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Op-ed: Al-Qaida is stronger today than it was on 9/11

Bodhisattva said:
Just think how bad AQ would be if the Americans had done nothing...
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Just think of how powerless al-Qa'eda would have become if the US had stopped intermeddling in the internal affairs of Middle Eastern countries.
 
TU Curmudgeon said:
Just think of how powerless al-Qa'eda would have become if the US had stopped intermeddling in the internal affairs of Middle Eastern countries.
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Iraq was a bad decision, that is for sure.
 
Bodhisattva said:
Iraq was a bad decision, that is for sure.
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Other than a few nuts, you aren't likely to find anyone who disagrees with that point (whether the agreement with you is based on the invasion, per se, or on how the invasion and conquest was conducted, or on how the occupation was conducted after the invasion and conquest was completed).

Any one of the three would be grounds for saying "Iraq was a bad decision, that is for sure." so there is LOTS of room for agreement.
 
TU Curmudgeon said:
Other than a few nuts, you aren't likely to find anyone who disagrees with that point (whether the agreement with you is based on the invasion, per se, or on how the invasion and conquest was conducted, or on how the occupation was conducted after the invasion and conquest was completed).

Any one of the three would be grounds for saying "Iraq was a bad decision, that is for sure." so there is LOTS of room for agreement.
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The Invasion... that was just a bad tactical decision. It also cost a lot of innocent people their lives and triggered sectarian violence on a scale never before seen.
 
TU Curmudgeon said:
From Navy Times

Op-ed: Al-Qaida is stronger today than it was on 9/11
​

Al-Qaida has recruited an estimated 40,000 fighters since Sept. 11, 2001, when the Osama bin Laden-led extremist group attacked the United States, according to the not-for-profit Council on Foreign Relations.

Despite a United States-led global “war on terror” that has cost $5.9 trillion, killed an estimated 480,000 to 507,000 people and assassinated bin Laden, al-Qaida has grown and spread since 9/11, expanding from rural Afghanistan into North Africa, East Africa, the Sahel, the Gulf States, the Middle East and Central Asia.

In those places, al-Qaida has developed new political influence – in some areas even supplanting the local government.

So how does a religious extremist group with fewer than a hundred members in September 2001 become a transnational terror organization, even as the world’s biggest military has targeted it for elimination?

According to my dissertation research on the resiliency of al-Qaida and the work of other scholars, the U.S. “war on terror” was the catalyst for al-Qaida’s growth.

COMMENT:-

Does he have a point and, if so, how much of a point does he have?

Posts along the line of "He is a LEFTIE so he has absolutely no point at all and I know this without even bothering to read the research because LEFTIES never have any point at all because all LEFTIES are interested in doing is destroying the United States of America and turning it into a COMMIE DICTATORSHIP rules by a MUSLIM THEOCRACY." will simply be ignored by me (and hopefully any other [?] rational person).

PS - If he does have a point, would it be better to [1] put pointing the fingers of blame at 'the other political party' aside and discuss what can be done to reverse what he sees as having happened or to [2] point the fingers of blame at 'the other political party' and not bother to actually do anything to reverse what he sees as having happened?

PPS - I do realize that Option 2 is the most fun one.
​
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I've seen some things similar to this in the past. Usually, the view is that AQ's growth is like a bastardized franchise organization: wide spread and loosely related. The thesis is that organization has a hollow center, e.g. no charismatic leaders like OBL and most question whether AQ could mount another attack like 911.
 
TU Curmudgeon said:
I agree completely with the "smart, disciplined, sociopaths" position.

On the other hand, the number of times that "the Number 2 leader of __[fill in the blank]__" has been killed seems to indicate that there is some chance that "they" are developing those "smart, disciplined, sociopaths" faster than "we" are killing them off.
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Well, yes and no. The most ruthless and cunning tend to rise to the top, sure, but when the best leader eats a tomahawk missile the second best takes control... who is usually not quite as skilled as his predecessor. Do that enough and you have idiots at the helm.
 
jmotivator said:
Well, yes and no. The most ruthless and cunning tend to rise to the top, sure, but when the best leader eats a tomahawk missile the second best takes control... who is usually not quite as skilled as his predecessor. Do that enough and you have idiots at the helm.
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Works a helluva lot better than arming them...
 
