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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: KLP who wrote (21473)	12/25/2003 1:58:25 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793689

The Dense Web of Al Qaeda washingtonpost.com By Peter Bergen Peter Bergen is the author of "Holy War, Inc.: Inside the Secret World of Osama bin Laden" and a fellow at the New America Foundation. What is al Qaeda? It seems, on some levels, a simple question. After all, "al Qaeda" is a term much bandied about by the public, politicians and commentators. Indeed, it's now one of the best-known organizations in the world. Yet there is a great deal of ambiguity about what exactly constitutes al Qaeda. Is it a terrorist organization run in a regimented top-down fashion by its CEO, Osama bin Laden? Or is it a loose-knit group of Islamist militants around the world whose only common link is that many of them trained in Afghanistan? Or has al Qaeda, the organization, morphed into something best described as al Qaeda, the movement -- a movement defined by adherence to bin Laden's virulent anti-Westernism/anti-Semitism and propensity for violence? Is "al Qaeda" all of the above? Defining our terms on al Qaeda is more than a matter of semantic interest. If we can better define what al Qaeda is, we may better understand the threat it poses at a critical moment. First there is al Qaeda, the organization. Most non-specialists are surprised to learn that al Qaeda has only 200 to 300 members. These are the men who have sworn bayat, an oath of allegiance to serve their emir, or leader, bin Laden, even unto death. (It is al Qaeda, the organization, that carried out the Sept. 11 attacks.) The second concentric ring spreading out beyond the inner core of al Qaeda consists of perhaps several thousand "holy warriors" trained in the group's Afghan camps in the terrorist black arts of bomb making and assassination. Beyond this circle are tens of thousands of militants who received some kind of basic military training in Afghanistan over the past decade. Many of these trainees went to Afghanistan for what amounted to little more than a jihad vacation. Most were to be cannon fodder in the Taliban's war against the Northern Alliance. Think John Walker Lindh. Finally, untold numbers of Muslims around the world subscribe to bin Laden's Manichean worldview that the West is the enemy of Islam. Some of these, too, may be prepared to do violence. The investigations of the recent terror attacks in Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Iraq are ongoing, but already it seems that all of the various "al Qaedas" described above had some role in the attacks. In the case of the Nov. 8 bombing in Riyadh, Saudi officials say al Qaeda itself planned the attacks. This is plausible, as al Qaeda had already struck in Riyadh in May in a series of attacks that killed 34 people. In the case of the Nov. 12 attacks in Nasiriya, Iraq, that were directed at the Italian presence there, Italy's defense minister, Antonio Martino, has said that Saddam Hussein loyalists and al Qaeda members were to blame. The Nasiriya attack, then, is not the work of al Qaeda itself but of the wider circle of jihadists affiliated with al Qaeda who will cooperate with groups on the ground with purely local interests such as Hussein loyalists. The attacks on synagogues in Istanbul Nov. 15 were carried out by two Turks. Afterward a group called the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades claimed responsibility. Abu Hafs is the nom de guerre of al Qaeda's former military commander, who was killed by a U.S. airstrike in Afghanistan in November 2001. The synagogue attacks seem, then, to have been carried out by one of al Qaeda's many affiliates, recruiting local talent on the ground to execute the operation. This also appears to be the case for subsequent attacks against a bank and the British consulate in Istanbul. These various attacks may well represent the future of "al Qaeda" operations: Some attacks will continue to be planned by the terrorist organization itself, others will be carried out by affiliate groups acting in the name of al Qaeda and additional operations will be executed by local jihadists who have little or no direct connection to al Qaeda. The last is perhaps the most worrisome development, because it suggests that al Qaeda has successfully turned itself from an organization into a mass movement -- one that has been energized by the war in Iraq. President Bush reportedly keeps photos of the 20 or so top terrorists in his desk, and when one of them is apprehended or killed writes an X through his picture. That might work for a Mafia crime family: Arrest all the key members and the organization will disappear. But al Qaeda is now a movement based on an ideology. Arresting a movement is quite a different proposition from arresting people. © 2003 The Washington Post Company

To: KLP who wrote (21473)	12/25/2003 3:51:31 AM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 793689

I have found a little "Treasure Trove" of articles over at "American Spectator." The Intolerant Left By Patrick Hynes Patrick Hynes is a senior account executive and lead copywriter for the Republican consulting firm Marsh Copsey + Scott and the former Political Director of the New Hampshire Republican State Committee. The Democrats' talking points of the hour say that President Bush and company are attempting to "stifle dissent" on matters relative to the war against terrorism, Iraq in particular. After the Republican National Committee released its first ad of the election cycle, the Dems started yapping in unison. Ted Kennedy called it an "attempt to stifle dissent." His colleague John Kerry called it a "reprehensible attempt to stifle dissent." The state party chair of New Hampshire, where the ad ran, went farther. As far as she was concerned it was "neo-McCarthyism." Democrat National Committee chair Terry McAuliffe deviated from the script a little. He just called the 30-second spot "insane." There's no doubt America is experiencing a heightened level of intolerance for differences of opinion. But the stifling is coming from the political left, not the White House or the RNC. In fact, the chilling rise of political intolerance will, if left unfettered, make the PC language police and public school Nativity Nazis seem downright Jeffersonian. Some recent examples illustrate my point: On the December 1 Hardball, host Chris Matthew's asked Howard Dean if he would "break up Fox" if he were elected president. It wasn't really a controversial question. Many liberals want to prohibit news organizations from getting too large, and Fox (actually News Corp.) is really, really big. The real surprise was Dean's answer: "On ideological grounds, absolutely yes." Apparently Dean swiftly realized he had just offended the First Amendment, to say nothing of common decency. He immediately equivocated, "I don't want to answer whether I would break up Fox or not." Except that he just had. On December 8, Dean's rival John Kerry tried to kill another media outlet before it could even get started. The National Rifle Association wants to start a cable station to take advantage of the media exemption in the new campaign finance laws. So Kerry filed a complaint with the Federal Elections Commission to block it. "We urge you to prevent the NRA from hijacking America's airwaves with the gun lobby's money," Kerry wrote. That is to say he doesn't want the NRA to use its own money to talk about the issues that matter most to its members. So, the probable nominee for president from one of America's major parties and a powerful U.S. Senator want to limit free speech on ideological and political grounds. Kerry's letter to the FEC explained, "If the NRA has something to say, it can play by the rules, just like the millions of people in America who do every day." Except that the Supreme Court's decision in McConnell v. Federal Election Commission makes those rules for regular Americans a lot less, um, liberal. In the name of getting regular people involved in politics again, every branch of government has now officially signed on to this truly stifling law. Essentially, a bunch of politicians passed a law to make it harder for the American people to criticize them and the U.S. Supreme Court endorsed it. And let's not forget the Clintons. In office, Bill flirted with bringing back the Fairness Doctrine to silence talk radio, and his IRS often audited the White House's political enemies. Hillary, the early odds-on-favorite for the Democrats' nomination in 2008, has spoken of the need to have a new "gate keeping" mechanism to filter Internet content to protect the reputations of public persons such as…herself. The political left is playing a dangerous game; for conservatives, for America, for anyone with an honest gripe about their government or politicians. If Americans remain lax against their advances on the First Amendment, it may leave us all, literally, speechless.