> >I don't see how believing Scheer's descriptions of the purportedly
> >decentralized nature of Al Qaeda logically entails also believing that
the
> >war in Afghanistan "didn't have anything to do" with preventing future
acts
> >of terrorism, or even believing that doing so wasn't one efficacious (or
> >even essential) means to that end.
>
> Here's an excerpt from Raban's piece
<http://www.nybooks.com/articles/17676>:
>
> >"There is no al-Qaeda organization," asserts one of Curtis's star
> >witnesses, Jason Burke, author of Al Qaeda: Casting a Shadow of
> >Terror, in a climactic moment of the final episode-a remark that
> >elicited admiring gasps from the tiny American audience to whom I
> >showed the series. That may be true as far as it goes, but it does
> >not go nearly as far as Burke himself goes in an article in the
> >May/June 2004 issue of Foreign Policy, where he writes:
> >
> >Today, the structure that was built in Afghanistan has been
> >destroyed, and bin Laden and his associates have scattered or been
> >arrested or killed. There is no longer a central hub for Islamic
> >militancy. But the al Qaeda worldview, or "al Qaedaism," is growing
> >stronger every day. This radical internationalist ideology-sustained
> >by anti-Western, anti-Zionist, and anti-Semitic rhetoric -has
> >adherents among many individuals and groups, few of whom are
> >currently linked in any substantial way to bin Laden or those around
> >him. They merely follow his precepts, models, and methods. They act
> >in the style of al Qaeda, but they are only part of al Qaeda in the
> >very loosest sense. That's why Israeli intelligence services now
> >prefer the term "jihadi international" instead of "al Qaeda."
It's a stretch to imply that that the international jihadi movement wouldn't be even stronger if one of its main governmental sponsors was still intact. Remember, the Taliban (unlike the Iraqi Baathists) really did collude with terrorists. I believe a member of the Taliban once told Mullah Omar that keeping bin Laden around would lead to their downfall. And so it did, and I see no cause for regret.
-- Luke