This is essentially the conclusion "The Power of Nightmares" came to three years ago. The hardcore violent Islamists were primarily in Afghanistan circa 2001 because it was the only place left where they were still welcome.

If you haven't watched all three parts of "The Power of Nightmares" in full, I recommend you do so immediately. It can be found for free on Google Video.

Come on... Al Qaida is only the rationale. Pathetic Dick doesn't care-- the goal is and always has been, American military presence in the mideast, for as long as there is oil. Nobody has to tell Dick, someone has to tell the troops.

KD: Somebody please tell Dick Cheney.
Preferably not while on a hunting trip.

Sometimes the phrase "Sunni Awakening" reminds me of something Admiral Yamamoto is supposed to have said after Pearl Harbor.

Let me see. Once upon a time al Qaeda worked in collusion with the CIA in Afghanistan. Later they were found to be doing destabilization in Iran - for the USA - after 911.Why do two and two add up to five here ?

It will be somewhat difficult to prove to the real americans going to church and hunting and living in small town america in iowa, pennsylvania, nebraska and kansas, etc. that the turbaned and bearded men situated over seven thousand miles away and sitting in caves in Afghanistan with little access to modern technology do not want to destroy our nation and what we and our dear leader (praise be upon him) stand for.

"what's become the consensus explanation for the turning of the Sunni tribes: their disgust with al-Qaida Iraq's murderous tactics and their resentment at the AQI "foreigners"

Guess I should read Judah Grunstein's paper before I comment, but that line sounds like Administration spin. Al Qaeda in Iraq? When is that myth going to start to disappear? Foreigners in Iraq? How many have been captured?

I thought the explanation for the "turning" of the Sunni tribes was our cash handouts, and a need to do in their enemies with US support (or at least without US resistance). I thought the game was one tribe tells the US the other tribe is Al Qaeda, and the US gets people to interrogate, a justification for their (unrelated) war, and the tribes get annoyances removed.

Even this mag and the Washington Post, both neo-con lite outlets (a.k.a. liberal hawks) have exposed the al Qaeda in Iraq story as wishful thinking/propaganda/disinformation, and neo-con wet dreams.

The real existential threat is the massive government propaganda apparatus of the Chinese state seriously trying to convince people that Tibetan Buddhists are fanatical terrorists on the edge of using violence to achieve their aims, yet all anyone seems to care about is kissing their arse because they have the Olympics, we don't want to disturb that or be un-PC, and plus they own a large portion of our country, better keep silent about this gigantic mental cluster**** they insist on propagating, violating all notions of common sense and responsible behavior.

Zac is absolutely right - The Power of Nightmares puts the al-Qaeda threat in perspective. Namely, it isn't much of one. Click here to download. Look, 9-11 was a low-tech, sucker punch - they caught us off-guard. America did not need to spend $1 trillion to combat this threat. It required coordinated international police action (something that still hasn't happened) and dealing directly with the problem of Israel-Palestine (which hasn't happened either), which is the root cause of why bin Laden attacked us in the first place.

Americans need to understand that Bush and his cronies exploited this preventable tragedy to covertly fund the defense and oil industries to which they are so beholden.

Cheney...and McCain.

I thought we'd been saying for years that AQI had no direct connection to Osama Bin Laden's Al Qaeda. But now we are using the failure of AQI to integrate into Iraqi culture as a signal that Al Qaeda will fail to do that in general? How can we make that claim, if the groups don't share leadership, vision, etc.?

Exactly when did we join the "Al Qaeda in Iraq" = "Al Qaeda" group?

Tell Dick Cheney?

He knows - just doesn't care and doesn't mind lying.

There are, of course, two problems with this formulation. The first is assuming that terrorists don't learn from their mistakes (or that the nature of AQ is by definition one that will always end up alienating the locals). The second is that AQ will always be organized as a multinational with managers sent in from elsewhere rather than as a series of local franchises that just get technical/financial help and branding from headquarters.

The implications of this analysis are positive for us, but not necessarily for Iraq.

"Nationalist insurgency," in the Iraqi Sunni Arab context, means a movement fighting to restore a government that would again unite Iraq under Sunni Arab leadership. This is the very thing that most factions in the Shiite majority will fight to prevent, while the Kurds will fight to prevent any government from diminishing their autonomy in the northern provinces. This is the gap that must be bridged for reconciliation, in any form, to happen.

It would be pleasant to think that Sunni Arab factions turn on the al Qaeda types because they resented their efforts to promote their theology and their repeated mass-casualty attacks on Shiite civilians. It seems instead that the Sunni Arab factions only resented how they themselves were treated by the extreme Islamists. The American effort in Iraq has lately weakened the groups espousing an al Qaeda-like ideology -- well and good. This still doesn't get us any closer to an Iraqi political settlement that the Bush administration can call a victory, given how it has defined that word in the past.

Thus it has alway been between social dominators and authoritarians - con men and the gullible.

Once you've got the gullible believing the con whole-heartedly then who wants to tell them they've been conned?

Seriously. Once someone is convinced that their life has a noble purpose and THIS IS IT who would dare to tell them it was a con?

I doubt Bush considered this before invading Iraq. I doubt he even cares.

I spoke to Dick here's a transcript of the conversation:

Me: Vice-Dick, recent studies have indicated that AQI is just a national movement and real AQ doesn't have a presence in Iraq.
Dick: So?
Me: Never mind

For you al-qaeda fans, today's la times has an entertaining article about how recovered documents show that the organization is a penny-pinching bureaucracy. even anarchists spend most of their time in meetings, it seems.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-qaedaculture16apr16,0,6325192.story

Al Qaeda is dangerous because some weapons are cheap and dedicated fanatics are capable of truly horrific things. [ See Bush administration ]

As has always been the case, we need to focus attention on Al Qaeda, but it isn't going to be a Trillion-dollar military which stops their plans.

OTOH, the threat of easily-available-nukes to anyone around the world is very serious and probably requires a ton of money and smart people. The attack on Iraq obviously wasn't about nukes, but it is a real danger and we can't let immediate fears of terrorism from Al Qaeda distract us.

lv