We’re almost 7 years now from that terrible day in September of 2001 when a band of Islamic jihadist firebrands, supported by a shadowy but potent terror network based in the Middle East, managed to kill over 3,000 Americans and injure our financial and military infrastructure. And since then . . . . nothing. Not on domestic soil, anyway. So, are we doing something right? Or have we mostly been lucky?<\/p>\n
That’s the big question, isn’t it . . . I’ve read a number of articles from reputable sources claiming that al Qaeda has been seriously wounded<\/a> and that Bin Laden’s idea of a pan-Islamic assault on the west never caught fire amidst its intended audience. Arguably, there are too many Islamic emigrants living in Europe and North America who have learned to like the economic opportunities available here. They are millions of them, making money and sending it back to the relatives living in the poor and stagnant economies of Pakistan, Yemen, Syria, Egypt, etc. So there may not be a very large pool of volunteers ready to fly to American and don TNT vests for suicide missions in crowded subways or shopping malls. The “Arab street” might be opting for a reasonable, moral interpretation of the Qur’an and Islamic history, over the hazy promise of black-eyed virgins in paradise and eventual glorious victory over the western infidels. And the US military has had recent success in talking the Sunnis in Iraq out of their al Qaeda sympathies.<\/p>\n At the same time, there is renewed evidence that the “social-mental infection” of modern jihadism remains potent within the Islamic world. I just read an interesting book review<\/a> for a title that you may not find at your local Barnes and Noble; but this book is allegedly getting attention in places like Riyadh and Tunis and Karachi. It’s called “Governance in the Wilderness” (Edarat al-Wahsh), and was recently written by Sheik Abu-Bakar Naji, allegedly a high-level religious theoretician in al Qaeda. Bottom line, the Sheik says that its time for al Qaeda to renew its focus on making life hell (i.e., “wilderness”) for the USA and France and England. He admits that the jihadists probably cannot repeat the “glories” of September 11, but they can bring us to our knees by a long term campaign based on smaller incidents targeted at crowded public places, akin to what the Israelis have to put up with. <\/p>\n So instead of snuffing out 3,000 infidels in a day and then getting shut out by a high-tech “homeland security” response, the new al Qaeda campaign [according to this book] should be happy with getting 30 or so office employees or tourists or delayed travelers lined up at airports, on a more regular basis. Admittedly, Israel manages to thrive despite this kind of thing; but the Israelis are tough cookies, having a social \/ historical \/ religious narrative just as compelling as any Palestinian suicidalist has. Here in the USA, especially in the well-off “blue states”, we really don’t have anything so transcendent to latch on to if and when bloody warfare comes knocking at our doors. There would be a lot of social and economic disruption — which is not what we need as we currently struggle with home foreclosures and unemployment and unending increases in food and fuel prices. Under Abu-Bakar Naji’s plan, there would be no succor from the shopping malls, as President Bush prescribed in the days following Nine Eleven.<\/p>\n OK, that article appeared in the NY Post — a Rupert Murdoch rag. Admittedly, Abu-Bakar Naji had a 2005 book called Management of Barbarism<\/a> and had a lot of other previous writings in the same vein; so another tome on hatred and vengeance by him isn’t really a surprise. But on the same day, the NY Times posted an article<\/a> about our lack of progress in the Pakistani “north-west frontier”, where Osama Bin Laden is thought to be hiding. The Times believes that al Qaeda has reestablished a network of training camps there not unlike what it had in Afghanistan up until late 2001. Because of Pakistani politics, we can’t just go in there with our Delta units and take them out. We are monitoring and harassing them with our airborne Preditors (the pilotless aircraft equipped with cameras and missiles), but according to the Times, we don’t have enough to do real damage due to demands in Iraq. <\/p>\n So — are we safe again? Or is this the calm following the first thunderclap, the pause before the real storm begins? I like to play the role of the gloomy prophet and thus get in an occasional “told-ya-so” when one of my predictions turns out by chance to come true. But on this one, I’d be perfectly happy to look back five years from now and admit just how silly and off-base my worries were. So check with me in 2013; I look forward to saying ‘yea, I was all wrong’.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We’re almost 7 years now from that terrible day in September of 2001 when a band of Islamic jihadist firebrands, supported by a shadowy but potent terror network based in the Middle East, managed to kill over 3,000 Americans and injure our financial and military infrastructure. And since then . . . . nothing. Not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,24],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=263"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4847,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263\/revisions\/4847"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}