What is Al-Qaid's strategy?

Factual Questions
1

If you have read my posts about Civil War or the game Risk, you know I enjoy discussing military strategy.

We are now involved in a war against terrorism in general, and against Osama Bin Laden’s Al-Qaida organization in particular. We have a pretty good idea of our strategy, from arresting terrorists in other nations, to bombing Afghanistan, to possibly attacking Iraq, which shelters and supports terrorists.

Those strategies are certainly worthy of discussion, but I am more interested in the enemy’s strategy.

War is waged for a reason. A nation has an objective and uses military force to achieve it. Or, the nation’s objective can simply be to stop the * other * nation from achieving its objectives, or ending its ability to wage war.

I have just read a lengthy profile of bin Laden on CNN.com, including his famous 1996 CNN interview, but I’m still not sure I understand what his objectives are.

He belives the U.S. is responsible for Palestinian (i.e., Muslim) deaths, through its support of Israel. He is angry at our ally, Saudi Arabia, for allowing U.S. forces to attack Iraq from Saudi bases. He doesn’t like the fact that non-Muslim Coalition soldiers are still stationed in Saudi Arabia, near the holy Muslim sites of Mecca and Medina.

Correct me if I’m wrong – please do, that’s why I posted – but it seems like he hates Saudi Arabia and Israel, but is only acting against America. The Muslim Saudi government doesn’t seem to mind our soldiers near Mecca… and how close are they, anyway? A mile? 50 miles?

Does bin Laden think that by destroying the World Trade Center, the United States would pull our troops from Saudi Arabia and stop supporting Israel? Or is it simply to humiliate us, to punish us for our heathen beliefs and for (in his view) murdering Palestinians? Why is this his strategy, and not building a massive PLO army, or launching a civil war in his home country?

Am I totally lost? I could find no discussion of this on the SDMB that was any later than fall 2001.

Please help.

We cannot defeat this enemy unless we understand it.

2

This link gives an interesting perspective on this question.

http://www.policyreview.org/AUG02/harris.html

3

I wonder if the WTC (etc) attacks were an ends, rather than a means. Their statement was in the attacks (which were also to include the White House and Capitol).

They won by destroying the buildings.

So, if we rebuild the WTC site, will it really show defiance to a group that’s already had their victory?

4

Looks to me like it’s make one big attack and sit back and watch America implode. That and go broke.

5

You’re confusing (in my ever so uninformed opinion) Osama’s objective with Al Quaeda’s. I think they’re two different objectives altogether. He’s painted his egotistical objectives with something he finds lost souls willing to rally around (sadly, out of despair).

He professes to be against the great satan because we difiled Saudi soil. I have yet to understand how saving Saudi bacon from Saddam’s agression constitutes defilement (or how saving the Muslims in Bosnia implies an active policy against Muslims).

Osama’s strategy is simple… remember the old saying of how your might is measured by the might of your enemies? I first heard that as native American lore but I’d be foolish to think it didn’t actually originate elsewhere.

Osama saw that thru his enormous wealth he could become an international martyr thru instigating an extremely public conflict with a very visible power that would elevate his relatively pissant status, and all achieved thru, an again, extremely willing audience.

It was diabolically brilliant, although I’m woefully loathe to apply that term to him. Sad as is is, this entire clusterfuck was an ego trip. Just my h.o., be it ever so humble.

6

Many experts think that the motivation is to trigger a conflict between the U.S. and the Muslim world, which will cause Muslims to regroup and reject American influence.

Basically, the way I understand it is that he sees the Arab Muslim world being corrupted. Presence of Americans on ‘holy’ ground in Saudi Arabia is but one example. There are also liberal influences that might actually cause women to reject their subjugation, and the lure of the west draws young Arabs away from the radical Islam that Bin Laden supports.

So his feeling is that the U.S. would retaliate against the attacks, which would cause the Arab countries to respond by becoming more radical, ridding themselves of western influence.

The more radical vision is that he’s trying to trigger the final apocalyptic battle between the radical Islamic world and the west, which he thinks would be a good thing.

