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The U.S. President, vice president, secretaries of state, justice, defense, and homeland security, the attorney general, the FBI director, the director of central intelligence, and endless numbers of experts, reporters, and pundits continue telling the Americans and the world that the United States is beating bin Laden by dismantling al Qaeda one man at a time; in the president’s words: “One by one, the terrorists are learning the meaning of American justice.”

Thus, because of the pervasive imperial hubris that dominates the minds of our political, academic, social, media, and military elites, America is able and content to believe the Islamic world fails to understand the benign intent of U.S. foreign policy and its implementation. When U.S. leaders speak blithely and ad nauseum of building a democracy like our own in Afghanistan or Iraq or Burma or Russia or Liberia or Saudi Arabia, saying that it can be done speedily and on the cheap, they betray ignorance of foreign lands, cultures, and histories as well as the creeds and ambitions of other peoples.

It is comforting to American elites still refusing to see that U.S. government actions in the Islamic world are causing Muslims to attack the United States. The argument’s gist is that bin Laden, his allies, and their goals have been spawned by a “failed civilization” – one hostile to democratization, capitalism, and modernity, save for the tools of war – and that they are driven by both the realization that Islamic society is dying and a maniacal desire to destroy other civilizations that are successful and causing the demise of Islam. These men, the argument goes, recognize this failure, blame it on the West, and are lashing out with indiscriminate violence to spark an Armageddon-like battle with Western civilization. This line of analysis takes a brilliant, calculating, and patient foe like bin Laden and reduces him to the status of a madman, bloodthirsty and irrational.

And because our elites are so full of themselves, they think America is invulnerable; cannot imagine the rest of the world does not want to be like us; and believe an American empire in the twenty-first century not only is our destiny, but our duty to mankind, especially to the unwashed, unlettered, undemocratic, unwhite, unshaved, and antifeminist Muslim masses. Arrogance because the elites cannot believe a polyglot bunch of Arabs wearing robes, sporting scraggily beards, and squatting around campfires in Afghan deserts and mountains could pose a mortal threat to the United States.

One of the greatest dangers for Americans lies in continuing to believe – at the urging of senior U.S. leaders – that Muslims hate and attack us for what we are and think, rather than for what we do. The Islamic world is not offended by our democratic system of politics, guarantees of personal rights and civil liberties, and separation of church and state. What the United States does in formulating and implementing policies affecting the Muslim world, however, is infinitely more inflammatory.

Only when U.S. leaders stop believing and preaching that bin Laden and his allies are attacking us for what we are and what we think, and instead clearly state that they are attacking us for what we do, can we put aside our ill-advised and hallucinatory crusade for democracy – our current default. At that point, Americans can begin to intelligently discuss how this national security threat is to be defeated or, more precisely, to decide if status quo U.S. foreign policies toward the Islamic world benefit American enough to offset increasing levels of human and economic loss that will be the cost of unchanged policies.

General Sherman [Civil War, 1861-1875]:

“A fatal mistake in war is to underrate the strength, feeling and resources of an enemy.”

“Every attempt to make war easy and safe will result in humiliation and disaster.”

General Curtis Lemay [WWII & Cold War]:

“You have got to kill people, and when you have killed enough of them, they stop fighting.”

"There are no innocent civilians.”

“All war is immoral and if you let that bother you, you're not a good soldier."

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Sunday, July 8

Description of Al Qaeda

by mammon on Sun 08 Jul 2007 07:45 PM AKDT

Imperial Hubris Series

Imperial Hubris by Michael Scheuer, 2004, Excerpts

Al Qaeda attacks are terrifying, but acts of war are like that. Bin Laden is leading and inspiring a worldwide anti-U.S. insurgency. America is facing a talented, sturdy, charismatic, and determined enemy, one whose example and leadership is producing a growing threat to U.S. security from much of the Muslim world and not just the lunatic fringe. What the West sees as tragic brutality practiced by despairing or deviant individuals is perceived in much of the Muslim world as a heroic act of self-sacrifice, patriotism, and worship, an act to be greeted not with condemnation and revulsion, but with awe, respect, and a determination to emulate.

Al-Qaeda is an insurgent, vice terrorist, organization and has two primary, manpower-intensive missions: to provide quality insurgence training to Muslims from around the world, and to build an ample cadre of veteran fighters who can be sent foreign legion – like to serve as combat leaders, trainers, engineers, logisticians, financial advisors, or administrators wherever militant Islam needs them.

Pre 911, Al-Qaeda’s camps were staffed by veteran fighters who trained insurgents who fought, and trained others to fight, not only against the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan, but also against Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Tajikistan, Egypt, Bosnia, western China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Macedonia, Kosovo, and the Philippines. Sunni Islamist groups have been running training camps in Yemen, Pakistan, Kashmir, Sudan, and the Philippines. More recently, since 1990, Somalia, Uzbekistan Montenegro, Eritrea, western China, Chechnya, Algeria, Tajikistan, Lebanon, Bosnia, northern Iraq, and Albania can be added to the list.

The main function of the camps was and is to provide quality and uniform religious or paramilitary – or insurgent - training to young Muslims. The trainees learned how to use: AK-47s, Stinger missiles, GPS systems, advanced land navigation RPGs, map reading, demolition techniques, celestial navigation, hand-to-hand combat techniques, trench digging, weapon deployments, escape and evasion techniques, fist aid, scientific calculations to plot artillery fire, first aid, secure communications, et cetera.

