Assessing Al-Qaeda (merged thread)

[jmm99]

Robert, if I may address you so,

First, a general question that pervades all: why should I or any other resident of the Islamic World accept principles of governance from the United States ? What do you have to offer that cannot be found within the four walls of the Islamic House ?

Second, yes - "Stop being an obstacle to good governance". And, withdraw your support from governments in the Islamic World - their fates have been ordained. As you know, I wrote of good governance many years ago.

Third, I may not understand this - "Start competing AQ IAW our own professed principles as a nation." However, this seems inconsistent with your other statements. Are you speaking only of diplomatic discussions; or are you speaking of interventions to change our professed principles (albeit, "kinder and more gentle" as one of your presidents said) ?

Fourth - what does ""De Oppresso Liber" translate to (to you) in the modern-day realities of the Islamic World ?

Fifth - if the US "We just need to find a new, less abusive of the people of the region, approach", why not just depart and allow the People of the Islamic World to seek out what we want and do not want from the US ?

Sincerely,

Abul
(last address, Buffalo, NY, 1979)

[Bill Moore]

I tend to agree with Bob's last post. There are many who rather embrace policies that protect the status quo to protect the interest of big busness and others, but this appears to an ideal time to devise policy that is aligned with our values. Regardless of whoever gets in power, they will continue to sell oil, so we can set that irrational fear aside for the time being.

Why we do embrace political change in our nation through the demoratic process, yet fear it when we see it happening external to our borders? Since there is no means in the Arab Nation-States for the nation to legally change its State their process is illegal, messy, and unpredictable, but not necessarily less democratic than ours.

For the most part I recommend only providing moral support to those trying to change their illegimate governments via mostly peaceful protests. However, once again we learn that peaceful protests don't work when the State decides to suppress with martial force. At that point great nations like the U.S., and organizations like NATO and the UN have to make hard decisions on what policy to pursue. Getting militarily involved in gray situations where the actors are largely unknown is risky, but failing to help the nation that is struggling for freedom is potentially immoral if we truly have a foreign policy that hinges on values blended with interests.

We don't know what tomorrow will bring. Some of these movements may succeed, while others fail, and even the successful revolutions may in the end bring little change. One thing we can predict though is these nations will remember how the U.S. responded, and if our response was aligned with our stated values.

This may be the new era for unconventional warfare as the proliferation of ideas through various forms of media prompt more nations to rise up and demand change. This won't be the UW of our past that was largely focused on guerrilla warfare, that doctrine and its associated TTPs will have to evolve into something that may be more appropriately called political warfare in response to new challenges, but it is a policy option we should be "prepared" to offer our leaders.

[Dayuhan]

I have some serious doubts about some of the propositions being advanced here.

First, the extent to which nationalist insurgents turn to AQ for support is debatable, and largely unsupported. What support has AQ actually provided to these groups? In many cases AQ is the one receiving recruits and financial support from nations where we assume nationalist insurgency. This relationship is a lot more complex than "AQ rides to the rescue as champion of the populace". While AQ has very successfully exploited regional resentment to western intervention, its efforts to muster revolution against local regimes have fallen pretty flat. There's little to suggest that anyone, anywhere has adopted AQ as their champion against their own government.

Similarly, resentment to despotic governance is not the only or the most effective narrative exploited by AQ. There's a deep-seated generic resentment to the west throughout the region, and not just because the west is perceived as supporting local despots. We should not assume that if Saudi Arabia or Egypt ceases to be governed by despots AQ will lose support in these countries. It's very likely that even if these countries were democracies AQ would still find them ready suppliers of funds and recruits, as long as western powers are engaged in the region.

We should not overestimate our role as "enablers" or "supporters" of despotic governments. Certainly we have to deal with the perception, but if we assume that the perception is the reality we will assume influence that we do not actually have. Saudi Arabia or Kuwait will not become a constitutional monarchy because we press them to. More likely they will tell us to bug off and mind our own business, and there's not much we can do about it if they do. At the moment we need them more than they need us, and they know it.

