October 25, 2007
THE SURPRISING WEAKNESS OF THE CAVE DWELLERS:
Al Qaeda reveals signs of weakness: The US ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, said Thursday that Al Qaeda is 'simply gone' from some areas. (Dan Murphy, 10/26/07, The Christian Science Monitor
Across the Arab world, where Al Qaeda had sought to build influence and bases of operation on the back of widespread anger against the US over its war in Iraq and the broader war on terrorism, the movement is now showing signs that it is stalled, if not in retreat.Experts say Al Qaeda's failures have largely come down to its brutal methods, which have turned off large numbers of Arabs. They say that Muslims from Iraq to Egypt may want their countries to adhere to strict Islamic law, but not at the price of suicide bombings.
Retreat? Doesn't that concept imply they'd achieved something at some point?
MORE:
Osama bin Laden's growing anxiety: He's struggling to direct fewer and fewer followers. (Fawaz A. Gerges, 10/26/07, CS Monitor)
In yet another sign of trouble for Al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden publicly conceded that his like-minded militants in Iraq "made mistakes." In an audiotape broadcast by Al Jazeera this week, he sounds deeply anxious about the survival of Al Qaeda in Iraq – a group that is largely independent of his own organization but adheres to a similar ideology. Al Qaeda's top leader appealed to Sunni Arab tribes and other armed Iraqi Sunni groups to stop fighting Al Qaeda members and unite against the real enemy – the US-led coalition.Al Qaeda in Iraq faces growing indignation from fellow Sunni Iraqis fed up with its indiscriminate killing of civilians and its Taliban-like religious laws. In the past year, Sunni tribes and fighters have risen against Al Qaeda's branch in Iraq and, working jointly with US troops, killed and expelled scores of its militants from their neighborhoods, particularly from Anbar Province. Besieged both internally and externally, Al Qaeda in Iraq struggles to survive and absorb these catastrophic military setbacks.
It wouldn't be any less of a struggle if he were alive. Posted by Orrin Judd at October 25, 2007 7:17 PM
"Al Qaeda is 'simply gone' from some areas"
I think that's what you would expect, based on this analysis:
http://www.windsofchange.net/archives/009812.php
... assuming that Al Qaeda is a network like the Internet, and we have been knocking out the most highly-connected nodes. And once the collapse starts, it goes fast.
That's why all this WIIII metaphore stuff is silly and nothing but a pretext to liberlize the middle east and secure the oil fields.
Posted by: Perry at October 26, 2007 11:34 AMKinda just an assessment by "feel", but it seems worth noting the LACK of genuine anger in the Arab world over the invasion after five years. In a sort of counter-intuitive manner, one wonders if the mis-steps and real difficulties of post-war Iraq has simply glaringly showed that is is NOT a "colonial" war, that if it WAS "for oil", the whole operation would look radically different, and that people the world over have seen, in Bush's trials and struggles and the US military's sacrifice, that they really ARE struggling to achieve something far more noble than their ideologically driven opponents are saying.
Global media has not helped one wit, but it's a bit similar to the way the Soviets used to show film of a Klan rally in the US to show what awful racists we were, and Russian viewers would see it and say "look at all those cars in the background..."
It may be an imperialist adventure to the New York Times, but it certainly isn't looking that way to the Arab street.
Posted by: Andrew X at October 26, 2007 11:40 AMIt can be for both for oil, which is really just a stand in word for our way of life, and non-imperialistic at the same time.
All that is required is switching Realism for liberalism. President Bush will get the credit.
Posted by: Perry at October 26, 2007 2:06 PMAll America's wars are just pretext for liberalization.
Posted by: oj at October 26, 2007 2:20 PM