What in the hell does “the core of Al Qaeda” even mean?
It’s a de facto “core” even if the administration doesn’t want to call it that, just as there’s a de facto U.S. retreat is in progress even if the administration doesn’t want to call it that. After all, the evacuation of personnel and the closure of diplomatic missions are physical acts involving actual people being transported thousands of miles. They are actions in which real concrete and steel buildings are being shuttered, at least temporarily. Set against these tangible events are Carney’s word games about the core and the periphery.
This is nothing except a pathetic attempt to continue to maintain the campaign lies of last year.
C’mon, they are at least not just setting there ignoring warnings and then blaming some stoopid video after the fact.
Maybe the warnings are real, and if nothing happens, these actions “scared them off” — for the moment. Maybe it is a false alarm, and if you don’t ignore warnings, you are going to act on false alarms too.
As to calling this a retreat, sometimes a tactical retreat, that is, just happening not to be around during the planned enemy assault, is just plain smart soldiering according to not less than Sun Tzu.
This is a retreat and not a surrender, so give Mr. Carney a break for this one time
But Rand; they are just more nuanced then us.
They’re on the run! Mission accomplished! We won!
But don’t go outside the borders of the United States, it’s dangerous out there. You might be killed. Or we might kill you with a drone strike if you happen to be standing too close to “the bad guys”.