the best explanations I've read of why the short, easy way just doesn't work, from a friend who can't be identified, but who is in a position to understand this.

If you work at the White House, please read this slowly.

By Mr. XYZ
Best Defense terrorism columnist

To avoid killing the wrong people, you need intelligence. Good intelligence demands you have very close contact with, and cooperation from, the very constituency the Terrorists are seeking to mobilize. These folks won't cooperate unless they have security of person and property AND believe you won't abandon them after the next presidential election. That means that you can't CT without COIN.

Oh you can try. Clinton made a sport of it -- firing several hundred million dollars worth of cruise missiles into the deserts of North Africa, the Middle East and South Asia. Predictably, fire weapons and fire weapons alone not only did not compel the enemy to surrender, it caused them to multiply.

No serious student of strategic aerial bombardment I know of still believes that bombing a civilian population -- short of nuclear weapons -- will do anything more (or less) than awaken a sleeping giant -- Pearl Harbor and 9/11 are perfect examples, but so too are the largely failed terror-bombing campaigns of the Luftwaffe of Britain (1940-41 and ‘44-45) and the British reply to Germany (1942-1945).

The reason terror bombing does not work, is it causes predictable outrage in the survivors. Even if you use precision weapons -- no, especially if you use precision weapons -- killing anyone in my family will make of me an implacable enemy. I say this because if you use precision weapons you purportedly have the ability to avoid killing the wrong people and yet you killed one of mine. Hence, you MEANT to kill my relative. And now, I will have to return the favor -- especially if I am from a Shame Culture.

Used alone, navies and air forces cannot, therefore, win against insurgents. Why? Because they are fire weapons -- and fire weapons alone can never compel the enemy to surrender. The enemy may choose to surrender -- as happened in Serbia in 1999 and Japan in 1945, but the decision is left to the enemy. True decision in war comes from shock forces -- Marines/ infantry. Once shock forces go into action the enemy must repel the attack or leave. If they can't leave or defeat the attack they must surrender.

If you're going to employ shock forces, you are now going to be in and among the population. If you are going to have a population that is at least neutral, if not supporting you, then you will need to understand their language, culture, and aspirations, and help to provide for their needs. You must also be prepared for a long and costly war, in both money and casualties.

Read on

Here's a guest post by Joe Quinn, who lost his brother and best friend in the 9/11 attacks, served a couple of tours in Iraq, and is now in Afghanistan.

By Joe Quinn
Best Defense guest columnist

Al Qaeda murdered my brother Jimmy nine years ago. Mohamed Atta and four other terrorists hijacked and crashed American Airlines Flight 11 into the 93rd through 99th floors of the north tower of the World Trade Center. My brother Jimmy worked on the 101st floor. Not a single remnant of my brother would be recovered.

My life came crashing down simultaneously with those towers. Images of my brother's demise relentlessly flickered in my head. Anger swelled inside of me, not because my brother died, but because of the thought that he was scared before he perished. I wanted revenge.

Due to my emotions (and engineering classes), I barely graduated West Point in the spring of 2002. After being commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Army, I had one goal: to go to Afghanistan. 

In 2003, I requested to be sent to Afghanistan. The Army sent me to Iraq. In 2007, I requested to be sent to Afghanistan again. The Army sent me to Iraq again. After President Obama announced the Afghan "Surge" in December, I knew this was my opportunity. Nine years after my brother's death, I have finally accomplished my goal, as I am currently contributing to the fight here in Afghanistan.

I have recounted the last nine years of my life because my journey through these wars has been similar to yours. You were devastated by the events of 9/11. You wanted revenge, or at least some sort of justice, where you supported the invasion of Afghanistan. You were sidetracked by the Iraq War in 2003 and then again by the Iraq "Surge" in 2007. Nine years after 9/11, you are tired of war, but finally find your blood and treasure in Afghanistan.

My greatest fear is that we will lose the Afghan war because of the Iraq war. The American people are tired of war mostly due to the painful doldrums brought on by the Iraq campaign. Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) also siphoned resources and attention away from Afghanistan, allowing an insurgency to rise and for the U.S. to never fully realize a plan for winning. What is winning? Winning is achieving irreversible momentum towards a stable Afghanistan, free from Taliban control, which will never serve as a base for terrorism.

After nine years of neglecting the Afghan war, we finally have a plan for winning, with the right resources, the right leadership and the right programs. At the end of August, the last of the 30,000 additional U.S. troops are finally in place. Undoubtedly, these additional troops will clear and hold large swaths of Taliban strongholds.

In General Petraeus, we also have the right leadership to orchestrate the Afghan war. Saying that General Petraeus will not make a difference in Afghanistan is like saying Michael Jordan would not make a difference in Chicago after coming out of retirement in 1994. Eventually the team will improve.

The right programs in Afghanistan have only just begun. General Petraeus made an immediate impact by partnering with President Karzai to begin the Afghan Local Police (ALP) program that will leverage local Afghans to provide village-level security. The Afghan Peace and Reintegration Program (APRP) is another concept that has just been ratified, where the effects of the program will only truly be felt in the months ahead. The right resources, leadership and programs in Afghanistan have just begun. Winning the Afghan war has just begun. 

So after nine years, why are we still in Afghanistan? For me it's still simple. The men that killed my brother on 9/11 were five of 20,000 terrorists trained by Al Qaeda in a Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. The Taliban's return to power in Afghanistan will only embolden Al Qaeda even more to perpetrate terrorist attacks like on 9/11. It's easy to forget the connection between Afghanistan and 9/11 after all this time. For me, it's impossible to forget. Perhaps remembering is the luxury of my family's tragedy.

In the end, I do not want revenge anymore. The truth is that the perpetrators that murdered my brother died that same day. I now have a new goal: to leave Afghanistan. To leave Afghanistan as a stable country, free from Taliban control, which will never serve as a base for terrorism.

Joe Quinn currently works in Afghanistan as a Counterinsurgency Advisor for the International Security Assistance Force's (ISAF's) Counterinsurgency Assistance and Advisory Team (CAAT). He graduated in May from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.