Crowdsourcing on AQ and Analysis (new title)

[Bob's World]

I don't think the fear of being hunted will keep AQ attacks from occurring. They are seeking death as a way of fulfilling their ideology.
Persistent pursuit does alter AQ's operations and their security. Continued attacking of AQ's leadership shapes their ability to conduct further operations.

OK, quotes on "Lie" because I don't think either was a conscious lie to defraud the American people; but rather that the idea that AQ is about ideology is even more flawed than the idea that going into Iraq was about WMD. Or more analogous, that Soviet efforts to expand their influence during the Cold War were about Communism; or that U.S. efforts to expand its influence are about Democracy. We need to learn to be better at separating Causation from Motivation; and Material Facts from Relevant Facts.

AQ and Bin Laden are an organization and man for their times; much as the Nazi party and Hitler were for theirs. Different times in a different place, they don't occur. Given the time and place, if they did not exist some similar organization and leadership would have eventually emerged in response.

The seeds for WWII were planted at Versailles; or at least were not eradicated and were well fertilized there by the victors of WWI. Similarly the seeds for GWOT have been planted and nurtured over hundreds of years of Western Colonial and Post-Colonial manipulation of the politics and populaces of the Middle East. With the end of the Cold War rationale for such manipulations and the advent of the tools of globalization AQ and Bin Laden were inevitable.

The question is not what happens if we kill Bin Laden. Answer that and get a C+. The real question is what happens if we do not address Western foreign policies toward the Middle East? What happens if the West continues to enable some of the most despotic regimes on the planet to both remain in power and treat their own populaces with impunity? Kill bin Laden, but that is just step 1 in a 100-step process. Personal opinion? We've been way too focused on step 1, and it is distracting us from the hard policy work that is yet to be done on the other 99.