[Skybird]

AQ is no field army, and thus should not be measured by performance in field battles. It is a mix of guerilla and terror, political, social and religious involvement. They amkew the West investing horren dious sums of money worldwide to boost security anbd engage in miliutary actions. That means they are very well potent enough to make us sacrificing a solid ammount of our economic and financial ressources for the military, because of them.

Same could be said about the Taliban, who also seem to suffer defeats in open field battles - still are short of becoming the unconditional victor in the Afghanistan war.

In Vietnam the Vietcong also lost every ground battle and offensive it tried - and still won the war.

Winning battles is one thing, and not even the most important one. Winning the one battle that decides the war - that is the only battle that counts. Winning the war in the end, by battle or by other means. To evade making the deciding mistake, the last error in the war.

One can win battles, and still lose a war. AQ's triumph is that in it'S wake a massive surge of radicalisation and fundamentalisation swept through the Islmaic world, giving us headaches whereever Islam is present. That they have almost seized to exist as an organisaiton, means nothing, since they always were more a thinking school, and ideology anyway. AQ is no organsiation, it is an idea. That is what makes it so dangerous, so hard to combat, so terroristic and so motivating for others who are not AQ at all. Many attemtped or carried out terror strikes of the past ten years were motivated by AQ, but the attackers having had no formal link to anything called AQ.

AQ is no field army that parades on the meadow and waits to get shot into pieces. This is no symmetric war.