Jun 18 2008

al-Qaeda All But Destroyed Globally?

I found an interesting article that tries to claim are success in destroying al-Qaeda has given rise to a new danger. Personally I find this line of reasoning ridiculous. It is the old tall poles challenge. When you attack the tall poles and remove these obstacles barring success to a challenge, you still face the next set of tall poles, which are naturally smaller obstacles than the previous set taken out. And when you take out those tall polls, you are still left with another, even shorter set of poles to deal with.

This is the process of whittling down obstacles to the point where you transition from having some level of success and moving on to trying to see how close one can get to perfection. The point is at some point in time, in this endless cycle of exposing endless levels of smaller “tall poles” success is has been achieved and the poles are simply the remaining imperfections of an imperfect world.

Some people keep seeing massive tall poles in the way to success – it is also sometimes referred to as ‘moving the goal posts’. For those who never have a prayer of finding a path through the obstacles to achieve some level of success there never are challenges they find manageable. The entire enterprise is beyond there grasp, so success with some minor warts still looks daunting to them. This is normal for those out of their league.

Think of someone trying to work their way through a neurological surgical procedure who has no idea what they are doing. Even if you walk them through 90% of the procedure with just the last 10% of the steps left – which could be simply stitching up the area – someone untrained for the process still sees endless impossible challenges in front of them.

This is what has been the situation with the Surrendercrats on the far liberal left. They are abysmal when it comes to national security because they lack the understanding, training and expertise to handle complex, dangerous situations. They cry ‘it’s impossible, we cannot succeed’ because – for them – it is impossible. They cannot succeed.

So with this in mind it is fascinating to read this article and realize how far we have truly come in destroying al-Qaeda (the 90% done mark), while the author looks at the next set of terrorist ‘tall poles’ and sees endless, impossible challenges still in front of them:

We are fighting the wrong foe. Over the past six years, the nature of the international Islamist terrorist threat to the West has changed dramatically, but Western governments are still fighting the last war — set up to fight an old al Qaeda that is now largely contained. Unless we understand this sea change, we will be unable to ward off the new menace.

The version of al-Qaeda that Osama bin Laden founded is a fading force. After five detainees who allegedly planned the Sept. 11, 2001, atrocities were arraigned recently before a U.S. military tribunal at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, it’s worth remembering that the terrorists behind 9/11 were mostly young, well-educated middle-class expatriates from Muslim countries who had become radicalized abroad, especially in the West. Such key 9/11 plotters as Mohamed Atta, Ramzi Binalshibh, Ziad Jarrah and Marwan al-Shehhi met and became radicalized as students in Hamburg, then went to Afghanistan looking for al Qaeda.

But over the past six years, most of the professional terrorists who fit this profile have been eliminated during the U.S.-led manhunt for ”high-value targets.” The few that remain are huddled in the Afghan-Pakistani border area, struggling to extend their reach beyond Pakistan.

Emphasis mine.  The professional, experienced al-Qaeda members have been decimated and chased from Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and other places.  They now ‘huddle’ in the encircled tribal areas of Pakistan, easy targets when we have strong intelligence that allow us to take action.

What is interesting is how these professional, educated terrorists are given equal credibility to uneducated, untrained, awkward ‘grass roots’ terrorists who typically bundle their ways into our security nets before they can do any real damage.  

That old guard is still dangerous and still plotting spectacular attacks. But it is the new wave that more urgently requires our attention. It is composed of homegrown youths who dream of glory and adventure, who yearn to belong to a heroic vanguard and to root their lives in a greater sense of meaning. Inspired by tales of past heroism, they hope to emulate their predecessors, even though, for the most part, they can no longer link up with al Qaeda Central in the Pakistani badlands. Their potential numbers are so great that they must now be seen as the main terrorist threat to the West.

Delusional kids who have no clue what they are getting into are not the same threat as seasoned professionals who trained tens of thousands of foot soldiers who are now gone or captured.  Yes, in this imperfect world there will always be terrorist wannabes.  There are still Hitler/Nazi wannabes in the world, even here in the US of A.  Does that make America a hotbed for Nazism or anti-Semitism?  Of course not.  It simply means those ‘tall poles’ that allow the idea of Nazism to flourish are really only a bunch of twigs and stubs, so diminished they are mostly joke and only a small (yet serious) threat.

