A Friendly Missive From Messr. bin Laden Posted by Jeffrey Stacey

While terrorism detecting eyes are averted to the stunning Hamas performance in Israel, in the campaign against terrorism the state of Al Qaeda is of far greater importance—particularly with regard to the ramifications of this month’s successful U.S. strike inside Pakistan. Not only thereafter did we hear from Osama bin Laden (OBL) for the first time in over a year, but in the course of threatening attacks in the U.S. heartland he also offered something of an olive branch.

Al Qaeda did offer a sort of truce with European governments a couple of years ago, but OBL’s offer constitutes an intriguing departure. Why such a message and why now? With a trove of American analysts suggesting the U.S. is losing the campaign against terrorism—and Al Qaeda’s success in broadening their recruiting, influencing moderate Muslim opinion, and OBL’s remaining at large—why would the leader of Al Qaeda do something that smacks of weakness?

It appears that OBL is feeling newly vulnerable, and he has reason to be. Certainly he could be motivated to snatch back some of the limelight that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (AMZ) has been hogging in Iraq, and OBL has consistently shown himself to be an able media manipulator—e.g. by making an overture he knew the U.S. would reject he comes off somewhat statesmanlike.

And no doubt by rattling the saber a bit he set off a fresh round of concerns about the post 9-11 Al Qaeda chimera’s ability to strike at will deep inside the West. But OBL has been comfortable in having his chief lieutenant, Ayman al-Zawahiri (AZ), act as the public face of Al Qaeda for a couple of years now; moreover, he has an interest in remaining out of view to stoke those mythical fears even though he is becoming more frail. Granted, the OBL tape could well have been made prior to the strike, but the Al Qaeda death knell is sounding.

Al Qaeda has not only a significantly reduced direct capacity to carry out attacks but also a new reason to feel that OBL and AZ are not as safe in their Pakistani tribal refuge as they are accustomed to feeling. I am in no way writing the epitaph of Al Qaeda, nor foolishly dabbling in any “they’re in the last throes” rhetoric. Rather, evidence points to success against the top drawer terrorist organization even while its affiliates are achieving increased success of their own.

While the Madrid and London bombings indicate a continued threat of local motivated Islamic extremists in the West—the principal threat these days—Al Qaeda itself has been degraded.  By the end of December, in addition to OBL, AZ, and AMZ if he counts, only 5 other major operatives were still at large (in May top commander Abu Faraj al-Libbi was captured).

As of the strike this month, aimed at AZ, two of the other five were killed—Abu Khabab al-Masri and Abu Ubayada al-Masri, other top commanders—along with AZ’s son-in-law and another. It was a sizable blow to Al Qaeda and highly ominous for the remaining leaders. For the strike inside Pakistan itself was a departure.

That Pakistan allowed the U.S. strike to take place upon request is significant (President Musharraf’s delayed complaints are purely due to the protests spawned around the country) and presages future success as the U.S. et al. move toward eradicating 90% of notable Al Qaeda leaders. Moreover, the numbers of fighters who went through pre 9-11 Afghan training camps have been exaggerated, as is the report of vast new camps there.

I will say more in a future post about the specter of continued attacks from affiliated groups—including a proposal to open up a Pacific front in the global campaign against terrorism—but the steady eradication of Al Qaeda itself is significant and the day of OBL’s demise may be closer than we think (and especially if he is captured instead of killed, the effect on his followers will be less malign than most imagine).

Comments

[Dan Kervick]

Why are people still paying attention to the lost hermit Bid Laden and his onanistic pronouncements? One might point out, first of all, that the intelligence aces who assure us now of the authorial authenticity of these conveniently-timed, audio-taped notes from the underground are the same earthbound jokers who feigned to execute a slam dunk over the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. But, beyond that, is there any evidence at all that Bin Laden continues to exert any operational or financial control over “Al-Qaeda”? Or that Al-Qaeda itself exists in any form other than the wishful thoughts of some writers of revolutionary epistles?

