November 26, 2003
DISMANTLING GERGES:
Dismantling al-Qaida (Fawaz A. Gerges, November 23, 2003, Baltimore Sun)
Since Sept. 11, U.S. officials and outside analysts agree, nearly 65 percent of al-Qaida's leaders have been killed or captured. About 3,400 al-Qaida suspects have been arrested in the United States and overseas, from Tunisia to Indonesia. Important logistical networks in Spain, Italy and Germany have been dismantled.According to U.S. intelligence, most of the operatives who helped plan Sept. 11 have been accounted for, and those who have been captured have described their roles in the attacks. Al-Qaida's financial infrastructure is being steadily dismantled worldwide.
Much of the strength and growth of the organization during the 1990s resulted from its ability to operate from a geographical base with impunity, first in Sudan and then in Afghanistan. The training camps, safe houses and caves were the critical infrastructure for al-Qaida. That base is now gone. The leadership has splintered and gone underground.
Bin Laden appears to be in hiding in the remote mountains of Pakistan and no longer in regular communication with his foot soldiers or his most senior deputy, Mr. Zawahiri. The London-based Control Risks Group said last week that al-Qaida's network has been largely dismantled and is leaderless.
So, that seems fairly comforting, eh? However, Who Is Fawaz Gerges?: Another problem Mideast scholar. (Jonathan Calt Harris, July 21, 2003, National Review)
Fawaz Gerges, professor of Middle East studies at Sarah Lawrence College in New York, has emerged as a foremost media interpreter of the Middle East. He is a frequent guest of Paula Zahn on CNN, has appeared recently on The Charlie Rose Show and The Oprah Winfrey Show, and is now a regular Middle East analyst for ABC News.Gerges is typical of his field: He's yet another Middle East specialist who minimizes the threat of militant Islam while presenting the United States as a sinister force. Let's look at his thinking on four key issues. [...]
Militant Islam. Gerges consistently downplays the threat of militant Islam in general and Osama bin Laden in particular. One year before 9/11, he found that Osama bin Laden was "exceptionally isolated," and "preoccupied mainly with survival, not attacking American targets." He also ridiculed "exaggerated rhetoric" in Washington about the Bin Laden threat. Al Qaeda was no longer more than a "shadow of its former self," Gerges had the misfortune of writing, as bin Laden was "confined to Afghanistan, constantly on the run," and, "hemmed in by the United States, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt." Not just that, but his "resources are depleting rapidly." Gerges drew the bizarre conclusion that the U.S. government must have its reasons for "inflating his importance." Six months before 9/11, Gerges publicly ridiculed what he called "the terror industry" — his term for specialists voicing concerns about militant Islam — for fomenting an "irrational fear of terrorism by focusing too much on far-fetched horrible scenarios."
Plenty of other folks agree with the analysis of Mr. Gerges, but one takes his opinion with some caution. Posted by Orrin Judd at November 26, 2003 9:09 AM
Gerges is a shill for the left and Peter Jennings had repeatedly mouthed off against those who implied bin Laden was implicated, during his broadcasts on 9/11. Obviously he was and is still influenced by the slick Gerges.
Posted by: Genecis at November 26, 2003 11:28 AMWhatever else, how can one disagree that: "Much of the strength and growth of the organization during the 1990s resulted from its ability to operate from a geographical base with impunity, first in Sudan and then in Afghanistan. The training camps, safe houses and caves were the critical infrastructure for al-Qaida."
The degree to which Bill Clinton and his administration allowed this organization, Al Qaida, to exist and to operate has to trump ANY ONE of the current attempts by revisionists to "micro-dissect" the "hits" and "misses" of the GWB administration. Clinton's 8-year lapse was so instrumental (no pun intended)in allowing for the growth and dispersion of a generation of terrorists that it is in a league of its own.
Posted by: MG at November 26, 2003 11:46 AMMr. Judd;
The problem we have is that for the same reason it took Al Qaeda a decade or two to build up in to a real threat, it will be years before it dissipates, even if its entire training and financial structure is disassembled. The people trained during the 90's are effectively munitions. Stopping the factory will prevent future problems but will do little to stop the shooting going on at the moment. Yes, eventually the ammo will run out but not a some time yet.
AOG:
Yes, but that means it's not a "threat". There'll be more deaths, too many to contemplate, but the war is over.
Posted by: oj at November 26, 2003 12:04 PMThe object of war is to impose your will upon the enemy. Therefore, wars have not ended until the former enemy is converted, exterminated or cowed into submission.
That has not happened and is not going to happen, in this war, even if every associated of Bin Laden is locked up or killed.
It's the religion and until it submits, the war and the deaths will continue.
It is not certain we can win, either. A great many have already surrendered on our side.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at November 26, 2003 2:33 PMI would agree with Harry that our struggle against Islamiscism is unlikely to yield the kind of capitulation on the Ismalacists part that would (ever?) be required to declare a "war" "over". So what is it that are we doing? (As people like Rumsfled have thougtfully asked, and want answered also thoughtfully.
I think all we can do is to seriously raise the Islamicists' cost of doing business, a cost which during the Clinton years was around zero. I think it is obvious that the Islamicists ability to inflict damage has been seriously hit, and that many lives have been saved against the trend ex-ante. At worst, it has bought us more time to hope for all kinds of other things to happen to sap this cult of its venom, technology to make their incidiousness less effective, whatever.
If our struggle against the Islamicists sounds like a police operation, perhaps the "war" on drugs, the similarity ends in the way GWD expanded a "policing" and "interdition" exercise by declaring traditional "war" (with all of Harry's requirements, including capitulation and/or death) on Islamofascism -- in my book, the rogue states and their leaders that allow Islamicists to operate with impunity. Were this not to have been an important element in this "war", then I would have declared our chances of ever achieving any results as slim.
Posted by: MG at November 26, 2003 5:14 PMAgreed, short term.
Long term, Islam must be tamed, and really, it will have to do that itself. I am pessimistic about that happening, but some conceivable awakening -- moral or an assessment of the mere practical cost of being obnoxious to the rest of the world -- might supply a motive.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at November 26, 2003 6:46 PMI don't think there's any real hope here, simply because there is really no way to convince an ideology/religion that "knows" it is truth and can't ever be wrong.
(Which must be part of its tremendous attraction to many inhabiting a world, or worldview, whose only absolute is that there is no absolute.)
On the contrary, if it appears to suffer, the "reassessment" made is that such suffering occurs because the faithful are not ideological/religious enough.
Which is acceptable as long as such an ideology/religion has no aggressive designs. But once it does....
Posted by: Barry Meislin at November 27, 2003 3:31 AM