When translating from other languages, error can occur if the word has homonyms in both languages. The trick to confirm translation is to translate back to check if the same meaning will be retained ("out of sight, out of mind translated to Russian and back to English may produce "blind idiot")
The understnding what the term "Al Qaeda" means is the foundation of the strategy to destroy it.
Yes, "Al Qaeda" in Arabic means "base" but in the meaning of "the foundation". Foundation can be tangible (e.g. of the building), can be an institution, but also can be a legacy.
Isaac Asimov's book "Foundation" was translated into Arabic as Al Qaeda.
Some say that it is OBL's Mein Kampf. In summary of the book, the publisher says:
"For twelve thousand years the Galactic Empire had ruled supreme. Now it was dying. But only Hari Seldon, creator of the revolutionary science of psychohistory, could see into the future - a dark age of ignorance, barbarism, and warfare that would last thirty thousand years. To preserve knowledge and save mankind, Seldon gathered the best minds in the Empire - both scientists and scholars - and brought them to a bleak planet at the edge of the Galaxy to serve as a beacon of hope for future generations. He called his sanctuary the Foundation. But soon the fledgling Foundation found itself at the mercy of corrupt warlords rising in the wake of the receding Empire. Mankind's last best hope was faced with an agonizing choice: Submit to the barbarians and be overrun - or fight them and be destroyed. "
Try to look at this from the eyes of young, filthy rich Saudi prince disgusted with the West who read the book while young and got the messianic idea to save Muslim World from "barbarians". Yet, the same person was given the tools of the trade by CIA and support in the highest corridors of power.
OBL has succeeded in seemingly impossible, to unite Shia and Sunni Muslims on a joint task in the name of Muslim faith. In a sense it is apostasy to both wings of Islamic faith.
I see it this way. The OBL uses his own concocted religion to unite shia and sunni within AQ network. I guess that this is "the foundation" i.e. OBL legacy to free the Muzleems from Western domination (barbarians)
Legacy can not be hit with JDAMs nor destroyed with counterterrorist measures. 20 or 30 years from now, when OBL is long dead, young and impressionable Muslim of today will be 40, perhaps a chief engineer in an aging nuclear nuclear power plant in a major Western country, willing to die for the OBL legacy (i.e. AQ in my interpretation) and become immortal.
This is the menace we are dealing with. Running jetliners into WTC was meant to destry the myth of invincible America, not merely to kill 10 000. Whoever has seen the posters glorifying this crime and the cheering crowds knows what I am talking about.
Dismantling joint shia/sunni base within AQ should be the first step to destroy the menace before it is too late.