I find it hard to believe that with over 3000 lost in one act in such a grand spectacle that it will take more death. I could understand that if it happened to Canada but you would think that 9/11 wouldn't need to be upscaled for further action. Also with the massive centralization of finances, food, and fuel you would think there would be greater diligence.

Time for the obligitory Jimbo 'All we have to do is leverage the close populations against them' post. The trick is creating the leverage.

I will now use three more buzzwords:
synergy
paradigm
zelocity

"close" populations?

Fancy way of me saying 'Lets make the Arabs/Maghrebs/Indonesians/Pashtuns beat them down instead of us.'

Exactly but those “close populations� have a whole different reason to “beat them down� (al-quada) as they share the same basic ideology.

Somewhere I wrote the biggest mistake OBL has made, to date, was to take on the saudi ruling family. They now will destroy him if possible only because he directly threatens their rule. The saudi ruling family could give a shit less if OBL screws with anyone else, even their own people.

Same with Pakistan, they have capitulated and help the American cause only for two reasons, money and because OBL directly threatens president M’s rule (and life).

The other countries will not help stamp out terrorism because OBL has not threatened their dictatorships, yet. If and only if that happens do I foresee any assistance from these other rouge nations.

I'm going to tread dangerously close to D9's lane in the road on this, but AQ's ideology is not shared by many. Their ideology is largely influenced by and slightly derivitive of Marxism. In fact, the Concept of 'the base' is the same as the Marxist 'Vanguard' concept that was the result of the COMINTERN.

The Arab governments that flirted with the ideas of Nationalism were largely Marxist-Socialist in orientation. The failure of Arab nationalism, coupled with the Israeli victory and...one more thing I'm forgetting at the moment, contributed to this nebulous concept of 'Arab shame' which some (not me) has driven so many intot he ranks of AQ. This association with a fairly low point in Arab history has led many in the region to reject, out of hand, Marxist associated ideologies.

Last night I read The Trouble with Islam : A Muslim's Call for Reform in Her Faith by Irshad Manji. It is searingly critical of the Muslim faith worldwide, for allowing themselves to be dominated by tribal desert arabia Islam. She goes very deep into history, and the Koran, and critisizes Islam for having a poor sense of "the other" and for lacking an intellectual self-criticizing mechanism.

She praises President Bush for helping free political prisoner Saadeddin Ibrahim in Egypt (2002), a gesture the likes of which helps to show US committment to democracy in other parts of the world. To paraphrase her, arab populations are quite willing to fight each other, and they dont really need that much leverage to do it.

:munchin

Jimbo, just finished Understanding Terror Networks. The resemblance between AQ (specifically) and the Bolsheviks is startling.
One question I didn't feel was adequately answered in the book, and I suppose might be answered by reading the transcripts of the conversations in Hamburg and Montreal, is- how did the religious views of the members of the 'Bunch of Guys' cliques evolve to Salafism without external input? Or did their 'weak' links with Salafists (community members, the girl with connections to the Roubaix gang etcetera) gradually inject Salafism into their pool of conversation and thereby lead them to Salafism?

Thank you, and thanks for recommending the book,

Solid

I think their views did get external support. Specifically in the mosque and the adjacent bookstore.

I wasn't sure because he didn't describe the Mosque as being particularly Salafist, and the books and tapes are uni-directional, not interactional. Makes sense, though.
Thank you,

Solid

Sounds like, IMHO, that what we are really seeing is an insurgency within Islam where those that want to establish rule according to their beliefs are doing whatever is necessary to overthrow those currently in power. Their organization is not unlike a classic uw operation where the terrorist organizations (overt guerrilla arm) are taking the fight directly to target sets, the underground folks are doing the financing/intell/other ops normally associated with covert underground ops not suitable for discussion here; and the auxillary (both witting and unwitting) are providing support and are operating supporting systems.
Operations against the non-islamic targets are providing them with status and gaining support for their cause when they are overtly attacked while simultaneously demonstrating that the current Islamic governments cannot defend the faith and are flawed. They are in no rush and will move in and eventually take over the corrupted governments of those Islamic states that fail to see the error of their ways. This is all being orchestrated by a government (albeit a loosely confederated one from several nations) in exile so that no one nation state provides a suitable target for retaliation. An oversimplification, but something to think about.

Jack Moroney

Sir,
There is an interesting book titled "Terror’s Mask: Insurgency Within Islam" written by Michael Vlahos of the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab. He has a couple of other interesting papers that I will post if I can relocate them in the morass that is my office.

Some of his other readings I recommend:
http://www.techcentralstation.com/101603A.html
http://www.scienceroundtable.com/110603A.html
http://homepage.mac.com/kia/politics/enemy.html

I guess this link is more useful: http://www2.techcentralstation.com/1...OVLAHOSMICHAEL

From a Operators standpoint...
 

Are any of these individuals writing these books/articles even been on the ground in Iraq...much less in a combat AO?

Thanks. A friend of mine just sent me a 7 page paper written by Vlahos that summarizies his work. Talk about timing.

Jack Moroney:D

That's his new paper. Hard to get one's hands on. He has an older one, from about 2002, that is really excellent. He was one of the first gringo authors to put forth the idea of the GWOT being the result of a internal Muslim struggle.