Fledermaus said:
Who armed them?
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The Taliban

About 90,000 Afghans, including Mohammed Omar, were trained by Pakistan's ISI during the 1980s.[84] The British Professor Carole Hillenbrand concluded that the Taliban have arisen from those US-Saudi-Pakistan-supported mujahideen: "The West helped the Taliban to fight the Soviet takeover of Afghanistan".[85]
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Of course, they couldn't have done it without the CIA, GID and ISI, because without them they would've been driven to the caves by the Soviet Union and Afghani communists...
 
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Bullseye said:
I've seen some things similar to this in the past. Usually, the view is that AQ's growth is like a bastardized franchise organization: wide spread and loosely related. The thesis is that organization has a hollow center, e.g. no charismatic leaders like OBL ...
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I tend to agree with that analysis.

On the other hand, if someone wants to sell hamburgers they can always find a franchise to assist them to sell hamburgers.

Bullseye said:
...and most question whether AQ could mount another attack like 911.
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Given the divisions in the field, it's rather surprising to me that al-Qa'eda actually managed to keep the (EWAG here) 40 or so people necessary to carry out the WTC/Pentagon mass murders acting as a coherent group as long as it did.

On the other hand, anyone who thinks that ANY government is likely to be able to detect EVERY "terrorist movement" that consists of that small a number of dedicated members is about as in touch with reality as Exidor was.
 
jmotivator said:
Well, yes and no. The most ruthless and cunning tend to rise to the top, sure, but when the best leader eats a tomahawk missile the second best takes control... who is usually not quite as skilled as his predecessor. Do that enough and you have idiots at the helm.
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Sometimes.

Sometimes you end up with someone who is even better than their predecessor at the helm. "Terrorist organizations" are still organizations and have all the same "old boy network" problems as any other organization does.

Without WWII, Dwight D. Eisenhower might well have retired as a Brigadier General since he simply wasn't "old boy" enough for the organization - BUT ...
 
Abbazorkzog said:
The Taliban

Of course, they couldn't have done it without the CIA, GID and ISI, because without them they would've been driven to the caves by the Soviet Union and Afghani communists...
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We aided the Mujahideen. What happens afterward isnt us arming nor supporting.

And if you looked at the average Taliban fighter you didn't see an M16. You saw an AK47. You didn't see an M60, you saw a PK machine gun.
 
TU Curmudgeon said:
I tend to agree with that analysis.

On the other hand, if someone wants to sell hamburgers they can always find a franchise to assist them to sell hamburgers.



Given the divisions in the field, it's rather surprising to me that al-Qa'eda actually managed to keep the (EWAG here) 40 or so people necessary to carry out the WTC/Pentagon mass murders acting as a coherent group as long as it did.

On the other hand, anyone who thinks that ANY government is likely to be able to detect EVERY "terrorist movement" that consists of that small a number of dedicated members is about as in touch with reality as Exidor was.
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I think we've demonstrated the awareness of AQ in Africa when the establishment of the Africa Command (US Africom) which has been in place since 2007. I do agree that small units of dedicated AQ or other terrorists is still a major concern. We've seen demonstrations of that in Europe.
 
We think the world revolves around us. Al Qaeda is Middle East phenomenon that is beyond our poor power to add or detract, as a man once said.
 
Fledermaus said:
We aided the Mujahideen. What happens afterward isnt us arming nor supporting.
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My point is that it doesn't absolve us of the consequences of our actions. Directly, indirectly, we still aided fundamentalist Jihadists that would go on to cause chaos across CA and the ME.

And if you looked at the average Taliban fighter you didn't see an M16. You saw an AK47. You didn't see an M60, you saw a PK machine gun.
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Russian weapons, which were invading and not aiding. So, to correct myself, we didn't arm them we aided them. Didn't even need to arm them to **** that whole situation up did we? Should have just let the Saudis and Pakistanis handle it. :thumbs: Also the fact still stands that the Taliban were given fresh fertilization to even become a thing through that cluster****.
 
