Another: "al-Qaeda is the most potent threat to the United States." As usual, then: you decide. "US officials: Al-Qaida unpopular and 'imploding,'" by Pamela Hess for the Associated Press, September 15:
WASHINGTON (AP) — Top U.S. counterterrorism officials Monday said al-Qaida is "imploding" and that its violent tactics have turned Muslims worldwide against the organization. "Absolutely it's imploding. It's imploding because it's not a message that resonates with a lot of Muslims," said Dell Dailey, the State Department's coordinator for counterterrorism.Social services aside, still, al-Qaeda -- not Hamas or Hezbollah -- is the organization that managed to strike the great Western infidel on 9/11, thereby elevating its "popular appeal" with millions of Muslims.Al-Qaida still remains the most dangerous threat to the United States. But of growing concern are organizations like Lebanese Hezbollah and Hamas, which combine social services, local governance, national politics with extremist attacks, said Undersecretary of State James Glassman.
"These are models that have a lot more popular appeal than al-Qaida, that has almost no popular appeal," he said.[...]
U.S. intelligence agencies caution against predicting al-Qaida's demise too soon, noting its Pakistan safe harbor and the persistent efforts of its affiliates to conduct attacks in North Africa and elsewhere.[...]
Despite these apparent fissures, al-Qaida is the most potent threat to the United States, according to U.S. intelligence officials and reports...
Al-Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbolla,...all involve Islam...
All it takes is a successful strike and AQ is right back on top. They will try.
It ain't imploding in the one place it depends on for its survival...that's Pakistan of course.
Al-Qaeda can "implode" all anyone wants. So what? The ideology of Islam remains. There will always be, among the more than a billion Muslims, those who will decide that Jihad, the "struggle" to remove all obstacles to the spread and then dominance of Islam all over the world, a duty that Muslims are taught is central to their existence as good Muslims -- is best pursued by terrorism, rather than by conventional combat, qitaal, or by deployment of the Money Weapon, or campaigns of Da'wa, or demographic conquest.
But the more Muslims there are in the West, the more some of those Muslims will embrace the methods of Al Qaeda, perhaps not this year, but next year, or next decade, or three decades or five decades hence. What does it matter if an organization called "Al Qaeda" disappears right now? Islam is forever; its texts are immutable; its tenets do not change. Its attitudes, its atmospherics, remain dangerous, everywhere, for non-Muslims.
In all the congratulatory slapping-each-other-on-the-back of those who think we "have won" the "war on terror," those who think that the phrase the "war on terror" adequately describes what the Infidels of this world face (not even a War of Islam against the West, but a War of Islam, as always, against the Rest), those who think that such a "war" may be a "long war" but will at some point come to a clearly discernible end, are not people who understand the nature of the threat.
And those who, when they learn that in 1960 there were 1,500 Muslims in the Netherlands, and in 1970 there were 15,000 Muslims in the Netherlands, and in 1997 there were 400,000 Muslims in the Netherlands, and today there are over a million Muslims in the Netherlands -- fill in the numbers for Great Britain, France, Germany, and so on yhourself -- think nothing of it, because "these people are not terrorists" so "what do we have to worry about" are not those who should be in charge of instructing and protecting us.
We need a new crew. We need people who see that "war" is not always or mainly a matter of conventional generals, boots on the ground, and bombs away. Nor is it a matter of those newfangled military men who are supposed to build schools and roads and bridges and "win hearts and minds" through spreading prosperity and Good Government, in Muslim lands, where hearts, and where minds, no matter if temporarily, or feignedly, grateful, will revert to type, to the hostility toward Infidels that is inculcated from birth.
Pakistan is not an "ally." Afghanistan is not an "ally." Saudi Arabia is most definitely not an "ally." None of the Gulf sheikdoms, including Kuwait and Qatar and Bahrain that allow a small American presence, are "allies." They are merely eager to have the Americans deal with the bigger threats -- Iraq, Iran, possibly Saudi Arabia -- that might threaten those tiny statelets of plutocrats who have done nothing to deserve their incredible wealth, and will do nothing to protect themselves, or the oilfields, for as they like to say among themselves, that's a job for the Americans, our dutiful servants in all such things.
