U.S. Defense

“The Boeing Company has successfully completed the first ground test of the entire weapon system integrated aboard the Advanced Tactical Laser (ATL) aircraft,” a C-130H.  This is the next advance in close tactical air support. Instead of steel on steel, now the new Spectre Gunships will put laser on target. The Boeing news release goes onto say that the laser “will destroy, damage or disable targets with little to no collateral damage, supporting missions on the battlefield and in urban operations.” Collateral damage was never the problem with the old Spectre. It wasn’t that the gunship was missing its targets and hitting innocent people, it was that the plane was hitting innocent people all too accurately. How many weddings in Afghanistan did Spectre gunships attack by mistake? How is using a laser instead of 105mm shells going to prevent killing the wrong people once engaged?

As wired points out, the utility of the new weapon could be in its precision, for instance, shooting out the tires or treads on a vehicle to capture the person inside, whereas before, the vehicle would been destroyed.  This only increases the tactical agility of US operations. The problem is as always, if we are using this weapon, we have already screwed up and are knee deep in a guerrilla war that should never have been fought. The US military is once again trying to use technology to make up for its inability to achieve desired political outcomes using military force.  

Today, Al-Qaeda confirmed on an Islamic militant website that Abu Khabab al-Masri, was indeed killed in the missile strike of July 28th. Al-Masri was known as Al Qaeda’s top bomb maker and he actively sought to gain a WMD capability for the group as well.

There is still a question about the fate of Al Qaeda #2. Ayman al-Zawahiri was rumored to be wounded or dead on August 1, but there has been no confirmation of what his status is by either the US or Al Qaeda.

Although killing the leaders of terrorist organizations is a key compenent of any counter-terrorism strategy, it still is only a component, especially when it comes to an international organization like Al Qaeda. Overall, small tactical victories like the assassination of Masri will be meaningless if there is no long term plan to stop young men from joining such organizations and trying to become the next Masri. The real fight is not in blowing up Al Qaeda’s safehouses in Pakistan’s tribal areas. We have to help the Pakistani government give these young men something worth living for and not something worth dying for.