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JackA said:
We think the world revolves around us. Al Qaeda is Middle East phenomenon that is beyond our poor power to add or detract, as a man once said.
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We need to stop playing world policeman, regardless of whatever semantics are taken to illuminate that simple fact.
 
dixon01767 said:
Have heard it a dozen times. Al Qaeda demanded that the US military leave Islamic lands in his fatwa and then carried out 9/11 so that we would send more US military to Islamic lands just like he wanted. I dont buy it.
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It's classic terrorism to make an attack intended to get a response from a powerful enemy that creates hatred for the enemy and strengthens support for the terrorist opposition. It's what happened in Serbia, for example. Palestenian leaders understand that when Israel comes in and bulldozes houses and kills people, it strengthens the opposition, etc.
 
Abbazorkzog said:
We need to stop playing world policeman, regardless of whatever semantics are taken to illuminate that simple fact.
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It's a lot worse than playing 'world policeman'. It's more like playing 'world mob boss'. Our interest in Vietnam was our own corrupt power at the expense of the freedom of the Vietnamese people - we use 'freedom' as an excuse for our violence and pursuit of power. Every time we put a dictator over people, we say it's for 'freedom'.
 
jmotivator said:
Well, yes and no. The most ruthless and cunning tend to rise to the top, sure, but when the best leader eats a tomahawk missile the second best takes control... who is usually not quite as skilled as his predecessor. Do that enough and you have idiots at the helm.
Click to expand...

We got that result without any Tomahawk missiles of our leaders.
 
JackA said:
We think the world revolves around us. Al Qaeda is Middle East phenomenon that is beyond our poor power to add or detract, as a man once said.
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That's not really true. For example, Saudi Arabia probably wouldn't keep their dictator in power without US help.
 
Abbazorkzog said:
My point is that it doesn't absolve us of the consequences of our actions. Directly, indirectly, we still aided fundamentalist Jihadists that would go on to cause chaos across CA and the ME.

Russian weapons, which were invading and not aiding. So, to correct myself, we didn't arm them we aided them. Didn't even need to arm them to **** that whole situation up did we? Should have just let the Saudis and Pakistanis handle it. :thumbs: Also the fact still stands that the Taliban were given fresh fertilization to even become a thing through that cluster****.
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We aided and armed the Mujahedin...

The Taliban didn't even exist until a couple of years after our departure....

And the Pakistanis are the ones backing Omar. The EARLY taliban were educated in Pakistan.
 
TU Curmudgeon said:
From Navy Times

Op-ed: Al-Qaida is stronger today than it was on 9/11
​

Al-Qaida has recruited an estimated 40,000 fighters since Sept. 11, 2001, when the Osama bin Laden-led extremist group attacked the United States, according to the not-for-profit Council on Foreign Relations.

Despite a United States-led global “war on terror” that has cost $5.9 trillion, killed an estimated 480,000 to 507,000 people and assassinated bin Laden, al-Qaida has grown and spread since 9/11, expanding from rural Afghanistan into North Africa, East Africa, the Sahel, the Gulf States, the Middle East and Central Asia.

In those places, al-Qaida has developed new political influence – in some areas even supplanting the local government.

So how does a religious extremist group with fewer than a hundred members in September 2001 become a transnational terror organization, even as the world’s biggest military has targeted it for elimination?

According to my dissertation research on the resiliency of al-Qaida and the work of other scholars, the U.S. “war on terror” was the catalyst for al-Qaida’s growth.

COMMENT:-

Does he have a point and, if so, how much of a point does he have?

Posts along the line of "He is a LEFTIE so he has absolutely no point at all and I know this without even bothering to read the research because LEFTIES never have any point at all because all LEFTIES are interested in doing is destroying the United States of America and turning it into a COMMIE DICTATORSHIP rules by a MUSLIM THEOCRACY." will simply be ignored by me (and hopefully any other [?] rational person).

