open Democracy News Analysis - Al-Qaida: shifting the focus , Pablo Policzer Ram Manikkalingam - Comments

policzer on "Al-Qaida: from centre to periphery"

policzer — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 16:46:56 +0100

Jamil, Good points. I don't think your comments contradict our basic argument: that we need to shift the focus away from the centre of al-Qaida, and not see bin Laden and his cohorts as the master puppeteers behind a single global organization or movement. Once we shift the focus in this way, we begin to see exactly the various kinds of grievances that you outline. But I would say that even here one has to be careful with sweeping generalizations, and not assume that one set of grievances felt or expressed in one area applies universally to all. In this sense, the analogy to Che Guevara (which I really like, by the way, thank you for pointing it out) is an interesting one. Che was and remains an inspiration for many around the world who have been treated unjustly. But Che's mistake was to think that all poor and downtrodden around the world (or even around Latin America) were more or less equivalent, and faced similar conditions. This is not the case. Some grievances that apply in some cases do not apply in others. And it's important to be sensitive to the local circumstances and dynamics, and not see each local case as yet another example of a single global phenomenon, whether it be the global war on terror (or "clash of civilizations") or the "global" fight against neo-imperialism, neo-liberalism, etc. Pablo Policzer

m.jamil on "Al-Qaida: from centre to periphery"

m.jamil — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 05:12:08 +0100

Would haida or other B.C. bands / first nation peoples have had a right of violent resistance against the bruital suppression of their language and culture, seizure of their lands, destruction of their ways of life, and in many cases the violent suppression and murder of their resistance leaders? Yes, Canadian injustice was not as much physical genocide as were the ethic cleansing and crimes against humanity committed by a US government that supported its white citizens to commit equal acts of genocide, not to mention slavery of blacks, and continued apartheid and suppression of their constitutional rights through the late 20th century. But we still remember Lousi Riel. We still remember Clifford Sifton and the Canadian government's disenfranchisement of Ukrainian settlers from their hard won properties across the prairies. We still remember the internment of Japanese Canadians, and theft of their property by a BC elite (Sinclair among others). What rights do the oppressed of the world have against tyranny? Read Mike Davis' latest book "Beda's Wagon: history of the car bomb" to learn how this favored CIA assassination technique continues to be a staple Mossad tool, and who were CIA-Mossad trained in Lebanon and elsewhere. You may be a professor of political science and I a professor of geopolitical history, We may both may have opposing world views. But I always ask one simple question set: "what do you do that makes you part of the problem?" We all have to answer that we do many things everyday that make us part of a global problem with local consequence. And "what do you do that makes you part of the solution?" Resistance to injustice is at thee heart of any political process. Gordon Campbell turned from a mild mannered city councilman more concerned with parks than economics, into a neo-liberal liberal premier whose concerns for the wealthy disenfranchise many ordinary british columbians, especially a white working class that finds itself priced out of the housing market, deprived of union representation, and in many cases dumped into a surplus labour market to be de-skilled and deprived. In today's BC where Asian immigrants buy citizenship for $1million per family member, & may never even reside in the country, earlier generations of immigrants find themselves dropped down the socio-economic totem pole to a position just above first nations. Civilized Canadians still have democratic processes by which to resist the Americanization of the nation, a declining health, education and social service system, and so on, but what rights and options do the global underclasses have? what rights to Iraqis have? It seems refugee status -- 2.5 million having fled to other countries and an equal number of internal refugees. Over one million Iraqis have died at US hands and means of destruction, from sanctions to invasion to occupation, and billions of dollars siphoned off to corrupt US firms while Iraq still has no clean water or dependable electric infrastructure, most of the nation's middle class professionals and businessmen have fled. Many think back to the oppression of Saddam, and remember a functional services and infrastructure, a secular society relatively safe from crime and a liberal environment for women. The British seized and reassembled the territory they created as Iraq a spoils of WWI, and occupied it into the 1930's, but keeping a hand in the security apparatus, reoccupying it and Iran during WWII. then turning both over to the US in the 1950's. Resistance has a long history, as soon as the British withdrew forces, Baghdadis hanged the foreign king and henchmen imposed on them. Afghanistan, a mosaic of mountains and valleys peopled by impoverished warrior tribes and spill over of centuries of invading armies from Aryans to Alexander, Mongols to Mughuls, was allowed to remain independent by the British as a buffer against their Indian colony and Russian expansion into Central Asia. As well they lost at least two British armies to fierce resistance by varied Afghani coalitions. How ridiculous, ironic, or tragic that the Brits are back again in their former colonial battlefields, only now as subalterns to the US. Media today avoids history as if it were a retrovirus. To know the past is to learn patterns, understand consistency and change. If more people were exposed to history they might wonder how politicians repeat the same folly over and over again, generation after generation. They might also realize patterns of oppression and exploitation, and patterns of resistance and struggle for justice.

