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Politics : New FADG.
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To: michael97123 who wrote (782)5/23/2007 12:08:23 PM
From: unclewestRead Replies (3) of 4152
 
So what you get is your decentralized version with money, planning and coordination problems.

I get your point. But disagree.
As if that is not obvious.

Let me attempt another explanation. I presume all of us gray beards (yes that includes you and me) grew up under the Peter Drucker school of management. His models were all about hierarchical and pyramidal organizational structures and centralized command and control. Drucker taught the devil was in the details not in the form. He wrote about decentralization but never advocated giving up one iota of control.
BTW every Democrat I know believes all government should be organized within Drucker's models. They also believe (and current leading Republicans join them in this) that the solution to all significant governmental management problems is to overlay it with another layer of supervisory bureaucrats.

When he began writing around 1940, Drucker could not envision a successful world-wide decentralized organization like AQ. Nor should he have been expected to do so. It was only in the last years of his life that world-wide communications systems became available to enable a decentralized cell-based structure.

And AQ did not invent cell structure. I cannot name who did but I can tell you from 1963-66, I was the demolition and explosives member of a 4 man SF cell that regularly worked targets in eastern Europe. Our local operational communications were limited to dead letter drops and very intermittent meetings. For emergencies we had an RS-6 radio that we could use with morse code and one-time crypto pads to contact a base in England. But we could only do that on a preset time schedule and our available contact times were limited to one or two a week.

AQ has taken that concept to a much higher and much more responsive level. They can do so because they distributed thousands of trained (in Afghanistan) terrorist operators throughout the world, and because of instantaneous and world-wide Internet communications. They do not even have to take the risk of loading and unloading a dead letter drop.

These trained terrorists have been cloning themselves all over the world ever since their graduation. Each cell has one or more activists. They know how to obtain operational funds locally. They are skilled in obtaining supplies for and manufacturing homemade explosives and incendiaries, and in firearm use. And they are full of ideas on what are appropriate targets. The Imams set priorities and that is all they have to do.

For a clear understanding of AQs target set and motivational factors, I recommend the book, The Quranic Concept of War. A War College student did a good book report on it that is on-line. Try googling the book title to find it.
I have a copy of the book if you have questions about it.

For a clearer understanding of AQs decentralized organizational mode and why it is successful, I think the book The Starfish and The Spider explains it as well as anyone.
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