We cannot assume that pressure on these governments will win us points with the people. Often it won't. Even people who loathe their governments often react very badly to US criticism of those same governments: it's not seen as standing up for the populace, it's seen as intrusive meddling and as disrespect for the nation and the culture. Our motives will always be suspect, no matter what we say. We may intervene chanting "de opreso liber", but that doesn't mean the populace won't be hearing "we want the oil".

I've no objection at all to reducing or eliminating support for and enabling of despotic regimes... though we should not assume that will change much. When we start talking about actively trying to change those regimes, we step into very muddy waters with abundant potential for misinterpretation and unintended consequence. It's tempting to think that the ill effects of past bad meddling can be corrected by compensatory good meddling. We should remember that the meddling that now seems bad seemed quite good at the time, and we're no more omniscient now then we were then. The answer to bad meddling isn't good meddling, it's less meddling.

Sallying forth to liberate the Middle East is likely to leave us in an even bigger mess. That doesn't mean we have to stick with the status quo, but it means that we have to proceed with a great deal of subtlety and restraint - not traditionally our strong points - when it comes to challenging that status quo.

[Presley Cannady]

I have some serious doubts about some of the propositions being advanced here.

First, the extent to which nationalist insurgents turn to AQ for support is debatable, and largely unsupported. What support has AQ actually provided to these groups? In many cases AQ is the one receiving recruits and financial support from nations where we assume nationalist insurgency. This relationship is a lot more complex than "AQ rides to the rescue as champion of the populace". While AQ has very successfully exploited regional resentment to western intervention, its efforts to muster revolution against local regimes have fallen pretty flat. There's little to suggest that anyone, anywhere has adopted AQ as their champion against their own government.

AQ's regional efforts falter because AQ has historically been a gang with a typically provincial gangster set of underbosses that could never see past their virulent Salafism to get along with more than the Deobandis (for the most part). A combination a soft-spoken, charismatic figurehead and bold operations mutes this on the international stage, but in the nuts and bolts of it you're still dealing with a core of self-described revolutionaries who'd rather go around calling other Muslims infidels and killing them for it than actually getting stuff done.

Good news, a lot of these guys are dead or otherwise out of the picture. The bad news, the new blood is a lot more diverse than it used to be. Al-Faisal accuses al-Awlaki of disbelief for calling for stricter rules on when Muslims can call other Muslims infidels. He wants him dead for it. Yet it is Al-Awlaki's star that is ascendant.

[jmm99]

Perhaps, a response to your 5-points in the Fri-Sun period. We in the nether regions have to learn patience , as we await The Cleaving Asunder (text) and The Resurrection (text) - perhaps some commonality, perhaps not.

Sincerely,

Abul
(last address, Buffalo, NY, 1979)

[davidbfpo]

Please note some posts here have been moved to the 'Osama bin Laden dead (for information & debate)' thread just created:http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...ad.php?t=13211

Can comments on OBL's death and implications be placed on that thread please.

[Bob's World]

Robert, if I may address you so,

First, a general question that pervades all: why should I or any other resident of the Islamic World accept principles of governance from the United States ? What do you have to offer that cannot be found within the four walls of the Islamic House ?

Second, yes - "Stop being an obstacle to good governance". And, withdraw your support from governments in the Islamic World - their fates have been ordained. As you know, I wrote of good governance many years ago.

Third, I may not understand this - "Start competing AQ IAW our own professed principles as a nation." However, this seems inconsistent with your other statements. Are you speaking only of diplomatic discussions; or are you speaking of interventions to change our professed principles (albeit, "kinder and more gentle" as one of your presidents said) ?

Fourth - what does ""De Oppresso Liber" translate to (to you) in the modern-day realities of the Islamic World ?