Forget the campaigns of Da'wa in prisons and among immigrant populations. Forget the psychically marginal, at every level of society, who turn to Islam. Forget the huge increase in Muslim populations in Europe, where the wives, including the wives of polygamists, do not work, take every conceivable benefit that the Infidel nation-state in its suicidal generosity provides, and breed, breed, breed.
Thx, Hugh.
Just a note: Mithal al-Alusi, the liberal Iraqi parlementarian who visited Israel and had his two sons murdered for it in 2004, went to the Herzliya conference last week, and now it looks like he will be barred from ever leaving the country again. Makes you really appreciate all that sacrifice, doesn't it:
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1221142469745&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Actually, I think the biggest danger is not al-Qaeda, it's ignorance about Islam.
"I summon my blue-eyed slaves anytime it pleases me. I command the Americans to send me their bravest soldiers to die for me. Anytime I clap my hands a stupid genie called the American ambassador appears to do my bidding. When the Americans die in my service their bodies are frozen in metal boxes by the US Embassy and American airplanes carry them away, as if they never existed. Truly, America is my favorite slave." King Fahd Bin Abdul-Aziz, Jeddeh 1993
Actually, I think the biggest danger is not al-Qaeda, it's ignorance about Islam.
Posted by: jewdog
Coupled with the fact that most people don't want to know about Islam or, if they do know about it, actually couldn't care less.
I am often told "Why are you worrying about that nonsense. There is nothing you can do about it"
So what? Al Qaeda isn't all there is. It wasn't even the first international terrorist group. It's not the most significant.
This presentation was where the Arab reporter asked these men about that "anti-Islamic" DVD - Obsession.
All anyone talked about was the peaceful Muslims. Al Qaeda lost support because it began attacking MUSLIMS. Does anyone believe that if they had restricted their attacks to Americans and to coalition troops that they would not still be riding high in Anbar? Would al Qaeda be facing opposition from Iraqi Sunnis if they hadn't bombed markets and lines of men waiting to join the army?
If al Qaeda or one of its offshoots managed to attack a major installation in Europe or the US can we believe that Muslims wouldn't dance in the street once again, reprising 9/11?
Hamas and Hezbollah haven't lost support. Jihad hasn't lost support. I've lost track of the number of articles on JW just in September that have Muslims telling the West that jihad will go on, no matter what we do. How can anyone say Muslims anywhere are turning against terrorism?
to hugh: excellent post!
Gee, we had just gotten used to them exploding....
(Come on, somebody had to say it)
I too thank you,Hugh.
YOU have it EXACTLY RIGHT.
From above-
Top U.S. counterterrorism officials Monday said al-Qaida is "imploding" and that its violent tactics have turned Muslims worldwide against the organization. "Absolutely it's imploding. It's imploding because it's not a message that resonates with a lot of Muslims," said Dell Dailey, the State Department's coordinator for counterterrorism.
It is not Al-Queda that is imploding - it is Foggy Bottom's "counterterrorism" unit that is imploding, unfortunately for us. Mr. Dailey should study the posts Mellany Phillips, Fjordman, etc. I'll bet he's never heard of them.
Great post Hugh, Daily should see that too, but I feel confident that Jihad-Watch is prohibited viewing in Foggy Bottom - after all, it uses the word "jihad", and that is a Foggy Bottom no-no!
Think of all the books at Amazon with the word "jihad" in the title. Are they all prohibited at State so as not to offend their CAIR-Saudi masters? Counterterrorism indeed. Is that related to Counter Intelligence, anyone? McCain-Palin will have their hands full cleaning up that den of iniquity if they get in. I am sure how the entire Foggy Bottom bureaucracy will be voting in mass.
This is another example of common sense being triumphed temporarly by acedemic sense. In the end common sense will win out.
I just can't believe our Department of State. They are a bunch of idiots. McCain will have to send Palin down there with a dozer/loader to clean it up. She would do it!
Great post Hugh.
I think the talk of McCain & Co "cleaning up" State Department or the Pentagon is just a talk.
These are entrenched bureaucracies with certain ideological bent.
