Security Experts: Administration Overstates Domestic al-Qaeda Threat

[bigtree]

from The Washington Independent: http://washingtonindependent.com/70710/security-experts-claim-administration-overstates-domestic-al-qaeda-threat


12/14/09

Critics Question Necessity of Afghan War Escalation for Security at Home

IT sounded like a throwaway line in President Obama’s West Point address about the Afghanistan war. “It is from here that we were attacked on 9/11, and it is from here that new attacks are being plotted as I speak,” the president said, tying his troop increase in Afghanistan to direct threats to U.S. national security. “In the last few months alone, we have apprehended extremists within our borders who were sent here from the border region of Afghanistan and Pakistan to commit new acts of terror.”

. . . at a Congressional hearing shortly afterward, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton cited those same recent arrests in the United States to argue for the wisdom of the administration’s strategy in Afghanistan and Pakistan . . .

{snip}

. . . current and former counterterrorism officials and al-Qaeda experts warn that while the Pakistani tribal areas represent the center of international Islamic terrorist extremism, its connections to recent domestic terror threats are more ambiguous than the administration has recently portrayed. And they add that the recent arrests indicate a silver lining: intelligence and law enforcement are increasingly equipped to intercept domestic terror threats, particularly if they have some tie to al-Qaeda in Pakistan, raising questions about how potent a threat al-Qaeda remains.

Al-Qaeda’s senior leadership, according to senior U.S. intelligence officials who have testified before Congress this year, is under significant threat in the Pakistani tribal areas. Pakistan’s Army has reinvaded those areas and forcibly confronted its allies in the Pakistani Taliban, constricting al-Qaeda’s freedom of action. The CIA and the military’s Joint Special Operations Command have harassed al-Qaeda and its allies for the past two years, primarily through missiles fired from unmanned aerial vehicles. Most recently, a strike Tuesday may have killed al-Qaeda’s chief liaison to its affiliate in Yemen.

If so, the targeting will have highlighted a revealing fact about al-Qaeda eight years after 9/11: boxed into the tribal areas, the organization seeks less to pull off major terrorist attacks than to inspire and in some cases fund them. It has inspired a multiplicity of extremist websites, allowing people worldwide — including in the U.S. — access to its propaganda. And it also seeks to establish a presence in Muslim countries like Yemen and Somalia, often by offering financial or training support to existing extremist groups outside Pakistan. While those two approaches offer al-Qaeda a continued lease on life, analysts say they also dilute al-Qaeda’s brand and raise questions about the actual degree of danger it still poses.

“The tendency to lump all threats in to one big bin” ultimately “hurts the policy and strategy decision process,” said one U.S. counterterrorism official who requested anonymity because he was not cleared to talk to the media . . .

read more: http://washingtonindependent.com/70710/security-experts-claim-administration-overstates-domestic-al-qaeda-threat

[Sebastian Doyle]

1. It sickens me to hear Obama repeating the Chimpministration lies about Al Qaeda

I don't know which would be worse.... if he actually believes the shit, which would make him gullible, or if he knows its bullshit and says it anyway, which would make him a liar.

[bigtree]

4. quote from the article

"The Obama administration is mischaracterizing the terrorist threat to get the public to back escalating the Afghanistan war."

True? Consider Mullen's comments today attempting to conflate the Afghanistan Taliban with Pakistan's al-Qaeda-connected tribal leaders:


"Painting a grim picture, Mullen said Afghan insurgents were dominant in a third of Afghanistan's 34 provinces and "the insurgency has grown more violent, more pervasive and more sophisticated."

"I remain deeply concerned by the growing level of collusion between the Afghan Taliban and al-Qaida and other extremist groups taking refuge across the border in Pakistan," Mullen said. "Getting at this network, which is more entrenched, will be a more difficult task than it was just one year ago."

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationworld/world/wire/sns-ap-as-us-afghanistan,0,1242264.story

[leveymg]

2. There are 100 al-Qaeda left in Afghanistan, and maybe 300 in Pakistan, according to a military intel

officer quoted recently by CBS. Al-Qaeda really doesn't exist as a coherent organization, anymore, and the presence of remnants in Af-Pak is not the real reason for this escalation. There are many, many larger jihadist and militant groups scattered all over the world who present a greater of terrorist threat to the U.S. By far, the more realistic and greatest threat is one of disintegration of the Pakistani military into warring nuclear-armed factions. I wonder if an increase in U.S. forces will have a stabilizing effect in Pakistan, or trigger a real catastrophe.