PS - If he does have a point, would it be better to [1] put pointing the fingers of blame at 'the other political party' aside and discuss what can be done to reverse what he sees as having happened or to [2] point the fingers of blame at 'the other political party' and not bother to actually do anything to reverse what he sees as having happened?

PPS - I do realize that Option 2 is the most fun one.
​
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I, and others in the Security field, have long maintained that killing bin Laden rather than just wrapping him in a surveillance net was a mistake.

He was sort of like that relative who is the "glue that holds the family together" in that he represented a central command figure.

Since he was waxed, AQ "franchises" have appeared across the world without a central command structure, rendering them more difficult to track.

Sent from my moto e5 play using Tapatalk
 
Bullseye said:
I think we've demonstrated the awareness of AQ in Africa when the establishment of the Africa Command (US Africom) which has been in place since 2007. I do agree that small units of dedicated AQ or other terrorists is still a major concern. We've seen demonstrations of that in Europe.
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Whether or not small groups of dedicated __[fill in the blank]__ adherents actually exist (and I wouldn't bet against it [because, from a security standpoint assuming that a threat does NOT exist is almost the surest way of guaranteeing that it will bite you on the ass]), what we do appear to have evidence of is:

  1. the law enforcement agencies are quite good at catching "low hanging fruit" (and the potential "low hanging fruit" that they can entice into becoming actual "low hanging fruit";
  2. the law enforcement agencies are quite good at catching those who are deranged enough to make repeated and public statements about their intention to commit terrorist acts;
  3. the military is quite good at getting those whom the military self-describe as "important terrorists" AFTER the military had gotten them;
  4. many times an announcement that the military has gotten an "important terrorist" that same "important terrorist" resurfaces later (and almost no one pays any attention to the fact that the military doesn't adjust its body count downwards in response);
  5. modern weapons are much better at killing people than the people controlling those weapons are at correctly identifying the people whom they are about to kill with those modern weapons; and
  6. whenever a "terrorist group" attempts to confront a modern military in (reasonably) classic warfare style, it gets its head handed to it on a platter.

What the general public does NOT know is whether there are actually any "small dedicated terrorist groups", what any "small dedicated terrorist groups" are intending to do, whether any "small dedicated terrorist groups" that do exist have any real capacity, or where the funding for any "small dedicated terrorist groups" that do exist and have any real capacity comes from. There are indications on all of those points, but no hard evidence generally available. One of the potential reasons why there is no hard evidence generally available is that the hard evidence that is available is "embarrassing" due to the fact that the funding for the "small dedicated terrorist groups" that do exist and which do have some real capacity is coming from our "friends" (a postulate for which there is, indeed, some indication of truth).
 
Fledermaus said:
We aided and armed the Mujahedin...

The Taliban didn't even exist until a couple of years after our departure....

And the Pakistanis are the ones backing Omar. The EARLY taliban were educated in Pakistan.
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Not only that, but the current Taliban are "educated" in Pakistan.
 
Harv said:
I, and others in the Security field, have long maintained that killing bin Laden rather than just wrapping him in a surveillance net was a mistake.

He was sort of like that relative who is the "glue that holds the family together" in that he represented a central command figure.

Since he was waxed, AQ "franchises" have appeared across the world without a central command structure, rendering them more difficult to track.

Sent from my moto e5 play using Tapatalk
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Good points.

Letting the plotters plot when you know what they are plotting allows you to let their plot ALMOST come to fruition before collapsing it around the active participants' ears.

This has several advantages:


  1. it deprives the plotters of their "best people";
  2. it demoralizes the remainder of the plotters' people;
  3. it inculcates a belief that the plotters are not very capable;
  4. repeated failures are likely to get the plotters to start thinking that one of their own is a "traitor to the cause";
  5. when the leadership of "the cause" doesn't trust each other, the effectiveness of those leaders diminishes markedly; and
  6. when "the cause" is led by ineffective leaders, "the cause" has one hell of a hard time recruiting more of the "best people".
 
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