BlackFive

No matter what this is good news if only for a chance to do the dead tangos dance.

Al-Qaeda’s second-in-command, Atiyah Abd al-Rahman, has been killed in Pakistan, delivering another big blow to a terrorist group.

The Libyan national, who was the network’s former operational leader rose, to al-Qaeda’s No. 2 spot after the US killed Osama bin Laden during a raid on his Pakistan compound in May.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said last month that al-Qaeda’s defeat was within reach if the US could mount a string of successful attacks on the group’s weakened leadership.

The problem is that simply killing individuals doesn't kill an ideology. Remember how many times we killed al Qaeda's #2 guy in Iraq? It got to be a running joke that it was the worst job in the world, #1 or #3 fine, but that #2 guy was a JDAM magnet. It is certainly true that we have dealt a bunch of blows to AQ and that every one of the scum we have sent off to 72 goats cannot cause any trouble. But we still have no end game or even a serious strategy that addresses Islamist extremism and so we squeeze the water balloon and whack the moles, only to see heads pop up elsewhere. Kinda frustrating, but congrats on the ventilation of another evil bastard anyhow.