Crowdsourcing on AQ and Analysis (new title)

[slapout9]

Of course it matters. He killed Americans and destroyed our property. Will it stop terrorist attacks no, but it will bear on the mind of future attackers that when we find you, you will be DRT(dead right there).

[Fuchs]

Of course it matters. He killed Americans and destroyed our property. Will it stop terrorist attacks no, but it will bear on the mind of future attackers that when we find you, you will be DRT(dead right there).

I know 19 guys who wouldn't have given a damn.

[slapout9]

I know 19 guys who wouldn't have given a damn.

Yea,cause they are dead!

[Fuchs]

"wouldn't have given" referred to the time when they made their final decision.

[CWOT]

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.

[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.

[Dayuhan]

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.

I've asked this before, I know, but since I've yet to get an answer I'll ask again: where exactly do we "enable some of the most despotic regimes on the planet to both remain in power and treat their own populaces with impunity"? We arguably keep the governments of Iraq and Yemen in power, but these governments are less despotic than ineffectual. We pay the government of Egypt not to mix it up with the Israelis (a good deal for them, since they don't want to mix it up with the Israelis anyway), but we don't enable them to stay in power and we don't enable them to oppress their populace: they could and would do both quite well without us.

We don't enable the governments of Saudi Arabia or the Gulf States at all, except perhaps indirectly through our insatiable appetite for oil. They don't need us to stay in power, and they certainly don't need our help or approval to oppress their populaces. Neither do their populaces, even when they dislike their governments, want us interfering in their domestic affairs.

The idea that we somehow enable these governments to stay in power and oppress their people suggests that we have the capacity to remove them from power, or to change the way they relate to their people, if only we cease to enable. We do not actually have that capacity or that influence, and there are few things more dangerous than assuming a capacity that you do not actually have.

We cannot impose the Cold War paradigm where it does not fit. During the Cold War we openly installed dictators, encouraged coups d'etat, kept dictators in power with aid and force. Those dictators depended on us and we did have influence over them (though it was often diluted by our mistaken belief that we needed them to obstruct the commies). This situation does not prevail in the Gulf. There are despots, yes, but we didn't put them in power, we don't keep them in power, and they don't need us. We don't have the influence to change them, any more than we have the influence to change the regimes in China or Uzbekistan. We deal with all of them, because they exist and we have to, but they are not "our bastards".

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.

What policy changes, exactly, would you like to see?

Does bin Laden matter? To AQ, probably not that much. To the US, certainly he does. Killing bin Laden would provide a certain amount of closure an an era that we'd do well to close. It would allow us to put the counterproductive "GWOT" construct behind us and develop a more realistic presentation of the challenge. it would make an Afghanistan exit strategy more palatable.

While we haven't disabled AQ, it would be a mistake to say things have gone well for them. In SE Asia, which some analysts were once calling the "swing state" for the global jihad, they've fallen flat, not because of anything we did, but they have. The end of the oil glut and the consequent huge inflow of money to the Gulf has largely dismantled the 90s narrative of aggressive self-pity and greatly diminished AQ's traction in the Arab heartland. In other places it's been up and down, but you'd be hard pressed to claim realistically that they're ascendant anywhere. Oddly, they've probably seen the greatest expansion of influence in Western Europe, largely due to economic stress.

Certainly there are policy changes we could usefully make, but messing in the internal affairs of Muslim countries is not going to get us anywhere. I'd like to see us continue the withdrawal from Iraq: certainly they'll have issues, but we don't need to make those our issues. I'd like to see Iraqi oil contracts go to the Chinese and Europeans. That would be a minor setback for some US companies but no strategic problem at all for the US, and it would directly challenge the claim that the US is trying to control Iraqi oil.

Changing our rhetoric toward Israel would also help a lot, though in fact our influence there is much lower than it once was.

In short, there are things we can do to undermine AQs narrative, and we should do them. Trying to do what we can't do is only going to snap back in our faces.

[Ken White]

...the idea that AQ is about ideology is even more flawed than the idea that going into Iraq was about WMD.

While I'm fully aware that's what the then and now governments of the US said, I'm quite sure that neither of those 'motives' is or was of any real concern to any real decision makers now or then. I think to base much theorizing on the belief that those things were or are deemed important and truly cause for war would be to begin planning from false premises...

...We need to learn to be better at separating Causation from Motivation; and Material Facts from Relevant Facts.

Umm, yes, I think so. We also probably need to not say 'A' while being actually motivated by 'R' through 'BL.' Seems to confuse people.

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.

Probably true but there's also been a whole lot more fertilizer spread by many aside from the US. You can prescribe for the US but I doubt you'll get it past the US public or Congress -- and I really doubt you can affect the mores and attitudes of many other nations, nominal friends but a good many of whom have in the past worked and will in future work diligently behind the scenes to insure we stay the big bad, disliked Gorilla...

The question is not what happens if we kill Bin Laden. Answer that and get a C+.

I wouldn't even give it a 'C.' It won't make much difference either way.

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?

Define 'enable.' Please provide examples, I'm old and slow...

Also, what is your suggestion to remediate that shortfall you perceive?


* or if not, might as well be, he's broadly irrelevant. That I can agree with...

[carl]

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.

They are seeking death while successfully accomplishing their missions. If they are killed and captured often enough before they have a chance to accomplish their missions, that might have a dissuasive effect as time passes. If you can never get on base, most people might tend to give up the game.

[Bob's World]

A paper I have coming out soon will explore this in greater detail, but here is a snapshot side-by-side comparison of what we've been doing for 60+ years in "Containment" with what I propose is more appropriate for the emerging world with "Empowerment."

Empowerment is a word the President uses a great deal. It's in his intro to the National Security Strategy. But that is all it is, a word. A bold, encouraging word, with little to flesh out what he really means, what is his specific guidance to the government in this regard, how do we operationalize it, etc.

I don't know if this is the answer, but it is something I've been playing with at the Center for Advanced Defense Studies. This is just a snapshot, so may well spark more questions than answers, but any comments, pro or con are always welcome from my august peers here at the SWJ.