The Kingpin Strategy Assassination as Policy in Washington and How It Failed, 1990-2015

The Kingpin Strategy
Assassination as Policy in Washington and How It Failed, 1990-2015
By Andrew Cockburn
As the war on terror nears its 14th anniversary -- a war we seem to be losing, given jihadist advances in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen -- the U.S. sticks stolidly to its strategy of “high-value targeting,” our preferred euphemism for assassination. Secretary of State John Kerry has proudly cited the elimination of “fifty percent” of the Islamic State’s “top commanders” as a recent indication of progress. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi himself, “Caliph” of the Islamic State, was reportedly seriously wounded in a March airstrike and thereby removed from day-to-day control of the organization. In January, as the White House belatedly admitted, a strike targeting al-Qaeda leadership in Pakistan also managed to kill an American, Warren Weinstein, and his fellow hostage, Giovanni Lo Porto.
Click here to read more of this dispatch.http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175988/tomgram%3A_andrew_cockburn%2C_how_assassination_sold_drugs_and_promoted_terrorism/#more