A discourse of what is Islam both in ideological and in the modern context is yet to exist in mainstream; when it does, the US establishment too will fall in line.
Seriously, McCain, Polin, Obama or Bush are not exactly intellectuals or deep thinkers.
When the so-called established hands or political scientists with decades of scholarship are confused about Islam, why should anyone expect politicians to know what they are talking about?
In my view, many of us have to systematically work to push the critical discourse on Islam into the mainstream.
Of course, people such as Robert Spencer, Andrew Bostom (to name a few) are doing exactly that. But clearly there should be more of us.
I think we will get there. But what concerns me is the time it takes and what it is going to cost us.
In a free society one business goes out of business and a new one takes their share of the market. In an Islamic society it is the same thing. AQ goes out (and I question that assumption) and another one takes its place. It all a matter of marketing except that under Islam there is a very strong market for killing Jews and the West.
Seriously, McCain, Polin, Obama or Bush are not exactly intellectuals or deep thinkers.
Posted by: MoorthyM at September 16, 2008 7:50 AM
Americans, in general, are not deep thinkers. Else, why would they not impeach a president/commander-in-chief who has a history of swimming in Saudi wealth and hence, covered up for Saudi Arabia at every step from escorting Bin Ladens to safety, while all American flights were grounded, to doubling the very students visas Saudi terrorist abused for 9/11:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXk0LFVAgHE&feature=related
Daddy's contacts, Al-Sauds, Bin Ladens and petro-dollars can buy a commander-in-chief:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_qBtOGnAAo
What is worse, Americans were pushed in a war, un-called-for, under the cover of 9/11:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45f1Riv_z1I
With a president/commander-in-chief in Saudi pockets, how hard is it to spread mosques and madrassas all over Dar Al-Harb? But more importantly, where are American deep-thinkers?
Alert,
You could have made the same impeachment argument about Bill Clinton, long before anyone heard Monica's name. What did he do when our soldiers were attacked inside Saudi Arabia?
Are we to believe that an authoritarian government like the one in Riyadh had no clue what was going on?
With a president/commander-in-chief in Saudi pockets, how hard is it to spread mosques and madrassas all over Dar Al-Harb? But more importantly, where are American deep-thinkers?
Bill Clinton, AGAIN. Lest you forget, the 9/11 hijackers made their plans and entered the country while Bill Clinton was president.
Like it or not, we have rule of law. There have been several lawmakers who have wanted to impeach this president but there is a procedure for doing so. They didn't have the opportunity while Democrats were in the minority. Now Democrats are in the majority and it was DEMOCRATS who took it off the table.
It takes more than a majority. It takes a super majority. A majority of senators voted to convict Andrew Johnson but he got off because there wasn't the two thirds vote that the Constitution required.
My thoughts have been that "deep thinking" is what got us to the state we are in.
It's time for us to start working on the obvious. Curtis LeMay once said about the conduct of his part of WWII, "Kill enough of them and they will stop fighting."
We are going to miss al-qaeda - they quadrupled the car bombing and the suicide bombing in the Dar Al Suicide Bombing region.
Alert- If we could impeach the entire political crew in Washington, I would go along with you. But Bush is not smart enough to be impeached.
We should stop all this 'religious tolerance' garbage and move to exclude all Islamic faiths from our nation. Not Arabs necessarily, for some of them are Christians, but all islamists. Jesus said to love (be kind) to your enemies... but he never suggested to FORGET they are just that; your enemies! Jesus came against the religious error of his earthly ministry and so should we. Don't torture them, don't harm them, and feed them if they are hungry but rid of them!
Desperation will drive Al Qaeda to attempt murder in a blaze of Muhammedan glory
Then the west can look forward to working on the next head of Medusa.
Alert,
Your ever present BDS is showing again. To be fair, this pissed me off too, but the alternatives, both times, were WAY worse. The House of Saud is not a true friend, by any stretch, but we do need them until we can find alternative energy sources. Would ALGORE or that jackass John "effing" Kerry have been better? Surely, they would have been worse! IMO.
Regards,
ABS
لن استسلم
We see a small part of AQ et al "imploding" every other day. Each suicide bomber is a small part of AQ et al. Maybe that is what the government means.