The End is Nigh!

Or so al-Zawahiri wants us to believe. While the Iraq war is a mess, with funds and organizational support coming from Iran, probably Syria, non-state actors, such as ansar al-Islam, al-Qaeda and others, it is not yet lost. Afghanistan too may not look like the picture of domestic stability and bliss, but it is also a far cry from a place where the mujahid walk with impunity. This last claim by al-Zawahiri makes me wonder if he is reporting what his underlings tell him about the conflict. Since I doubt that he out inspecting fortifications and checking on troop morale, he needs people to tell him how things are faring. Just as Saddam's scientists and generals were too scared to tell him that something wasn't possible, might it be the case that al-Zawahiri is just parroting bad information that he believes to be true? Or is it just PR spin to incite fear in his enemies?

In any case, I read online from a number of sources [write to me if you're interested] about al-Qaeda having secured a fatwa that allows for the killing of between 4 and 10 million US citizens as retribution for our imputed oppression and killing of muslims around the world. As Mark Scheuer (author of Imperial Hubris) points out, al-Qaeda normally tells its enemies more or less what and when something will happen to them. Often, they precede or include within the threat a chance to convert to Islam to eliminate the chance of annihilation. They have offered that option to us already twice regarding something that is coming. Could this message be the beginning of a much larger (read WMD) assault on us or our allies? Al-Zawahiri says that an attack will come from where we least expect it.

Wal-Mart?

Another website that I found has a document posted by Suleiman al-Gheith, al-Qaeda's putative spokesman. In it, he does in fact criticize US values -- contra Sheuer and myself -- including separation of church and state, purported godlessness (does he read any political science or sociological literature?) and our decadence. I don't know how strongly that feeling is central or tangential to their movement, but the more central it is, the closer the President and his advisors come to being right about al-Qaeda's hatred for us. I don't believe that this secular values argument is as central to their mission, however, as do Bush and Co. The primary focus is US actions with which Osama and his ilk disagree, perhaps buttressed further by a belief that we are spawn of satan and should be annihilated as such.

I would really like to see a much more intelligent foreign policy come from the two campaigns regarding this problem -- and by this I mean a clear indication of success metrics, a dedication to apply ruthless covert and overt military force and a committment to change some aspects of policy that are marginal to US national security.

Oh, and while I'm on the subject of Mea Culpas, after thinking about it for a little while, Zell probably shouldn't have been a speaker in prime time at the convention. He was too angry to be a voice of hope in the future. Maybe he stirred up the party faithful in a way that I don't know, but he was less congruent with the other speeches than were Guliani et al.