Myth of Al Qaeda

[Pens1566]

Link

This is the reality of the group that the Bush administration has said would engage us in a "long war" not unlike the cold war?the group that has led to the transformation of U.S. foreign policy and America's image in the world. The intelligence community generally agrees that the number of true A-list Al Qaeda operatives out there around the time of 9/11 was no more than about 1,000, perhaps as few as 500, most in and around Afghanistan.

Can't say this is shocking at all.

 

[Todd33]

The ultimate tragedy of the Iraq war was not only that it diverted the U.S. from the knockout blow against Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan?the deaths of bin Laden and Zawahiri would likely have persuaded most jihadis it was wiser to focus on the near enemy?but that Iraq also altered the outcome of Al Qaeda's internal debate, tipping it in bin Laden's favor. "Iraq ended that debate because it fused the near and the far enemy," as Arquilla puts it succinctly. America ventured into the lands of jihad and willingly offered itself as a target in place of the local regimes. And as a new cause that revived the flagging Al Qaeda movement. It is, no doubt, bin Laden's greatest victory.

Good read. I don't think this was incompetence or a mistake. The war mongers in the GOP need a bogeyman. They use this stuff to keep military spending up, troops deployed to secure energy, win elections through "security" ie. fear, etc. 9/11 was a gift to the GOP and they know it. I'm not sure gay bashing, tax cuts for the rich and abortion alone could mask their incompetence in governing for much longer.

 

[Jaskalas]

The concept that hate for America was a new thing, created by our response to 9-11, is complete folly. Don?t you think something significant was there to cause 9-11?

Sort of like blaming the effect for the cause, I consider the line of thought in the beginning of that article to be backwards.

Now in any war our enemies will hate us. So I do not deny that our participation stirs the hornet?s nest. This comes naturally and will only relent when we surrender, or *gasp* make them surrender. In reality, the latter will never happen under our current policy and the former seems very likely if half of our country has anything to say about it.

 

[dahunan]

I would bet you my whole lifes earnings that our so called "war on terror" created more terrorists than ever before in the history of mankind.. Mr bush was the greatest recruiting agent for Al-Qaeda in the history of their organization "Bring It ON!!!!!"

 

[conjur]

Jason Burke's "Al Qaeda: The True Story of Radical Islam" told that story a couple of years ago. So did that BBC documentary, The Power of Nightmares (which interviewed Mr. Burke) and even in the latest PBS Frontline: Dark Side

Al Qaeda and the Taliban were virtually destroyed by the end of 2001 but that low-hanging fruit in Iraq was too tempting to the chickenhawk neocons to prove their ideology.

 

[Polish3d]

I suspect Bush either said and/or meant that it would be a long war against Islamic extremism, not against a group called "Al-Qaeda." The idea that it would be anything other than that is moronic.

 

[Red Dawn]

Originally posted by: Frackal
I suspect Bush either said and/or meant that it would be a long war against Islamic extremism, not against a group called "Al-Qaeda." The idea that it would be anything other than that is moronic.

Well keep in mind this is Bush we are talking about.

 

[zerocool1]

Originally posted by: Jaskalas
The concept that hate for America was a new thing, created by our response to 9-11, is complete folly. Don?t you think something significant was there to cause 9-11?.

I think its our support of Israel. The patriot act was on the wishlist for justice dept for a long time. it took 9/11 to get those new powers.

 

[CaptnKirk]

I have never understood how our Government could refer to these small time loosers as 'Masterminds'.

'Blithering Idiots' with no regard for life is what they really are.

 

[NeoV]

While there has always been some hatred of America, to think the Iraq war - the photo's from the prison, etc, etc..haven't fueled that hated, then you are delusional.

I'll agree that our support of Israel has never helped, but it's not like the rest of the Arab world are big fans of the Palestinians either.

 

[Starbuck1975]

'Blithering Idiots' with no regard for life is what they really are.

Not so sure about that..I agree on the "no regard for life" comment, but 9/11 was hardly the work of idiots.

I would bet you my whole lifes earnings that our so called "war on terror" created more terrorists than ever before in the history of mankind.. Mr bush was the greatest recruiting agent for Al-Qaeda in the history of their organization "Bring It ON!!!!!"

Bush's actions have hardly raised America's profile in the Islamic world, but the resentment towards America, and terrorism, already existed prior to the Bush Administration...similarly, Islamic extremists chose to target America long before the NeoCons came to power in this country.

Islamic extremism is the culmination of numerous factors, mostly stemming from the frustrations in the Middle East created after European imperialism, the wakes of WW1 and WW2, the creation of Israel, and the Cold War. Arguably, the Islamic world should hold more of a grudge against Europe then it does America, but we did emerge as the larger and more visible target...prior to 9/11, we were an unattainable target.

The intelligence community generally agrees that the number of true A-list Al Qaeda operatives out there around the time of 9/11 was no more than about 1,000, perhaps as few as 500, most in and around Afghanistan.

Well except for that perhaps statistically insignificant handful that managed to hijack a bunch of planes and kill a whole bunch of people...strength in numbers is not a requirement for a terrorist organization to have an impact.


I agree that Al Quaida has largely become the boogey man that Communism once was...however, like Communism, there certainly IS a tangible and credible threat to American interests...however, also like Communism, American foreign policy approaches to mitigating those risks have created more problems then they have eliminated, and to a certain extent, managed to escalate hostilities.

