Neither does it debunk that idea, face. As you said, it makes no mention of it. This being the case, no conclusion can be drawn about the author’s opinion of this idea. Again, a mediocre article at best which presents no new information.
Yes. That’s what I’m saying. Even if that weren’t the case, tho’ the article in the magazine is written for an already fairly well informed audience. Joe six-pack who thinks the war in Iraq is a swell thing, and that every person of Arab descent is a fundamentalist Islamist just ain’t gonna readForeign Policy. Burke is preaching to the choir in this instance; he’s not providing his audience with any new information.
If we consider that Rashak Mani linked it here for our edification, he must have something in mind that he thinks we can learn from the article. You say you’ve seen “fairly well-informed and rational posters,” claiming a belief that Al Qaeda is “campaigning for a global state.” And further that you have disabused them of this notion. First, I have not seen what you say exists; you can show me these examples, I’m sure. Second, if you’ve already informed these people of the error in their claims, then the article linked poses no new information.
And one final fucking time. Rashak Mani, what did you exepct us to learn from that goddamned thing? What discussion did you expect to arise? And of the minimal discussion that is here, why are you not participating?
You seem to be nitpicking the same "global islamic state" part of the article... but fine. The article says its false idea. I wasn't participating due to work... now I'm back. Happy ?
If you didn't learn ANYTHING... then my compliments... you are very very well informed. Yes the author might be preaching to the choir... but it seems regular fare americans and arabs don't read much of anything. Its not the author's fault that voters don't want to be informed.
So even SMDB regulars might learn something... and we do throw a lot of stuff around here. Sometimes I feel we lack an article summing up these "consensus" views. This article seemed to sum up a lot of stuff. It feels like "authenticating" what the SMDB has been saying.
Good stuff mentioned: ObL dying won't stop AQ, Moderates not marginilized, (One I don't totally follow, but that SMDB always puts as a central issue) Palestinian issue is not central, WMD and finally a well put "West is not winning".
I really don’t get what you’re arguing about. I say “It presents an alternative model”. You say “there is no alternative”. What’s that mean? That everyone already understands and accepts the model that’s presented in the article? Or that no coherent model at all existed prior to the one in the article? I don’t find either interpretation easy to accept. In the first case, you’d be supposing a “hive mind”, in the second, you’d be ridiculing the model for the sole reason that it was a breakthrough.
You are making the quite extraordinary claim that every member or reader of SDMB already knows with certainty what the goals of AQ are, and that to suggest otherwise is simply setting up a strawman.
I’m sorry, but I don’t find your argument very sensible, let alone persuasive.
Horseshit. You’ve found time to post a half-dozen different things since you last poeted here.
I’m not nitpicking anything. I mistakenly interpreted the author’s use of the word “state.” My error was pointed out to me and I admitted it.
If you didn't learn ANYTHING... then my compliments... you are very very well informed. Yes the author might be preaching to the choir... but it seems regular fare americans and arabs don't read much of anything. Its not the author's fault that voters don't want to be informed.
Yeah, so you said; the SDMB members might learn something. You’re repeating yourself instead of answering the question. What did you expect the SDMB members to learn? As I said, there’s not a single bit of new information in there that hasn’t been repeated many times on these boards. On the other hand, if you feel the article supports something you’ve posted elsewhere, then why the new thread? Put the link where it belongs; with your posts it supports.
Is this your attempt to become engaged in the discussion here now? If so, we already read the article. Thanks for the book report. D+
That is exactly not it. The OP here linked this article telling us we could learn something. But there’s nothing in it that is new. If it ain’t new, we ain’t learning anything, and it’s not an “alternative.” Has not a damn thing to do with whether one accepts, or discredits, Burke’s opinion and information. I’m simply saying that everything in that article has been said here before; it presents nothing we haven’t heard. Thus, it is a dull recitation of fact and not an alternative to anything.
If I were to post a link to an editorial piece about the NRA and said to the SDMB members, “Here’s an article I find interesting. Y’all should read this and learn something,” I’d have my ass handed to me - and rightfully so. Rashak has done this exactly.
