Posted on 05/27/2008 3:33:52 PM PDT by Dawnsblood
Al Qaeda web sites are making a lot of noise about "why we lost in Iraq." Western intelligence agencies are fascinated by the statistics being posted in several of these Arab language sites. Not the kind of stuff you read about in the Western media. According to al Qaeda, their collapse in Iraq was steep and catastrophic. According to their stats, in late 2006, al Qaeda was responsible for 60 percent of the terrorist attacks, and nearly all the ones that involved killing a lot of civilians. The rest of the violence was carried out by Iraqi Sunni Arab groups, who were trying in vain to scare the Americans out of the country.
Today, al Qaeda has been shattered, with most of its leadership and foot soldiers dead, captured or moved from Iraq. As a result, al Qaeda attacks have declined more than 90 percent. Worse, most of their Iraqi Sunni Arab allies have turned on them, or simply quit. This "betrayal" is handled carefully on the terrorist web sites, for it is seen as both shameful, and perhaps recoverable.
This defeat was not as sudden as it appeared to be, and some Islamic terrorist web sites have been discussing the problem for several years. The primary cause has been Moslems killed as a side effect of attacks on infidel troops, Iraqi security forces and non-Sunnis. Al Qaeda plays down the impact of this, calling the Moslem victims "involuntary martyrs." But that's a minority opinion. Most Moslems, and many other Islamic terrorists, see this as a surefire way to turn the Moslem population against the Islamic radicals. That's what happened earlier in Algeria, Afghanistan, Egypt and many other places. It's really got nothing to do with religion. The phenomenon hits non-Islamic terrorists as well (like the Irish IRA and the Basque ETA).
The senior al Qaeda leadership saw the problem, and tried to convince the "Al Qaeda In Iraq" leadership to cool it. That didn't work. As early as 2004, some Sunni Arabs were turning on al Qaeda because of the "involuntary martyrs" problem. The many dead Shia Arab civilians led to a major terror campaign by the Shia majority. They controlled the government, had the Americans covering their backs, and soon half the Sunni Arab population were refugees.
Meanwhile, the "Al Qaeda In Iraq" leadership was out of control. Most of these guys are really out there, at least in terms of fanaticism and extremism. This led to another fatal error. They declared the establishment of the "Islamic State of Iraq" in late 2006. This was an act of bravado, and touted as the first step in the re-establishment of the caliphate (a global Islamic state, ruled over by God's representative on earth, the caliph.) The caliphate has been a fiction for over a thousand years. Early on, the Islamic world was split by ethnic and national differences, and the first caliphate fell apart after a few centuries. Various rulers have claimed the title over the centuries, but since 1924, when the Turks gave it up (after four centuries), no one of any stature has taken it up. So when al Qaeda "elected" a nobody as the emir of the "Islamic State of Iraq", and talked about this being the foundation of the new caliphate, even many pro-al Qaeda Moslems were aghast. When al Qaeda could not, in 2007, exercise any real control over the parts of Iraq they claimed as part of the new Islamic State, it was the last straw. The key supporters, battered by increasingly effective American and Iraqi attacks, dropped their support for al Qaeda, and the terrorist organization got stomped to bits by the "surge offensive" of last year. The final insult was delivered by the former Iraqi Sunni Arab allies, who quickly switched sides, and sometimes even worked with the Americans (more so than the Shia dominated Iraqi security forces) to hunt down and kill al Qaeda operators.
If you can read Arabic, you can easily find these pro-terrorism sites, and see for yourself how al Qaeda is trying to explain its own destruction to its remaining supporters. While it's common to assume the Information War has been going against the West, this was not the case when you checked with what was going on inside the enemy camp.
I really don’t care if al Qaeda was in Iraq before the war. We chose the battleground. I would rather fight them in Iraq than NY. They lost. If they were stupid enough to send their jihadists from other countries to die in Iraq, then our plan worked perfectly.
Thanks for posting this!!
God Bless Our Troops!!
Reminds me of something about a “strong horse.”
God Bless our fighting men and women.
Bush’s fault.
Love that line........
I read the NY Times today...as well as the Washington Post, the Chicago Daily News, and a few of the other objective, unbiased, totally truthful major newspapers in this here country....and I couldn't find a thing on this!!!
As I said, VERY Strange!
Because those Brave men and women have patiently and methodically hunted down those animals and in so doing freed Iraqis from cruel oppression. They have also established friendships and doctored the children of Iraq. Good hunting.
Harry Reid wastes taxpayer funded work hours posting on the internet?
flypaper...
roach hotel...
call the Battle of Iraq what you will, but it sure caused a lot of homicidal jihadists to crawl out of their caves and holes and die for their cause...
ping
BTTT
“I really don’t care if al Qaeda was in Iraq before the war. We chose the battleground. I would rather fight them in Iraq than NY. They lost. If they were stupid enough to send their jihadists from other countries to die in Iraq, then our plan worked perfectly.”
I think it was Vice President Cheney who spoke of “draining the swamp.” I think that is what we have been doing.
I’m not going to say that the execution of this war was perfect. But if one knows the tiniest smidgen about military history, one knows that a “perfect war” is an absurdly high standard. As wars go, this one has been tremendously effective.
The American military, from the soldier, to the tactics, to the equipment, to the leadership, is the best it has ever been. We are winning this war, yet defense expenditures as a percentage of GDP is very low. Pilots are younger than the helicopters they fly. It’s past time for some new equipment.
“Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. but it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”
I think you have done Patton proud. (I think it was Patton who said, "Don't be eager to die for your country. Help those SOB's die for theirs."
-I'm sure I butchered the quote and may have even gotten the origin wrong. But the sentiments are still of my favorites.
People from Morocco to the Philippines should be thanking Bush and the US military for it.
Al-Qaida admits they got the Shi’ite pounded out of them. So Dems, are we still in a quagmire?
Iraqis losing patience with militiamen ( Sadr's Mahdi Army militia has provided services but...)
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