Spencer Ackerman on why neoconservatism is constitutionally incapable of actually vanquishing al-Qaida:

And as long as we’re talking COIN, let’s tie this all together. Barnett has this line about Obama fighting al-Qaeda but not al-Qaeda in Iraq, which is something John McCain mentioned in his speech yesterday. But look at who AQI is. According to this fascinating briefing that Bits Bacon gave last week, we’re talking not just about fanatics. We’re talking about the people brainwashed by al-Qaeda into coming to Iraq to blow themselves up — brainwashed thanks to propaganda victories that the Weekly Standard’s chosen policies, like the Iraq war and torture, have yielded. That’s the swamp that Dean Barnett and his homies will not only fail to drain, but they’ll expand, over and over and over again, no matter how decisively the last five years have shattered everything they believe in.