 

[MadRat]

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You tell me there is a tangible and credible threat to American interests and I assume you mean Al Qaeda. But it seems Islam religion is the threat. The Muslims are the problem. This is a holy war that they started around 637 BC, when the caliph sent a messenger to the people of Jerusalem demanding that all christians within renounce the divinity of Christ and bow down to the one true God, Allah.

 

[LegendKiller]

Originally posted by: MadRat
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You tell me there is a tangible and credible threat to American interests and I assume you mean Al Qaeda. But it seems Islam religion is the threat. The Muslims are the problem. This is a holy war that they started around 637 BC, when the caliph sent a messenger to the people of Jerusalem demanding that all christians within renounce the divinity of Christ and bow down to the one true God, Allah.

Yeah, Christians are so peaceful.

You are a blind tool if you think that any one religion is the crux of all evil. Every religion has it's fringe lunatics that ruin it for everybody else. Just like Robertson and Graham give Christians a bad name, those who wish to corrupt Islam give Muslims a bad name.

It's people like you, who do not realize that the population is nothing more than a distribution of gradients that create the havoc. You are only but a different side of the same coin.

 

[Rainsford]

Originally posted by: Frackal
I suspect Bush either said and/or meant that it would be a long war against Islamic extremism, not against a group called "Al-Qaeda." The idea that it would be anything other than that is moronic.

I think that's part of what will make it a "long war"...this unclear idea of just who it is we're fighting. Lest we forget, an actual group attacked us on 9/11, Al-Qaeda...going after all extremists, violent and otherwise, is a little odd since we haven't even dealt with the people who actually attacked us yet. And if you listen to Bush, our enemies are, at varions times, extremists, terrorists, or my personal favorite, "evil doers".

The popular thing to do lately is declaring war against ideas, not people, but that's kind of stupid if you ask me...especially before you actually deal with the specific people who attacked you. This vague, foggy war we're fighting against "bad guys" is almost certainly destined to go on forever, mostly because we don't really seem to know who we're fighting in the first place.

 

[5150Joker]

Originally posted by: dahunan
I would bet you my whole lifes earnings that our so called "war on terror" created more terrorists than ever before in the history of mankind.. Mr bush was the greatest recruiting agent for Al-Qaeda in the history of their organization "Bring It ON!!!!!"

QFT no doubt about that. I bet many moderates that were pro-USA probably went running straight into the arms of "terrorists" after the GOP policy in Iraq and other places.

 

[Polish3d]

edit

 

[Future Shock]

Originally posted by: LegendKiller
It's people like you, who do not realize that the population is nothing more than a distribution of gradients that create the havoc. You are only but a different side of the same coin.

Wow, I wish I had said that.

And as Oscar Wilde once rejoined someone who mouthed those same words, "Don't worry, you will say that, you will".

Future Shock

 

[MadRat]

Originally posted by: LegendKiller

Originally posted by: MadRat
Picture Set 1
Picture Set 2

You tell me there is a tangible and credible threat to American interests and I assume you mean Al Qaeda. But it seems Islam religion is the threat. The Muslims are the problem. This is a holy war that they started around 637 BC, when the caliph sent a messenger to the people of Jerusalem demanding that all christians within renounce the divinity of Christ and bow down to the one true God, Allah.

Yeah, Christians are so peaceful.

You are a blind tool if you think that any one religion is the crux of all evil. Every religion has it's fringe lunatics that ruin it for everybody else. Just like Robertson and Graham give Christians a bad name, those who wish to corrupt Islam give Muslims a bad name.

It's people like you, who do not realize that the population is nothing more than a distribution of gradients that create the havoc. You are only but a different side of the same coin.

You have a problem with your anology if the coin is not two sided. The prophet himself led the war against infidels. Infidels in his eyes were not simply those that did not believe in Allah, they were the people that did not believe in Muhammed's mindset. History has already proven that point. The extremists simply are taking the words of the Muhammed fellow literally, whereas those that do not organize against non-believers are taking it figuratively.

Muhammed was the one that empowered the four caliphs. He was the one that banned unhealthy things like music yet allowed music he opined to be not music. He was the one that said to destroy idols yet opined the black meteorite shrine was acceptable. He was the one that opined the holy war to sweep the world.

 

[Vic]

Dog wagging with Emmanuel Goldstein. Nothing sells quite like fear.

 

[Moonbeam]

My my, there are now in the West millions of experts on Islam.

 

[JEDIYoda]

Originally posted by: zerocool1

Originally posted by: Jaskalas
The concept that hate for America was a new thing, created by our response to 9-11, is complete folly. Don?t you think something significant was there to cause 9-11?.

I think its our support of Israel. The patriot act was on the wishlist for justice dept for a long time. it took 9/11 to get those new powers.

Thats pretty far fetched...
So what do we do withdraw our support of Israel?....hmmm

 

[conjur]

Now you're talkin'!

 

[GeNome]

Originally posted by: JEDIYoda

Originally posted by: zerocool1

Originally posted by: Jaskalas
The concept that hate for America was a new thing, created by our response to 9-11, is complete folly. Don?t you think something significant was there to cause 9-11?.

I think its our support of Israel. The patriot act was on the wishlist for justice dept for a long time. it took 9/11 to get those new powers.

Thats pretty far fetched...
So what do we do withdraw our support of Israel?....hmmm

What's so far-fetched about it? I'm not saying Israel is pre-WW2 Germany's bastard child, since after some further research, they seem to be a *decent* place, but every other ME country seems to think otherwise. So doesn't it seem possible that the country that supports Israel with weapons and money, that would be U.S., would be a very large target for their animosity?