Confronting al-Qaeda (Afghanistan to the global level)

[Dayuhan]

Originally Posted by Bob's World

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".

Originally Posted by Bob's World

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.

Originally Posted by Bob's World

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".

Originally Posted by Bob's World

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.

Originally Posted by Bob's World

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?

Originally Posted by Bob's World

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/

[davidbfpo]

An updated CNN article on Rashid Rauf's role on Operation Overt, the planned airliners liquid bombs attack:http://edition.cnn.com/2012/04/30/wo...nts/?hpt=hp_t1

Alongside a CNN piece on the German seizures :http://edition.cnn.com/video/?iid=ar...s-combined.cnn

[davidbfpo]

A lengthy review of two books by Raffaello Pantucci: 'Hunting in the Shadows: The Pursuit of al Qaeda since 9/11' by Seth Jones and 'The Al Qaeda Factor: Plots Against the West' by Mitchell D. Silber:http://afpak.foreignpolicy.com/posts...rs_perspective

A short review comment:

Jones's Hunting in the Shadows could be described as an official history of sorts of al-Qaeda from the U.S. government perspective. This makes it a different beast to Silber's The Al Qaeda Factor, in which a much more coldly analytical process draws a clear conclusion about the ‘al Qaeda factor' in various terrorist plots.

Longer excerpt:

..offer different insights into this question, while reaching largely similar conclusions about what al-Qaeda is and how it has targeted the West.

Both of these books were published over a decade after the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington bloodily thrust al-Qaeda into the public consciousness, meaning they are able to look back at a considerable amount of data. While Jones' is the more narratively satisfying book, telling a story of al Qaeda around the world, there are omissions in the text that reflect its heavy American focus. Silber's, on the other hand, is a case-by-case analysis that lacks a narrative storyline, but the accounts of the plots in question are drawn from primary sources that make them some of the most factually accurate versions yet told of the various plots, and bring new and interesting insights useful to analysts and researchers

Link to Seth Jones's book:http://www.amazon.com/Hunting-Shadow...rds=seth+jones

Link to Mitchell Silber's book: http://www.amazon.com/Al-Qaeda-Facto...itchell+silber

[davidbfpo]

SWC member Clint Watts has a paper on FPRI:http://www.fpri.org/geopoliticus/201...-ladens-vision

It opens with:

The May 2011 raid killing Osama Bin Laden in his Abbottabad compound not only eliminated the world’s most notorious terrorist but also provided a unique glimpse into the strategic musings of al Qaeda’s leadership. The Abbottabad documents released in May 2012 reveal Bin Laden’s strategic recalibration as he witnessed the demise of his organization in Afghanistan and Pakistan while missing out on an Arab Spring that toppled many of the so-called “apostate dictators” he despised. All of the documents disclosed to the public reveal different aspects of al Qaeda's operations. However, two documents in particular shed light on Bin Laden's last thoughts on the future direction.

OBL made several points on lessons learnt and future options, rightly Clint concludes:

It is too early to assess whether Bin Laden's guidance is the basis for the disaggregated Salafi-Jihadi violence occurring around the world.