The Al Qa'ida threat now

With Bush now almost to the point where when he opens his mouth at Iraq, all that comes out is "Al Qa'ida, Al Qa'ida, Al Qa'ida", I almost hate to bring up the subject. I do think, as best as we can tell from the jumbled messages from the government and various real and alleged terrorism experts, Al Qa'ida is still a significant threat to the US. Both the Bin Laden-run version and the larger Al Qa'ida movement. That doesn't mean we need to panic and go invade some other country and get several hundred millions of Muslims even more angry at the United States.

But I do try to get some kind of reality-based picture of what they're doing. Juan Cole reads recent events and information to say that the Bin Laden Al Qa'ida has had a significant recovery from post-9/11 setbacks and losses, in Bush's incompetence gives al-Qaida new life Salon 07/24/07. He writes:

Astonishingly, al-Qaida may be back, and the signs of its resurgence are everywhere, but there is little reaction from an American public that has everything to fear from the group. War-weary, bogged down in a fruitless guerrilla war in Iraq, disillusioned with the Bush team (which has lied to it assiduously), the public appears to be taking its eye off al-Qaida. If so, it would be making the same mistake as Bush, who is obsessed with Iraq to the detriment of urgent counterterrorism measures. Those efforts, to be successful, will require international cooperation rather than unilateral grandstanding, not something in which this administration has proved adept.

Tags: global war on terror, terrorism, war on terror