Fifth - if the US "We just need to find a new, less abusive of the people of the region, approach", why not just depart and allow the People of the Islamic World to seek out what we want and do not want from the US ?

Sincerely,

Abul
(last address, Buffalo, NY, 1979)

Point One: (And Dayuhan always twists this one and throws it back at me, so I have apparently never been clear) Our principle is to allow people to live and govern by their principles. When we enable a single strongman to govern such populaces with impunity WE do not live by our principles, and men so corrupted with wealth and power soon do not govern by the principles, ways and means acceptable to the populaces they are supposed to serve.

When I read principles such as "all men are created equal" I realize that the actual value assessed is situational and varies wildly over time and by culture. Even with in the four corners of the US values change. Where we go astray is when we demand anyone, anywhere adhere to our current assessed value.

I have always been adamant that we need to stand for Self-Determination (another principle that we loudly profess, but then tend to subjugate to newer values, such as the specific form of governance found in "Democracy." The fact is that Self-Determination is the ultimate form of democracy, regardless of what form of government adopted, as it implies that these people are being governed as they desire to be governed.

On your second point, I do not ever say we need to withdraw our support, but we do need to stop granting unconditional support to individual leaders and regimes while ignoring how they are not treating their populace within the norms of their own culture. We need to become more attuned to how the people feel about their government and not get into positions were we are reasonably perceived as the obstacle to self-determination and the enabler of impunity.

On my third point, when I say "compete" with AQ, that is a competition for influence with, and the trust of, the people of every nation. Most importantly for this mission are those that are in high levels of suppressed insurgency that AQ is targeting so aggressively to leverage that energy for their own ends. Those people deserve a new champion that is not so committed to extreme versions of their own religion, or extreme tactics for influencing governments.

As I type this the talking heads on "Morning Joe" are already saying "Great on Bin Laden, but the real danger is not AQ base in Pak, but rather is AQ on the AP." That is so WRONG. AQ conducts UW, and yes, they have agents working on the AP with members of the many oppressed populaces that exist on that beating heart at the core of the energy that AQ has leveraged from the very beginning. If we shift to massive CT against these insurgents and AQ operators, coupled with massive security force capacity building to suppress such internal threats, we will have totally and completely blown this opportunity. Now is the time to completely change the tone and focus of GWOT to focus on root causes. Let the SOF community and the CIA worry about finding and disrupting the UW hubs of AQ as a silent, relentless supporting effort. The main effort must be the relationship between the populaces as a whole and their own governments.

Fourth, De Oppresso Liber is to liberate the oppressed. When one is not free or when one is oppressed is an assessment of the individual in question, and of a populace as a collective norm. Many of the most oppressive regimes in the world still exist in the Middle East, and many of those are counted as our allies, and many of those are the primary source of recruits to support AQ operations around the globe. When we merely conduct CT against those who dare to stand up; when we build the capacity of those governments to suppress more effectively (great article on Al Jazerra on this point http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth...644559572.html ) we miss the main point. This is politics, this is governance. Yes, it is good go help protect populaces from the insurgent, from the terrorist. But first, me must ask, have we protected them from their own governments as well??

5th. At the end of the day we are still a great and mighty country. A country with interests. Many of those interests have critical nodes in the Middle East. We must engage to promote those interests. What we must learn is that old techniques that were cavalier to the issues of the populaces affected by such engagement are rendered invalid, dangerous and obsolete by the modern information age. Great Britain learned this lesson to a certain degree when they made the decision that the cost of a colonial empire exceeded the benefit. Today, the cost of the accidental, functional "empire without colonies" built largely through the control measures born of 60 years of Containment also exceeds the benefit. We need to find a new, more efficient model for managing such interests.

[Dayuhan]

Point One: (And Dayuhan always twists this one and throws it back at me, so I have apparently never been clear) Our principle is to allow people to live and govern by their principles. When we enable a single strongman to govern such populaces with impunity WE do not live by our principles, and men so corrupted with wealth and power soon do not govern by the principles, ways and means acceptable to the populaces they are supposed to serve.