Also, he’s nuts. He’s the David Koresh of Islam. Well, one of many. But still… It can be hard to understand the motives of people who believe in a truly apocalyptic vision of mankind. For all I know, he wants the west to attack because he thinks Islam needs to be ‘cleansed’ by being mostly destroyed. There’s no telling what’s going on inside the head of a madman.

7

Uh…

I can see a few themes showing themselves in binnie’s actions so far.

One seems to be kill Americans and anybody who pals around with 'em. Notably absent from his terrorist acts so far have been any statements of demands or negotiating points. He just wants to sneak up on us and go boom.

One aspect of rebel agitation of past decades was the desire to force the incumbent power to increase security measures to a point that ordinary citizens come to resent the concommitant shrinkage of privacy, and thus become sympathetic to the opposition. While we’ve certainly seen increased efforts on the security front, enough so to evoke fussin’ and gripin’, it’s not gaining al-Qaeda much in the way of recruits, AFAICT.

But perhaps the intended effect on that front is to make the current head of the government unpopular. A colleague offered an observation on 9/11/01, when speculation surfaced in the media that the DC plane was really headed for the White House, that I’ll attempt to paraphrase here:

“Yeah, of course they were headed for the White House, to take out G. W. Bush at home. This guy comes from a Bedouin/Faisal/strongman/warlord world and he just really does not grasp that taking out Dubya would leave Cheney at the helm, with the Speaker of the House ready up next, and we hold elections every four years, and there is always going to be a President of the United States. Taking out the current one accomplishes next to nothing. But he thought it would.”

Another recurrent theme in fundamentalist religionist leaders’ endeavors is the fervent dissemination of the message that the referential source for that religion (Koran, Bible, Dianetics) presents a black and white picture of who’s good and who can be killed with impunity, and the source of all our troubles are those who seek alternate meanings in that concrete document that is not subject to “interpretation” Here, let me interpret it for you.

And, of course, binnie et al are apparently uncomfortable with post-7th Century life and would like to see their little part of the world undisturbed. It would be almost laughable, save for the tragic consequences of these sociopaths’ acts, that it appears to me that their doings are only likely to hasten the coming of the 21st century to their neck of the woods.

One aspect of the scenario as it now appears may be more logistical than a strategic effort on their part. One way or another, this is a different kind of war, one without battle lines that the reporters can visit. Yet it is ongoing and the lag between the embassy bombings and 9/11 was undoubtably long enough for public complacency to set in. I really don’t know if patience+complacency is part of their game plan or not.

So, various muses have told us in the past that your ultimate goal in warfare must be this or that, with the goal in conventional warfare ultimately being to destroy your enemy’s ability to fight. I really don’t think we have a foe with a clear plan, although they definitely remain dangerous.

8

lieu:

Because Muslims don’t eat pork. :smiley:

9

While lieu and Sam Stone have provided some excellent insights, their points go to his objective.

Bin Laden’s strategy was to draw attention himself, al-Qaida, their cause (the objective, above). Such attention was intended to have two effects: 1) for recruiting purposes, to appeal to the poor and disenfranchised youth of muslim countries; 2) for fund raising purposes, to draw the necessary cash flow from wealthy muslim fundamentalists.

I don’t believe that Bin Laden has any real empathy for the Palestinians (and hence, why Israel isn’t his target), he simply uses the Palestinian situation to draw sympathy from his target recruiting pool.

And yes, Bin Laden is wealthy, but he cannot afford to fund a Jihad against the US on his own. He wants to solidify himself in the leadership of the Jihad, and would find that difficult without being a head of state. By demonstrating attacks of such efficiency (effectiveness per dollar), he can draw out the resources of wealthy fundamentalists that share his concerns and objectives, but lack the desire to do the dirty work.

One other nitpick: Bin Laden does not hate Saudi Arabia - quite the contrary. He hates the Saudi government. And if his principles are strictly fundamentalist islam, he will never side with Saddam Hussein.