From reading this article it seems to be al-Qaeda is all but destroyed globally.  The only thing left to replace or augment it is disparate group of idiots who are more clueless than serious.  Those who never could grasp how to face and solve the problem of terrorism will be the last to realize we have succeeded sufficiently to declare a major victory (but not mythical perfection in purging evil – which is never purged, just beaten back into submission for a time).  They will be the ones still wringing their hands with worry and angst because they don’t have the intellect or expertise to understand the threat, let alone when victory has been achieved.

Denial of reality is not always ‘speaking to power’.  Many times it is simply immense ignorance strutting its stuff to confident experience and successful results.  And it does speak volumes (both in terms of content and volume)

8 responses so far

8 Responses to “al-Qaeda All But Destroyed Globally?”

  1. gwood says:

    I’m not so sure that the liberal anti-war left opposed the Iraq war because somehow it was too complex for them to have any confidence we could win. I believe they saw early on that we could win, and their opposition increased as evidence that we could win came to the fore. They obviously have an emotional need to oppose everything Bush does, and their propensity to sweep our successes under the rug indicates they know a win when they see one.

    If the surge hadn’t worked, it would have been an embarrassment for Bush. The Dems fought the surge because they were afraid it might make Bush a winner, which is precisely what has happened.

  2. dave m says:

    And if and probably when, BH Obsama wins, all of Al-Kyders
    losses will be reversed and once again they will be on the march.

    “10 dollars gasoline and no more NYC, is it too much to hope
    that Obsama spends all of his time in DC?

  3. KauaiBoy says:

    While I do find the BDS crowd somewhat ignorant I would also say they are also motivated by their visions of grandeur, sense of self worth and need for attention, and thus insist on saying anything that will get them seen and heard (i.e. the Code Pinks, Kos/Soros crowd, Cindy Sheehans etc etc etc) and all because their hero BJ Clinton was exposed for the fraud that he always was and have taken it out on the current POTUS.

    But as an American I can remain optimistic that the wise among us will be there on election day, quietly do their duty and tell the surrendercrats to STFU and go away.

    Hey a guy can dream can’t he. That’s the Hope I can believe in.

  4. kathie says:

    The Dem opposition to any and everything has one goal, destroy Bush.

  5. dave m says:

    Yes Kathie, you are right, of course.

    Thing is, Mr. Bush isn’t going to be destroyed.
    He is going to retire into a good and secure life in Texas.
    He’s got enough money to not worry, and 30% of the country
    will stand up and cheer him (more than would do so for well … me).

    He is beyond the reach of his enemies, ironically his enemies are
    not beyond the reach of the “friends” with whom they made an evil alliance.
    I fully expect to lose NYC and DC during Obsama’s first term and only
    hope that the Joint Chiefs do their duty.

    President Bush, in Crawford or some other place, will be safe.
    Thank you Mr. President.

  6. ivehadit says:

    obama is NOT going to win. He has big time problems that are being glossed over by the media…which is designed to get all of us to believe that he is “walking on water”. He’s not. Neither is his wife.

    Many, many people are disgusted with the media and the Leftists. Think of this: the Leftists have been exposed BIG TIME in the past 2 years, have they not? And it continues to happen. And don’t believe that all the “youte” are voting for obama. They are not.

    Imho, the dems are VERY worried.

  7. crosspatch says:

    Rasmussen shows Obama still leading at the moment.

    As for al Qaida, all it takes is a very few people to cause a tremendous amount of damage. Only two were involved in the Oklahoma city bombing. 20 managed to bring down the Trace Center and hit the Pentagon.

    It doesn’t take a global operation to cause death and destruction, it only takes insanity.

  8. Cobalt Shiva says:

    The author has a point: the techniques that worked against an organization such as al-Qaeda are not likely to be as effective against “leaderless resistance” techniques, because there’s little to no organization infrastructure to exploit.

    The threat has mutated due to the evolutionary pressure we’ve placed on it since 2001. We must change and adapt to continue to be as effective.

    I don’t see Obama (or ANY top Democrat) making the right calls in that effort, just the wrong ones.