[bigtree]

6. is there really a danger of the Pakistan military splintering?

I've read several accounts (including the military and State's) which say the Pak military leadership is well-situated politically and otherwise and isn't inclined to some sort of coup or mutiny. Is there something you could show me on that view?

[leveymg]

7. It's been a persistent concern since the Musharraf Coup .

Larry Korb, Center for American Progress: http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2009/04/pakistan_korb.html
WSJ, 2008 (reprint): http://www.nyu.edu/public.affairs/releases/detail/1899
WaPo, 2007 (reprint): http://www.iiss.org/whats-new/iiss-in-the-press/press-coverage-2007/november-2007/pakistan-nuclear-security-questioned/
Here's something from a decade ago: Monterey Institute of Int'l Studies,
The Military Coup in Pakistan: Implications for Nuclear Stability in South Asia, http://cns.miis.edu/reports/gaurav.htm

[bigtree]

8. sure, it's always a concern

. . . but, I don't see any evidence that any of that is imminent or even probable. There were all sorts of concerns raised during the Musharraf political upheaval, but the reports I've seen recently have downplayed the potential for military unrest. The present Pak military leadership is said to be popular among the rank-and-file. I want to be cautious about the way we portray these 'threats'. That's one of the purposes of this thread. Too many of these fears are being used by the military and the administration to justify the present escalation of force.

[leveymg]

10. I'm not saying that's an imminent threat, just a longstanding one that's more serious

than any threat posed by what's left of al-Qaeda, which was the one mentioned at West Point to justify the escalation.

I agree that the situation in Pakistan, particularly within the military establishment, is being portrayed as more stable than a year or two ago. However, that doesn't mean the place won't fragment into several pieces in another year or two. Pakistan always seems to be a year or two away from another coup and another civil war - in fact, a civil war is still going on. Not sure what effect the presence of more US troops in the vicinity will actually have - could be quite destabilizing. That's my point.

[bigtree]

12. good point

Pakistan has been worrying aloud about the blowback from the increased military activity in Afghanistan. The administration has been scrambling to reassure them.

[Cassandra2010]

3. The Big Lie

Have to keep telling it to keep the proles in line. Soon enough folks are going to see that the enemy is already in the tent.

Using Al-Qaeda Myth From Bush to Obama:

An Excuse for Permanent War

By Hassan El-Najjar

ccun.org, May 10, 2009

http://www.ccun.org/images/2009/May/11%20p/obama,%20cowboy%20hat%202009.jpg

...


Is there really anything now in Afghanistan and Pakistan or in any other place on Earth that may be called Al-Qaeda?

In fact, there has been no trace of Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, or Pakistan. If there are Al-Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan, US and other NATO forces could have captured some of them presented them to the media.

There was nothing called Al-Qaeda in Iraq before the 2003 US invasion. However, after the invasion, an organization was established under the name of "Al-Qaeda in Iraq," which US military commanders testified that it had no links with Bin Laden. Anyway, it has disappeared from Iraq completely, as it merged with other organizations calling themselves the Islamic State of Iraq.

Moreover, there has been no evidence whatsoever that those responsible for the Madrid and London bombings had any links with the mythical organization.

It is very troubling that the Obama administration is using this "Al-Qaeda" excuse to continue the same policy of permanent war, which was used by the Bush administration.

Where is the promised change?

Is it a new era, or is it the same Bush policy, even by using the same Bush rhetoric?

...

http://www.ccun.org/Opinion%20Editorials/2009/May/10%20o/Using%20Al-Qaeda%20Myth%20From%20Bush%20to%20Obama%20An%20Excuse%20for%20Permanent%20War%20By%20Hassan%20El-Najjar.htm

[bigtree]

5. over the top, I think

. . . opinion piece from al-Jazzera, despite similar points made. Not credible in their arguments at all.

[leeroysphitz]

9. Where were these genius "experts" 6 fu@cking years ago?

Why didn't they have anything to say back then?

[Echo In Light]

11. _