I am somewhat confused by jstacey’s conflicted funereal imagery. On the one hand, he assures us that he is “in no way writing the epitaph of Al Qaeda, nor foolishly dabbling in any ‘they’re in the last throes’ rhetoric.” But he says also that “the Al Qaeda death knell is sounding.” Now, which is it? Doesn’t one usually hold off on the death knell until the last throes have started? And if you hear someone’s death knell sounding, isn’t it OK to start writing the epitaph? My own sense is that while Al-Qaedism may still be alive, in several derivative local forms, al-Qaeda itself is a phantom – a cognitive projection formed by the mutual need of some scattered desperados to believe in an organized army to throw against their enemies, and of their opponents to believe in a coordinated, unitary enemy worth repelling.

It occurs me that it is particularly among Democrats that we are lately encountering the higher amplitude transmissions of Bin Laden jazz and Al-Qaeda jive. This is perhaps a consequence of positions some of them took early on. Instead of simply condemning the Iraq war tout court, Democrats of the hawky-hawk persuasion took the cagey line that the only reason the war was a bad idea was because it was a “distraction from the Global War on Terror”. This is the modern equivalent of the “missile gap”, a slick little bit of switch-hitting that lets them talk with the hawks, while dallying with the doves. I have trouble myself discerning the difference between those who really believe this silliness, and those who offer it up in bad faith as a mere political tactic, or as pathetic buttress for their insecure self-image.

There is no reason at all to believe that the Bush administration has been distracted from the war on terror - such as it is. Indeed, all indications are that they have pursued that war with extreme, though highly secretive prejudice. They have been hot on the job, locking up young Muslim males all over the world, packing them off to interrogation and detention camps, blowing them up in their cars, raiding their lairs, providing them with renditions extraordinaire, snooping on everything they say and write to one another, and engaging in campaigns of disinformation and other kinds of psychological warfare against them. Never has such a ragtag outfit of outlaws and would-be outlaws received such a global going over. I sometimes wonder if a good part of the motivation for the misguided Iraq war was to give the public some sort of martial entertainment to distract them and provide tangible carnage, since most of the real war was to be pursued in secret, bereft of public credit.

The Democratic triangulating terrophobes have been at it again in the last couple of weeks, with the controversy over the administration’s warrantless wiretaps the new ball of yarn for these cute kittens to play with. They are so predictably formulaic in their obsequious responses, and in their compulsive, harlequin need to please all, and split every difference. There is always something for the dissident left, and something for the authoritarian right. “Yes, they say, I strongly oppose the President’s spying on innocent Americans! (Kiss blown to the left) But ... ahem …the reason I oppose it is that he exceeded his authority. I say let’s pass a law to give him that authority. (Salute to the right) Let’s make it legal to spy on innocent Americans!” The hawky-hawks are always looking for some slick way of condemning the manner of the administration’s behavior, while avoiding the substance. This latest contorted accomodation continues the party’s recent pattern of too-clever-by-half half-measures and its degenerative spiral down into intellectual decrepitude and irrelevance.

And now we are promised a Pacific Front in the War on Terror. I shiver in anticipation. And yet I worry – might not the War in the Pacific be a distraction from our important work in the Antarctic theater? Granted, the wide Pacific is horribly overrun with salty terrorists of all kinds. Far be it from me to declare the Pacific theater pacified, or to fit the Pacifico-fascists for their death masks when they are only at the embalming stage.

And yet the Antarctic campaign, the very frontiest front in our contest with the terrorist enemy; the pointiest point of the tip of the head of the spear in America’s mighty terror-vanquishing arm; has as we all know been horribly bungled by the Bush administration. Even as we speak, dastardly penguins are hatching their sub-zero plans, and diving deep beneath the frigid ocean waters, ready to surface suddenly and pounce on us. And is it not true that penguin females are horribly put upon by their fat, waddling mates? We must do something to liberate penguin womanhood ... er, female penguinhood ... or whatevever! But to this very day, the Chief Penguin lounges in his ice caves, laughing at us!

[john david stutt]

Kervick,
dude - get your own blog.

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