I'm not sure how I "twist" this; it seems to me that I respond to the words I read.

I'm not entirely sure that it's appropriate for the US to be thinking of how to "allow people to live and govern" in any event, assuming the people in question are not Americans.

I'd also have to point out, as many times before, that you're inclined to overstate the extent to which the US "enables" governments to govern as they do. That proposition suggests that these governments depend on us (and thus that we have leverage over them) and that they would not be able to govern as they do without our enabling actions. This is often not the case at all: many of these governments would govern as they do no matter what we say or do, and do not rely on our help to govern as they do. Assuming you have influence that you do not actually have is always dangerous. It's necessary to clearly and realistically assess the extent to which we enable in any given case.

There's also a tendency in your posts to assume a unitary populace with a clear consensus on how it wishes to be governed. I know you always say this is not the case, but witness the following:

men so corrupted with wealth and power soon do not govern by the principles, ways and means acceptable to the populaces they are supposed to serve.

it implies that these people are being governed as they desire to be governed.

we do need to stop granting unconditional support to individual leaders and regimes while ignoring how they are not treating their populace within the norms of their own culture. We need to become more attuned to how the people feel about their government

The main effort must be the relationship between the populaces as a whole and their own governments.

All of these suggest a coherent "the populace" with a consistent view of what sort of governance they desire. In many places at many times no such coherent populace exists. American observers, alas, are likeley to listen to the voices that call for the sort of government Americans like and assume that they speak for "the populace", even when they don't. In many of the places we deal with we have no clear idea of what "the populace" actually wants, and in many cases the populaces in question are in deep and even violent disagreement over what sort of government they want. Insurgencies aren't always about "the people" fighting "the government". Often it's about one part of "the people" fighting another part of "the people". If one part gets control of the government they call the other part "insurgents"; if the "insurgents" win they call the others "insurgents". The assumption of "populace vs government" is simplistic and often simply wrong. We may decide that the part of the populace that opposes the government is "the people" - especially when we find the government distasteful - but there's often a substantial part of "the people" that's not part of what we call "the people".

I have always been adamant that we need to stand for Self-Determination (another principle that we loudly profess, but then tend to subjugate to newer values, such as the specific form of governance found in "Democracy." The fact is that Self-Determination is the ultimate form of democracy, regardless of what form of government adopted, as it implies that these people are being governed as they desire to be governed.

Self determination sounds a lovely thing, but the process by which any given self determines what they want is often contentious and often violent. We shouldn't pretend that self-determination equals peace, because in a society where different groups have different ideas of how governance should be conducted, it's likely to be the opposite. A phenomenon we often see in relatively prosperous societies with totalitarian governments (Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States, China) is that people in the middle class often support the government, not because they approve of it but because they fear that trying to change it would unleash a chaos of competing factions that would directly threaten their security. As long as they provide prosperity, security, and stability, these governments are likely to enjoy a lot more support among the quiet bulk of the citizenry than you seem willing to admit.

we do need to stop granting unconditional support to individual leaders and regimes while ignoring how they are not treating their populace within the norms of their own culture. We need to become more attuned to how the people feel about their government and not get into positions were we are reasonably perceived as the obstacle to self-determination and the enabler of impunity.

Are we in fact "granting unconditional support" to any leaders in this position? Where?

How do we go about assessing the norms of other cultures, and how do we assess "how the people feel about their government" in places where different groups of people have very different feelings about their governments? Again, we have to be very wary of the American tendency to assume that those whose opinions of their government align with ours necessarily represent "the people", or the tendency to assume that the people who make the most noise, or blow things up, represent "the people".