Impressive. You present me with a set of alternatives to which you think my opinion accrues. I pick one of them and tell you that it is exactly the opposite of what I’m saying and you call it “selective quoting?” While I didn’t quote your entire post, what I wrote explains my position fully and thus addresses your concerns.
And please don’t misquote me like that. You have made a very basic change in what I am saying and you goddamned well know it. My elisions from your post in no way change the meaning of what you are saying. You may want to refresh yourself on the board rules concerning misquoting posters.
Demo, Unclebeer’s quote didn’t appear to significantly or maliciously distort what you are saying; we do allow some leeway in quoting and try to have faith in the good intentions of posters. Your bit, however, was just obnoxious. And if you think junior modding is bad, saying “hey you’re junior modding” is just MORE junior modding. How about posters just, oh, DEBATE actual issues raised here, rather than “so-and-so is doing stuff I don’t think should be allowed”? That sort of thing people can take to the Pit or report a post or secretly harbor grudges about or whatever.
Not that I have a dog in this fight, but I learned some new stuff from the article. To take one simple example:
I didn’t know that, actually; I actually thought al-Qaida was a terrorist network.
I have been given to believe that the point of the SDMB is to fight ignorance. Rashak has presented an article that he personally found interesting and wanted to share with others. The fact that you find the article uninformative doesn’t necessarily mean that everyone will.
Your impression prior to reading that article was correct. Al Qaeda is indeed an “organization.” It has a operational hierarchy; it has a chain of command; it has a management structure which directs the activities of individual cells of terrorists; it has men who control and distribute financial resources. All of these things are components of an organized network. That the individual cells were once independent (and may still be free to act independently if they so choose), but occasionally come under the umbrella of bin Laden and his planning staff on an ad hoc basis doesn’t make Al Qaeda any less of an organized network. The fact that these cells receive financial and tactical mission planning assisstance from a centralized group is yet another indicator of an organized network. Some of these independent cells could not exist, or could exist only with a greatly reduced capacity for mayhem, without continued support from bin Laden’s Al Qaeda. Whether they’re only loosely affiliated, or fully dependent upon one another, matters not in the least. There is still a central authority to which they can and do appeal; there is still a central authority which can and does make demands of the individual cells. Just because Al Qaeda has, what is in essence a “mission statement,” doesn’t mean it is solely an ideology. Just because Al Qaeda has a flexible organizational chart it is no less a network; it is simply a network with progressive management principles. The fact that the ideology of bin Laden’s Al Qaeda has won over converts to his worldview, yet which remain outside his circle of influence, doesn’t mean that Al Qaeda isn’t a network; it merely means the ideology of Al Qaeda has spawned a following that wished to remain independent of bin Laden’s rule.
Note, too, that the author doesn’t deny that Al Qaeda is an organized network; he merely downplays that side of it while amplifying the ideological aspect of the organization. He says that Al Qaeda’s ideology has proved attractive to many who are not associated with the organization. And that the greater numbers and independence of the new converts may prove to be greater threat than the original group. Wow. Earth-shattering. More terrorists might be more dangerous than fewer terrorists.
And why the hostility towards Rashak? Because I think he’s abusing the forum. Great Debates isn’t a place for people to post stories about their pet topics (Even if they are interesting; which this one ain’t.), especially when they have no intention of joining the ensuing discussion. I asked several times what Rashak Mani found so interesting about that article and several times what he thinks he could learn from it. None of those requests have been met with a substantive response. The forum is called Great Debates. If the OP refuses to engage his topic, then there’s damned little point in starting the thing. And that irritates the hell out of me. Moreso when the topic is a rehash of ideas commonly known.
As for Desmo, I was entirely civil to him until he fabricated that quote. You’ll have to ask him why he’s so hostile. I won’t pretend to know.
Thanks for starting the debate instead of asking for one…
I think AQ if they did have like you said: - “a operational hierarchy; it has a chain of command; it has a management structure which directs the activities of individual cells of terrorists; it has men who control and distribute financial resources.” - They certainly don’t have anything near that now. Basically becoming a loose network of likeminded fanatics. Financial support being whatever they can get (probably much tighter and delivered in cash)… and communication between cells very limited in order to avoid US eavesdropping. I’m more worried about “freelancing” terrorists using AQ expertise and financing sources. AQ remnants become a cadre for ever new terrorists.
