Al Qaeda's North African wing says it backs Libya uprising

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/africa/02/24/libya.qaeda.statement/ ^

[kronos77]

(CNN) -- Al Qaeda's North African wing has said "it will do whatever we can to help" the uprising in Libya, according to a statement the militant group posted on jihadist websites

The statement by Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb was posted Thursday, said SITE, a terrorist-tracking organization based outside Washington.

In the statement, the group said Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's decision to hire mercenaries and use planes to fire on protesters invalidates claims that the group is killing innocent civilians.

Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb started as the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat with aspirations to overthrow the Algerian government.

Around 2004, it joined forces with al Qaeda and extended its reach across North and West Africa.

To stop the militant group's growing influence in Libya, the country has in the past denounced al Qaeda and formed an alliance with the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, which once was aligned with al Qaeda before it formally ended a nearly two-decades armed struggle against Gadhafi's regime.

[OrthodoxKirkPresbyterian]

And I thought Qadafi was mad when he said Al Qaeda was behind things...

[kroll]

I think you vastly overestimate our ability to do anything...Besides this isn’t Iraq where we freed the people using force. Its a popular people’s movement by all accounts (a normal sign when you see civilians fighting an army), and those things are pretty much impossible to control. Meddling only makes people madder sometimes...

While it is naive to be feel all warm and fuzzy about the freedom movements and expect wonderful democracies(because the chances of an islamofascist regime is high), its considerably more naive (albeit in a different sense) to think we can “establish” a pro-Western leader when we feel like. One can control military led revolutions to some extent, where a relatively small number of people take power but popular people’s movements? I doubt it...
Besides, Mubarak and Ben-Ali were “pro-western” dictators.....What exactly were our chances of staving those off? I’d say, pretty non-existent.

[kroll]

IMO, in retrospect we were on the wrong side of that fight.

Are you serious? Hindsight is a wonderful thing. The Soviets were a insanely more dangerous threat than the Islamists are now....Of course now you can dismiss them and pretend otherwise since we didn't actually blow each other to smithereens. Also, we pretty much created the Taliban by pumping all those weapons into afghanistan.
We Were on the right side but our strategy was wrong. You don't arm an unstable violent country to its teeth and leave, and expect no repercussions...
Besides, a lame strategy of "enemy of an enemy..." is precisely why we have so many problems in the first place (Saddam, the Saudis, Afghanistan etc etc)

[ScottinVA]

Are you serious? Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

That's why I said... "in retrospect." Of course, hindsight is a wonderful thing. We didn't have the clear idea muslims would stab us in the back after we committed resources to helping them vs. the Soviets. I'd much prefer Soviet forces were pouring troops into that meatgrinding hellhole than our own.

Besides, a lame strategy of "enemy of an enemy..."

Without the aid of Josef Stalin's USSR bogging down the Germans, victory -- if even achievable -- would have been far more costly and difficult in WWII.

The Soviets were a insanely more dangerous threat than the Islamists are now....

Really?? Tell that to the families of the 3000+ 9-11 victims. The Soviets were indeed the enemy of the west, but not fanatical and suicidal as the islamists are.