It is safe to assume al Qaeda’s leaders began the dispersal process before the 11 September attack; bin Laden knew the attack date six days in advance, and had long wanted exactly the U.S. response the attacks generated. Because he wanted and expected U.S. ground forces to invade Afghanistan, bin Laden naturally would have spread his forces thin, sticking to the first rule of insurgency: never give the enemy a target that lets him defeat you in one campaign.

Al Qaeda has survived the U.S. military onslaught and is thriving militarily. More important, bin Laden has made long strides in focusing general anti-Western sentiments of Muslims specifically on the United States. This marks success for bin Laden’s incitement activities and is most apparent in the attacks by Islamist individuals or groups without known ties to al Qaeda. In an ironic twist, moreover, actions by the United States and its allies have increased the effectiveness and impact of al Qaeda’s efforts, leaving Washington confronted by a lose-lose situation almost every time it needs to make a decision vis-à-vis what it inaccurately describes as “the global war on terrorism.”

US Concern at al-Qaeda Strength

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6294526.stm

12 Jul 2007

Al-Qaeda's operating capabilities are at their strongest level since the 11 september 2001 attacks, according to a US intelligence report. It suggests the network has rebuilt itself despite a six-year campaign to dismantle it. The classified report identifies Pakistan's western tribal areas as the group's safe haven, and examines threats posed to the US and its allies. Al-Qaeda is "considerably operationally stronger than a year ago" and has "regrouped to an extent not seen since 2001," an official said, paraphrasing the report. "They are showing greater and greater ability to plan attacks in Europe and the United States."

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Tuesday, July 3

Economic Objective

by mammon on Tue 03 Jul 2007 10:00 PM AKDT

Imperial Hubris Series

Imperial Hubris by Michael Scheuer, 2004, Excerpts

Just under the noise, death, and rhetoric yielded by the foregoing episodes of war lies a largely ignored factor that may constitute al Qaeda’s main war effort – the steady bleeding of the U.S. economy. The immediate impact is massive expenditures – at all levels of American government – that will add permanently to the size and cost of government. In addition to the cost of hiring thousands of federal employees for homeland security purposes; acquiring buildings, equipment, and training to make them effective; and requiring proportionate upgrading at state, municipal, and local levels; there lie what must be substantial amounts of unpredictable expenditures for overtime wages – in government and business alike – whenever Washington raises the threat level, or when high levels of security are provided at public places or functions heretofore not seen as serious security risks.

The September 11 attacks were not apocalyptic onslaughts on Western civilization. They were country-specific attacks meant to inflict substantial, visible, and quantifiable human and economic destruction on America.

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Monday, July 2

Bin Laden Islamic Hero

by mammon on Mon 02 Jul 2007 10:00 PM AKDT

Imperial Hubris Series

Osama bin Laden and Opium

Imperial Hubris by Michael Scheuer, 2004, Excerpts

An appreciation of the Muslim perspective – this does not mean acceptance – allows the West to gauge bin Laden’s appeal and staying power. Bin Laden certainly is the most popular anti-American leader in the world today. His name is legend from Houston to Zanzibar to Jakarta, and his face and sayings are emblazoned on T-shirts, CDs, audio and videotapes, posters, photographs, cigarette lighters, and stationary across the earth.

Bin Laden is not a ruler, and therefore not tainted with tyranny and corruption. Even more striking is the contrast demonstrated in his personal life between himself and present-day rulers of most of the Arab lands. Osama bin Laden presents the inspiring spectacle of one who, by his own free choice, has forsaken a life of riches and comfort for one of hardship and danger. The Saudi’s compare him to the most distinguished people and see that bin Laden has left the life of luxury and luxury of hotels to the trenches, the trenches of jihad. But they see others compete for the worldly life and its vanities and palaces and ranches. Osama bin Laden is not an aberrant product of Saudi society – he is its poster boy.

Bin Laden has no center of gravity in the traditional sense – no economy, no cities, no homeland, no power grids, no regular military. Bin Laden’s center of gravity, rather, lies in the list of current U.S. policies toward the Muslim world because that status quo enrages Muslims around the globe and gives bin Laden’s efforts to instigate a worldwide anti-U.S. defensive jihad virtually unlimited room for growth.

In a world where Muslim leaders are mostly effete kings and princes who preach austere Islam but live in luxuriant debauchery; or murderous family dictatorships, like Iraq’s Hussein’s, Egypt’s Mubaraks, Libya’s Qadahfis, and Syria’s Asads; or coup installed generals holding countries together after politicians have emptied the till, bin Laden and al Qaeda have won the aura of Robin Hood.

Well-spoken, kind, considerate, pious, and humble, bin Laden also killed more than three thousand Americans on 11 September 2001, and with that act – defying the mighty in deed as well as word – completed the composite picture of a classical Islamic hero.

A coalition that includes Russia, China, India, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Yemen; the dictators of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the UAE, Kuwait, and Egypt; the titans of nineteenth-century colonialism in the Middle East, Britain, and France; and the state of Israel makes bin Laden look like a prophet of old, as his supporters or sympathizers believe they see the truth of his argument that America wants allies only among those willing to oppress Muslims and eliminate Islam.