On my third point, when I say "compete" with AQ, that is a competition for influence with, and the trust of, the people of every nation. Most importantly for this mission are those that are in high levels of suppressed insurgency that AQ is targeting so aggressively to leverage that energy for their own ends. Those people deserve a new champion that is not so committed to extreme versions of their own religion, or extreme tactics for influencing governments.

I don't know of any populace, anywhere, that has ever considered AQ their champion against their own government. Do we need to supplant AQ in a role that they do not even hold?

I think your estimate of AQ's drivers is dangerously focused on one track. It's not just driven by "suppressed insurgency". That's not by any means the only factor involved.

The main effort must be the relationship between the populaces as a whole and their own governments.

Again, the populace isn't always a whole... and the populace is likely to have no desire at all to see America interfering in the relationships between Middle Eastern populaces and their governments. That kind of interference is going to be perceived as self-interested meddling no matter what the intention, and opposition to foreign meddling is one of AQ's most potent narratives. I think you're proposing an interventionist position in a place that's very tired of intervention, and that it could very easily blow up in our faces despite the best of intentions.

[QUOTE=Bob's World;120412]This is politics, this is governance. Yes, it is good go help protect populaces from the insurgent, from the terrorist. But first, me must ask, have we protected them from their own governments as well??

Is it our place to protect other populaces from their governments? Do they want us to protect them from their governments?

5th. At the end of the day we are still a great and mighty country. A country with interests. Many of those interests have critical nodes in the Middle East. We must engage to promote those interests. What we must learn is that old techniques that were cavalier to the issues of the populaces affected by such engagement are rendered invalid, dangerous and obsolete by the modern information age. Great Britain learned this lesson to a certain degree when they made the decision that the cost of a colonial empire exceeded the benefit. Today, the cost of the accidental, functional "empire without colonies" built largely through the control measures born of 60 years of Containment also exceeds the benefit. We need to find a new, more efficient model for managing such interests.

I agree... but I don't think we can accomplish this by trying to proactively reorder the way other governments relate to their populaces, and I don't think most of the populaces in question want the US participating in their internal politics.

We've meddled in the past, often to bad effect. We shouldn't forget that at the time that meddling was done, we believed ourselves to be on a righteous past. We may now believe that a different sort of meddling will counteract the ill effects of that previous meddling, but we are no more omniscient now than we were then, and the meddling that we now believe to be righteous is likely to come out as badly as what we thought was righteous back in the cold war. he answer to bad meddling isn't good enlightened meddling, it's less meddling.

Any proposal involving the US inserting itself into the domestic politics of another nation needs to be treated with a whole lot of skepticism, and a whole lot of restraint. IMO, of course.

[davidbfpo]

Hat tip to ICSR for providing a link to the London book launch of 'The Al-Qaeda Factor: Plots Against the West' by Mitchell Silber, NYPD's Head of Intelligence Analysis:http://icsr.info/news/al-qaedas-cent...pd-intel-chief

Silber analyses sixteen of the biggest jihadist plots against Western countries in order to determine the precise role, if any, played by the central al-Qaeda organisation.

His findings include the following:

Al-Qaeda Core’s actual role in plots against the West has been overstated, though their importance as an external inspiration endures.

Much more of the “action of the conspiracies” has taken place in the West, by Westerners, independent of Al-Qaeda.

Al-Qaeda has not actively recruited in the West; rather the plots are underpinned by a “bottom-up” process, driven by individuals in the West who radicalise and then take the initiative to go overseas for training or to get into the fight.

Al-Qaeda has been opportunistic, taking advantage of the Westerners who have shown up on its doorstep to utilise them in plots against the West.

Post Bin-Laden, given the combination of Westerners who continue to radicalise/mobilise plus the rise of other important nodes in al Qaeda’s worldwide network of allies and affiliates, the threat from al Qaeda type terrorism has not ended.

On the link is a podcast and the PPT slides used. I've ordered the book and will add a review when read.