The irony is that the wealth of Bin Laden, and that of many of his financiers, come from western oil dollars. Pump any gas today?

On Preview: Ringo, Dubya was down in Florida on 9/11, in the 9 to 10am timeframe. Don’t you think they would have picked a day that they expected he going to be home, if that was their intent?

10

Great link, freajnt, and welcome to the boards.

JasonG I think you should have a look at freajnt’s link. You aren’t going to find an answer to your question as such. OBL is not playing war games. The US is fighting a war against someone who is not fighting a war back.

11

To live up to his brother’s acting success?

:wink:

12

Does bin Laden necessarily have a coherent and (to him) defensible strategy and line of reasoning?
I don’t think so.

I’m sure that if we got round the table and explained to Mr bin Laden why we felt he was wrong to act the way he does, we’d be unlikely to change the way he behaves or thinks. The destruction of an entire country and all its people cannot be considered a useful, logical or rational goal. Bin Laden hates the West, and particularly the US and he will do everything in his power to hurt, embarrass and drain it. His tactics will come from invention, the mother of his necessity.

13

Princhester’s right, you have to check Freajnt’s great link.

Going with what the link says, it was quite likely that the terrorists would have attacked the White House or the Capitol Building even knowing full well that no one was there, or that the inhabitants were replaceable under our system. They were after the highly visible symbols of America, not after military advantage.

I would therefore anticipate attacks against the visible symbols of US and western power, done in such a way as to be very theatrical. An anthrax attack on 10 Downing Street might do damage, but it wouldn’t produce the kind of images Al Queda is looking for. They’d be far more likely to hit Big Ben with some kind of huge fireball of an explosion, even though it isn’t the location of anyone in high office or any kind of military target. Similarly, a so-called dirty bomb might be technically possible and tactically damaging, but it’s worth nothing compared to a mushroom cloud “brighter than a thousand suns”. The real damage isn’t anywhere near as important as makng it onto CNN.

14

I think the fatwa is required reading for any student of Al Qaeda.

15

One apparent short term motive was to draw the US into a ground war in Afghanistan. They had seen what they could do against the USSR, and thought they could do the same with the US.

So far, that part of the plan does not appear to have worked.

Long term, it is viewed as a setup to a major (WWIII level) conflict between the Muslim world and the West (not just the US).

In actuality, it will come down to food vs. oil. Many of these Muslim countries are heavily overpopulated and need vast imports of food. Alll they have in exchange is oil. We can live for longer without their oil than they can without our grain. But they don’t realize that. Yet.

16

Since this got bumped anyway, would someone please explain to me why the “al” in al Qaeda is usually not capitalized? As you can see ^ I just figured this out.

It is a proper name in English, right? I’m guessing wrong actually, but I cannot figure out why.

17

Beagle: “al” is Arabic for “the,” more or less. Consider “algebra,” which according to dictionary.com means “the restoration.”

I don’t know what “Qaeda” means. “Bunch of fuckers,” maybe.

18

Wow, fifteen minutes flat. I love this place. Thanks.

19

I have read freajnt’s link, and it was truly eye-opening. And frightening.

Frightening because, as I think we’re seeing in these posts, there appears to no way of negotiating with or appeasing OBL. Worse, there seems to be no way to stop him, short of killing him and each of his supporters, one by one.

(Though I guess we’d probably imprison him for life, so as not to martyr him).

Also, I think we DO have to try to improve the quality of life for poor Muslim countries, because though anyone can fall victim to radical fundamental religion (even here in the U.S.), certainly poverty plays a role. It’s the same sort of philosophy behind after-school programs, if you will, which keep kids off the streets and get them interested in something, anything – sports, computers, arts – instead of crime and drugs.

Basically, unless someone has a better theory, it looks like Al-Qaida wants to poison us, blow us up, and nuke us, and even with the greatest military in the history of civilization, and allied armies around the world… there is nothing we can do to stop them.

20

Al-Qaeda means “the base.”

Dennis or Randy?