m.jamil on "Al-Qaida: from centre to periphery"

m.jamil — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 04:27:36 +0100

term ... "movement" ... we talk about the feminist or environment "movements" not organizations ... dynamic affinities among individuals and groups. What the US and their "allies" -- whether bullied, bought, of just foolish -- have done is to create a resistance movement with many faces, from the fundamentalist to the progressive, from the well-educated to the underclasses. The vast overwhelming majority of Muslims are horrified by what we see daily from Palestine to Brazil, the covert and overt war, state terror and intimidation of ordinary Muslims, just because of our identity as Muslim, whether Arab or Chinese. But this new crusade does not only target Muslims, it targets Christian Arabs, and any non-Muslim from all parts of the Muslim world. Therefor, the USA faces a resistance movement not totally unlike their own origins of resistance to the regime of King George or European anti-Nazi resistance. But it is even more complex as we are also in resistance against both corrupt ruling elite that drain our resources and impoverish our nations, and global corporate dominance of local economies that further exploit our human and natural resources in a system of unequal exchange and accumulation that ever more effectively transfers wealth to the already wealthy countries and classes. Thus, we in the Muslim world are between a rock & a hard place. Few Muslims support indiscriminate killing of non-Muslims, fewer still suicide bombings of fellow Muslims by holier-than-thou fanatics, and the vast majority do not want to live under the warped version of sharia' law proposed by fanatical conservatives. But an overwhelming majority of Muslims believe that the USA has turned into the greatest evil to befall the Muslim world since the Mongol invasions of 800 years ago. Yes, the era of European conquest and colonization of most of the Muslim world was a disaster, as neo-colonialism continues to be a disaster for the Muslim world. But the US regime supports dictators who brutally control their subjects -- we are not yet citizens, but remain subjects of our own corrupt rulers. The present condition of neo-colonial, neo-liberal and neo-conservative ideology is solidly racist and totally lacking moral compassion, or even the good sense to conserve the ecosystems that support human habitat. To conclude. we also celebrate the 40th anniversary of Che Geuvarra's martyrdom. However problematic his reality, he was and remains a martyr for the cause of human justice. You can see Che's image on T-shirts throughout the Muslim world where repressive governments wold arrest anyone wearing an Osama image. No single idea has more power among Muslims than JUSTICE, which we believe was the most important mobilizing strength of the message and movement begun by Prophet Mohammed. Today, Osama Bin Ladin is a 21st century Che. However distasteful we may find his brand of Islam or advocacy of violent retribution, in the eyes of most Muslims he represents a champion for Justice against oppression. Moreover, we see that in a nominally Christian Latin America, forces that struggle for justice against more than a century of US oppression, have similar feelings. Recently, I saw in Mexico side-by-sideT-shirts with images of Che and Osama. The overriding reality here is that so-called Al-Qaida is no more than one segment of a global movement across all religions and ethnic lines against the dark history of imperialism and neo-colonialism, and the drive toward global hegemony by the US ruling elite. One struggle — many fronts!

