Leon Panetta: We must invade every country in the world to prevent Al Qaeda from having a safe haven
by digby
I'm with Atrios. WTF is Panetta going on about?
In an EXCLUSIVE interview on “This Week,” CIA Director Leon Panetta explained what winning in Afghanistan would look like.
“Winning in Afghanistan is having a country that is stable enough to ensure that there is no safehaven for Al Qaeda or for a militant Taliban that welcomes Al Qaeda,” Panetta told host Jake Tapper. “That’s really the measure of success for the United States.”
“Our purpose, our whole mission there, is to make sure that Al Qaeda never finds another safehaven from which to attack this country. That’s the fundamental goal of why the United States is there,” he said. “And the measure of success for us is: do you have an Afghanistan that is stable enough to make sure that never happens.”
That is completely meaningless. So, if Afghanistan is "stable" that means that Al Qaeda can't find a safe haven from which to attack the US? Huh? What about Pakistan? Yo0u know, the place from where Al Qaeda actually is planning attacks right now. Or Yemen? Or how about Britain, the home of the shoe bomber? And why, exactly, does it take a "safe haven" to plan a terrorist attack anyway? Do they get cut rates on box cutters?
Ayeyayay. This is worse than I thought. They can't even come up with a vaguely believable rationale for Afghanistan at this point --- that reasoning makes the "he might someday get a weapon of mass destruction" argument look air tight by comparison.
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