Amazon has no reviews yet:http://www.amazon.com/Al-Qaeda-Facto...7947515&sr=1-1

[davidbfpo]

A strange document seized by the Germans from an AQ courier and now in the public arena; hat tip to various sources.

a strategy paper drafted by the al-Qa’ida leadership based in the Pakistani-Afghan border area suggests that a combination of smaller and larger attacks “will drive the enemy to despair.” Other documents describe the taking and subsequent killing of hostages, the use of toxic substances, and how to give cover to fighters smuggled in.

Al-Qa’ida expects that growing fear among the general population and increasing reprisals on the part of the security authorities will marginalize Muslims. As a result of such escalation, Muslims will join the Holy War in ever larger numbers, security sources quote from the papers.

Link, with no more citations alas from the paper:http://gunpowderandlead.wordpress.co...-of-attrition/

The author's commentary (in part):

...this strategy paper shows that the group continues to depend on the West’s reactions to advance its objectives, demonstrated by its expectation that “increasing reprisals on the part of the security authorities will marginalize Muslims,” thus causing more Muslims to flock to al Qaeda’s jihad.

Having listened recently to several Muslim community members they would echo the danger of reprisals. Their words were more direct:

What pisses off a jihadi? Think about it.

and:

Add Do not provoke to Op Contest (the UK CT strategy).

[davidbfpo]

An excellent analysis by Leah Farrell, from Australia, and in summary:

Despite leadership losses, Al-Qaeda has exhibited significant consistency and continuity in its operational focus and planning and training activities, which are driven largely by institutional factors rather than by key individuals.

Al-Qaeda can remain operationally active and viable so long as it can access and deploy a small number of recruits. It has demonstrated in recent years that, even with the loss of its senior leaders, this capacity continues.

Prolonged operational impotence is the greatest threat to Al-Qaeda’s organizational unity and viability

It ends with:

The solution for Al-Qaeda central in maintaining its operational effectiveness and forward focus is likely to be much as it has always been: to continue efforts to successfully carry out mass impact attacks against Western targets, which are an assured means of raising
its profile, attracting support, and quelling any internal dissent and rivalries within the organization.

Thus, despite its current operational impotency, and its inability to carry out a successful external attack, Al-Qaeda’s focus on this approach is unlikely to change over the medium- and long-term, regardless of who assumes the leadership position. Rather, maintaining this focus will be crucial to ensuring organizational unity and longevity as it deals with more generational change. Such a focus would also help ameliorate any issues caused by parochial or local focuses becoming more prominent in Al-Qaeda’s public narrative.

Absent of this success, Al-Qaeda’s longer-term future as a unified and functioning organization is questionable. Nevertheless, as a mode of action, the notion of Al-Qaeda will endure

Link:http://allthingsct.files.wordpress.c...ticle-2012.pdf

[davidbfpo]

A fascinating analysis by Raffaello Pantucci of ICSR that refers to the documents seized in Germany from an AQ courier (See Post 23); the title is 'The British End of the German al Qaeda documents' and the focus is on the UK and terrorism. Security, strategy and much, much more to absorb.

From the understanding I have, the papers are essentially a post-operation report on the July 7, July 21, and Overt bomb plots (Overt was the codename for the 2006 attempt by Abdulla Ali and a bunch of his mates to bring down about eight planes as they made there way to America) and German intelligence seems pretty convinced that this was written by Rashid Rauf, the infamous British-Pakistani terrorist operator. This is apparently based on the detailed knowledge of the British plots and some biographical details that are mentioned.

Link:http://icsr.info/blog/The-British-En...aeda-documents

A summary of the original documents, in English is on:http://abususu.blogspot.co.uk/2012/0...urface-in.html

Having listened to the author at a conference I can commend his work

Caveat:

..Die ZEIT is only published in German and the article is not online..

There is another German journalist who has commented on his blog:http://ojihad.wordpress.com/2012/03/...red-in-berlin/