Do we have an obligation to “babysit” threads we start ? It just happens that sometimes I have the time to catch up and discuss/answer/debate… other times I don’t. If your just pissed that I start a lot of threads just say so…
In my mind presenting interesting (for me and many here) articles is worthwhile and GD seems more appropiate in case discussion does ensue.
I’m a bit confused. The article states that one cannot conceptualize al-Qaida in terms of a terrorist network. Previously you wrote:
and
Yet now in this post you dispute literally the first assertion in the article as untrue. You write:
Yet Burke claims:
It seems to me (unless I’m misreading you) that you actually disagree with Burke’s characterization of al-Qaida; and if so, then I don’t understand why you would simultaneously insist that Burke’s model is a *“recitation of commonly known facts.” *
Hmmm…that’s not my interpretation of Burke’s meaning. He states quite flatly that al-Qaida is not a global terrorist network, and that it’s wrong to conceptualize it in those terms.
See the last paragraph I quoted from his article, above, for an example.
Fair enough. I thought you were accusing him of pushing some sort of agenda.
However, not to be annoying, but even in his OP Rashak suggested that:
Burke isn’t describing the character of Al Qaeda now; he’s telling you what it no longer is. It has long been apparent that AQ isn’t what it used to be. Scattering bin Laden’s senior managers to the caves of Afghanistan (and wherever else they went), killing them, capturing them, all of that is bound to have a deleterious effect on vigor of an organization. But while the organization is seriously hampered, it is obviously far from defunct. What Burke describes isn’t new by any stretch and I don’t necessarily take exception to any of it. Except where he says that AQ was never a “never created a coherent terrorist network in the way commonly conceived.”
Even Burke seems uncertain on this point. After telling us that AQ was never a coherent network, he says these two things that seem to me to contradict that:
and
The first sounds to me like a pretty well organized network with a substantial infrastructure. It would have to be to have enjoyed so much success over so much time. If it’s a loose affiliation of members with differing agendas and no common methods of interaction, then destroying it should have been much simpler. Only well-planned and strictly-followed operational procedures could have escaped detection by the many concerned authorities. And it takes a good management structure to implement and enforce procedures such as these. The second quote just as surely as it claims a central hub no longer exists, also implies that such a thing at one time did exist.
Burke is also describing the general nature of the terrorist cells that have either popped up embracing bin Laden’s ideology to replace the AQ associated cells which have been crushed, or those that were associated but are now forced to go it alone because AQ has been damaged. It has long been apparent that AQ isn’t what it used to be. This is why Burke can now say that capturing, or killing, bin Laden won’t have that great an effect on terrorism as a whole; bin Laden and his organization has been marginalized to an extent. Scattering bin Laden’s senoir managers to the caves of Afghanistan (and wherever else they went), killing them, capturing them, all of that is bound to have a deleterious effect on vigor of an organization. Again, that’s not a terribly earth-shattering revelation on Burke’s part; it’s an obvious and well-known outcome. Had bin Laden been apprehended in the immediate aftermath of the WTC/Pentagon attacks, Burke’s claims of bin Laden’s relative insignificance would have been false.
I dunno. It doesn’t seem that he’s saying that at all to me. I interpret Burke’s statements to be implying that AQ is merely a shadow of its former self and that’s why capturing bin Laden isn’t gonna make a large difference in the overall incidence of terrorism.
Unclebeer Here are a few attempts of mine at dispelling incorrect notions about al Qaeda, including at least three incidences of the “global conquest” idea (from three different dopers, I believe). I’m on a different time zone to you, I guess, so sorry about the lateness of my reply.
You may know heaps about al Qaeda, and this article might be teaching you nothing you don’t already know, but there’s a lot of incorrect notions out there, even among the elite of the Straight Dope. Why the heck do you have a problem with this idea?
Because it’s been covered before, we should shut up about it forever? I’ll remind you of that principle next time we’re debunking creationism or UFOs or something.
