Thursday, March 18, 2004
Spain off limits?
Abu Hafs al-Masri, a group with ties to Al Qaeda, claimed that Spain would no longer be targeted if it follows through on a pledge to pull Spanish troops out of Iraq. Now, there are some serious questions about the group’s creditability. They claimed to be behind the Madrid bombings, but there is no evidence that they were at all connected and they claimed to be behind the London and North American blackouts and there is no evidence of sabotage either of these cases let alone evidence they the group did anything. That said, what the group said is entirely consistent with what I feared Al Qaeda might do, i.e., use the threat of violence to mold already existing anti-American sentiments in the Western democracies into something bigger and longer lasting. (There is little doubt that Al Qaeda uses the Western media to help get its message out for recruitment purposes and to direct the faithful. However, it could potentially go beyond this. This may sound odd, but there is always the possibility that Al Qaeda could use Western pundits to their own advantage. Specifically, rather than themselves plotting out a clear and direct course for how to drive a wedge between the US and the West, perhaps they could borrow ideas from various pundits, or capitalize in a general way on a discourse of their own making. After all, pundits have a level expertise that Al Qaeda lacks and they will be busy speculating as to how Al Qaeda might go about achieving such an end. The cruel irony is that if such a scenario comes to pass, some pundits will look very much like prophets.)
There are a few things the Americans should take heart in. First, while European public opinion is increasingly hostile to US foreign policy, there is little doubt that as a result of Madrid some of the barriers to fighting terrorism will be removed and that European government will be much more open to working with US authorities, even if only below the radar. Second, although the new diffuse, shifting and horizontal structurally nature of Al Qaeda is in many ways more difficult to deal with, the way Al Qaeda is now structured will also make it more difficult for the Al Qaeda leadership to maintain some sort of coherent operating plan and for that matter insure that its operations are carried out to their specifications. Indeed, there is some evidence that this has already hurt them. In the most recent Riyadh bombings, terrorists hit the wrong compound and as a result a Muslim compound was hit and not one housing Westerners. Needless to say, this did not play well in Saudi Arabia. Without clear lines of communication it is entirely possible that a group tied to Al Qaeda will not stay on message. Thus, while it might very well be Al Qaeda’s intention to try to drive a wedge between Europe by carefully selecting which European countries to hit, there is also chance a splinter faction could ruin everything for them by, say, targeting Spain again. Finally, there is some good news for America in so far as Chechnians seemed to have pushed the Russians firmly into the US camp. The Russians are one of the strongest backers of the War on terror.
A friend came up with an excellent suggestion. He said Spain should remove its troops from Iraq and transfer them to Afghanistan. I do not think this is going to happen though.
Abu Hafs al-Masri, a group with ties to Al Qaeda, claimed that Spain would no longer be targeted if it follows through on a pledge to pull Spanish troops out of Iraq. Now, there are some serious questions about the group’s creditability. They claimed to be behind the Madrid bombings, but there is no evidence that they were at all connected and they claimed to be behind the London and North American blackouts and there is no evidence of sabotage either of these cases let alone evidence they the group did anything. That said, what the group said is entirely consistent with what I feared Al Qaeda might do, i.e., use the threat of violence to mold already existing anti-American sentiments in the Western democracies into something bigger and longer lasting. (There is little doubt that Al Qaeda uses the Western media to help get its message out for recruitment purposes and to direct the faithful. However, it could potentially go beyond this. This may sound odd, but there is always the possibility that Al Qaeda could use Western pundits to their own advantage. Specifically, rather than themselves plotting out a clear and direct course for how to drive a wedge between the US and the West, perhaps they could borrow ideas from various pundits, or capitalize in a general way on a discourse of their own making. After all, pundits have a level expertise that Al Qaeda lacks and they will be busy speculating as to how Al Qaeda might go about achieving such an end. The cruel irony is that if such a scenario comes to pass, some pundits will look very much like prophets.)
There are a few things the Americans should take heart in. First, while European public opinion is increasingly hostile to US foreign policy, there is little doubt that as a result of Madrid some of the barriers to fighting terrorism will be removed and that European government will be much more open to working with US authorities, even if only below the radar. Second, although the new diffuse, shifting and horizontal structurally nature of Al Qaeda is in many ways more difficult to deal with, the way Al Qaeda is now structured will also make it more difficult for the Al Qaeda leadership to maintain some sort of coherent operating plan and for that matter insure that its operations are carried out to their specifications. Indeed, there is some evidence that this has already hurt them. In the most recent Riyadh bombings, terrorists hit the wrong compound and as a result a Muslim compound was hit and not one housing Westerners. Needless to say, this did not play well in Saudi Arabia. Without clear lines of communication it is entirely possible that a group tied to Al Qaeda will not stay on message. Thus, while it might very well be Al Qaeda’s intention to try to drive a wedge between Europe by carefully selecting which European countries to hit, there is also chance a splinter faction could ruin everything for them by, say, targeting Spain again. Finally, there is some good news for America in so far as Chechnians seemed to have pushed the Russians firmly into the US camp. The Russians are one of the strongest backers of the War on terror.
A friend came up with an excellent suggestion. He said Spain should remove its troops from Iraq and transfer them to Afghanistan. I do not think this is going to happen though.
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