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BARF ALERT!!

(New York Times, 6 June 2009)

(Post Obama Cairo Speech)

"“Barack Obama is not just trying to reach out to Muslims for the sake of it,” says Mr. Gerges, a professor of Middle Eastern studies at Sarah Lawrence College and an authority on modern jihad. “He’s trying to hammer a deadly nail in Osama bin Laden’s message.” What President Obama understood more than his predecessors, Mr. Gerges says, is that it is not a war that can be won militarily, but only ideologically. Jarret Brachman, a former West Point terrorism expert and author of a recent book, “Global Jihadism,” said the speech “was the most important strategic step we’ve taken in this war.” “That’s why Al Qaeda is so nervous,” he said. If the medium were the message, the contrasts could not have been more stark. The American president was polished and poised, his speech broadcast from the elegant surroundings of an ancient Arab university, and watched worldwide. Mr. bin Laden’s was on an audiotape, crackling and hard to hear, broadcast on Al Jazeera. “Osama bin Laden and Ayman Zawahiri have been reduced to a static voice on the radio, a static voice on TV and a static image and message,” Mr. Gerges says. “The message no longer resonates with Muslims the way it did in the late 90s and after 2001.” Has the message from Al Qaeda just become fossilized, a missive from a coelacanth that no longer dares venture out of its deep sea cave, where it slakes its predatory appetites in the dark? “We have to put this in a little bit of perspective,” says Shibley Telhami, a University of Maryland professor who runs an annual poll of Arab public opinion. “Bin Laden still has some support, his intense admirers, but the real difference is that the rest of the Muslim world were embracing him out of anger toward America, and now they’re not.”The anger toward America remains, but most people have rejected Al Qaeda as well, Mr. Telhami says."