It was the telegenic crowds of apparently secular youth crowding the public squares and calling out for democracy and freedom in Egypt that caught our rapt attention. Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood was as late to the party as we ourselves. And al Qaeda’s number 2 man, the Egyptian Ayman al-Zawahiri tried and failed for thirty years to bring down the Egyptian state, something that the jasmine scented crowd accomplished in three weeks.
But – ever the opportunists – al Qaeda prepares for what comes after:
“Since the land is in chaos and Qaddafi is helping through his reactions and actions to increase the hatred of the population against him, it will be easier for us to recruit new members,” said the Algerian man, who uses the nom de guerre Abu Salman. He said that Libyans and Tunisians who had fought in Iraq or Afghanistan were now considering a return home.
“There is lots of work to do,” he said. “We have to help the people fighting and then build an Islamic state.”
Abu Khaled, a Jordanian jihadist who fought in Iraq with the insurgent leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, suggested that Al Qaeda would benefit in the long run from dashed hopes.
“At the end of the day, how much change will there really be in Egypt and other countries?” he asked. “There will be many disappointed demonstrators, and that’s when they will realize what the only alternative is. We are certain that this will all play into our hands.”
Michael Scheuer, author of a new biography of Mr. bin Laden and head of the C.I.A.’s bin Laden unit in the late 1990s, thinks such enthusiasm is more than wishful thinking.
Mr. Scheuer says he believes that Americans, including many experts, have wildly misjudged the uprisings by focusing on the secular, English-speaking, Westernized protesters who are a natural draw for television. Thousands of Islamists have been released from prisons in Egypt alone, and the ouster of Al Qaeda’s enemy, Mr. Mubarak, will help revitalize every stripe of Islamism, including that of Al Qaeda and its allies, he said.
“The talent of an organization is not just leadership, but taking advantage of opportunities,” Mr. Scheuer said. In Al Qaeda and its allies, he said, “We’re looking over all at a more geographically widespread, probably numerically bigger and certainly more influential movement than in 2001.”
So, we’ve got that going for us.
In Afghanistan, al Qaeda had the run of one failed state to plot their terror attacks. For a time at least, as Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen, Bahrain and Libya sort themselves out, bin Laden’s bullies may have a much larger playground.
And don’t forget that Libya still has stockpiles of mustard gas, nerve agents and other biological warfare stocks that were to be disposed…..but never quite made it to the incinerator.
Al Qeda wouldn’t find that attractive…..nooooo….what makes you think that?? Along with Libya’s location along the MED….and the ability to use those weapons to paralyze Europe along with commerce in the MED…..That’s crazy talk.
This is NOT good…..in so many ways.
AQ is a very opportunistic infection. We saw that in Iraq, and we will see it in other places as well. The misfortune is we are not there to excise it. They have to do it themselves. Rottsa Ruck there Arabubba!
YAY!
More targets!
Yak, these days I’m leaning more towards the Pournelle Approach: knock down a regime, shoot the SOB in charge, then tell those next in line they’d better not make us come back.
I originally supported Bush’s strategy in Afghanistan -although I never expected the country to even remotely approach any sort of democracy- but these days I’m wondering how effective “going Pournelle” would have worked? Just take out the Taliban, and tell who’s left “we don’t care how you run this place, as long as you don’t sponsor terrorists.”
As is true for our dear leader, AQ lets no crisis go to waste.
This time do it with Nukes so we don’t have to ever deal with them again. At least not for another few hundred years.
A platoon of Marines are out patrolling in northern Afghanistan and come across a lone man who, much to everyone’s astonishment, turns out to be none other than Osama Bin Laden !
They take him back to the forward base they are living in and contact the command center, who order them to bring Osama to the nearest helo pad so he can be extracted. In order not to attract too much attention, they decide to transport Osama in one Humvee with just a driver and one guard. A driver is rounded up, an old Gunnery Sergeant is assigned as guard, and they set off towards the helo pad a few miles away.
As they start around a corner, the driver sees something gleaming in the road ahead and slides to a stop, fearing the object might be part of a mine in the road. The Gunny gets out to check and finds it is an old lantern of some sort and brings it back to the Humvee. As he rubs the dirt off, there is a puff of smoke and a Genie pops out of the lamp.
“I can grant three wishes”, he says,” and since there are three of you, I will give each of you one wish, which is three wishes in total,” says the Genie.
The driver recovers first, and says, “I am a farmer and my sons also want to farm, but the land on my farm is getting poor. I want the land to be forever fertile on my farm .”
The Genie snaps his fingers and says, “Poof, It is done. Your land and the land of your children will be forever fertile.”
Osama was next, and he said, “I want a wall around Afghanistan , Palestine , Iraq , Iran, and all the other Islamic countries so that no infidels can come into our precious land and interfere with the work of the prophet.”
The Genie snaps his fingers and says, “Poof, It is done. All the lands of Islam are within an impenetrable wall that no infidel can break.”
The Gunny climbs down out of the Humbvee and walks a few steps away. He turns and addresses the Genie.
“Tell me more about this wall you just built for Osama.”
The Genie explains, “Well, it’s about 5,000 feet high, 500 feet thick and completely surrounds the countries. Nothing can get in or out; it’s virtually impenetrable.’
The Gunny walks back to the Humvee, and leans against it. He fishes around in his pockets and produces a partially smoked cigar, and lights it.
The Genie says, “Have you decided on your wish”?
The Gunny pulls a big puff on the cigar, exhales, and says, “Yep. That area inside that wall Osama wanted?
“Yes”, says the Genie.
“Fill it with concrete.”
+50!
My big hope is that they’ll spend so much time targeting each other over which group isn’t “Muslim enough” they won’t have time to target us for a while (until the “best Muslim” “wins”).
Is that wrong?
And that could take a while…all presupposing of course that we don’t send peacekeeping forces in so they can target us instead.
All the turmoil in the me that’s going on with BO’s approval is just his payoff to the islamists. It’s being played in the media as a people’s revolt but it’s just obama doing what he can to desecularize the area. He’ll get (and deserves) full credit for it and can easily turn this into more foreign 2012 campaign contributions and eventually a spot at the UN-
So in other words just as America has been turned into Chicago so goes the world.
Welcome to Mexico.
So many sacrifices of so many brave men and women and for what- so the fruit of all their sacrifices could be given away by some leftists to buy votes?
When my dad died I was kinda happy for him that he wouldn’t be around to see what became of the country he and his squadronmates sacrificed so much for-