Maxwell A. Cameron on "Al-Qaida: from centre to periphery"

Maxwell A. Cameron — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 22:53:18 +0100

I agree with the thrust of this analysis, and would opt for the mixed strategy implied as a possibility at the end of this thoughtful essay: engage with the periphery whilest decapitating the centre. Maxwell A. Cameron Department of Political Science University of British Columbia

Al-Qaida: shifting the focus , Pablo Policzer Ram Manikkalingam

Tue, 09 Oct 2007 16:31:58 +0100

More than six years after 11 September 2001, the United States's war against al-Qaida has reached a stalemate. Osama bin Laden remains at large, Al-Qaida has not been defeated, and it has learned how to disperse and survive in response to US military pressures.

Ram Manikkalingam is an advisor to the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue and a visiting professor at the University of Amsterdam

Pablo Policzer is an assistant professor and holder of the Canada Research Chair in Latin American politics at the University of Calgary

This article is based on a longer paper, "Al Qaeda, Armed Groups, and the Paradox of Engagement", published in September 2007 by the Transnational and Non-State Armed Groups Project web portal, operated by the programme on Humanitarian Policy and Conflict Research at Harvard University

See also the authors' "Talk or Fight? Al Qaeda from Centre to Periphery", Oslo Forum (2007)

This stalemate has prompted two responses.

First, some (mainly in the west) argue that to win the war on terror, the US must fight smarter against al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden. They suggest the current US approach, especially on Iraq, has multiplied the number of enemies against it, weakened its position in the world, and undermined its own citizens' security. To win the war on terror, the US should get out of Iraq, and refocus militarily on bin Laden on the Afghan-Pakistani border (examples of this kind of argument include Barry Posen, "The Struggle against Terrorism: Grand Strategy, Strategy, and Tactics," International Security 26/3 [2002], and Stephen W Van Evera, "Assessing U.S. Strategy in the War on Terror", Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 607/1 [2006]).

Second, others (mainly in the Muslim world) argue that instead of fighting al-Qaida, the US should consider political negotiations with it. They reason that al-Qaida is not an apocalyptic cult, but a political actor with clear demands. Some of these - such as ending the US's support of Israel, let alone completely withdrawing from the middle east - may be incompatible with the US's policies and interests. Yet they believe that because al-Qaida pursues political goals, it is possible at least to consider negotiating with it. They argue that this political approach offers more promise than the present military stand-off (see, for example, Mohammad‐Mahmoud Ould Mohamedou, "Non‐Linearity of Engagement: Transnational Armed Groups, International Law, and the Conflict between Al Qaeda and the United States", Program on Humanitarian Policy and Conflict Research, Harvard University [2005]. More recently, this author notes that bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri exercise less control over the organisation than in the past; see Mohammad-Mahmoud Ould Mohamedou, "Towards the real al-Qaida", 10 September 2007).

openDemocracy writers assess al-Qaida's character and strategy:

Faisal Devji, "Spectral brothers: al-Qaida's world wide web" (19 August 2005)

James Howarth, "Al-Qaida, globalisation and Islam" (20 January 2006)

Mohammad-Mahmoud Ould Mohamedou, "The dividends of asymmetry: al-Qaida's evolving strategy" (18 December 2006)

Paul Rogers, "Al-Qaida: time on its side" (4 June 2007)

Johnny Ryan, "The militant Islamist call and its echo" (1 August 2007)

Mohammad-Mahmoud Ould Mohamedou, "Towards the real al-Qaida" (10 September 2007)

Audrey Kurth Cronin, "Al-Qaida: end of the beginning" (11 September 2007) While these responses appear to contradict each other, they share a common premise: that the US and its allies should focus their attention primarily on Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida, whether to defeat it by force or to engage it politically. Yet the growing number of recent reports about the ambiguous, or even strained, relations between the centre of al-Qaida and the groups that have formed along its periphery, calls into question al-Qaida's ability to clearly command and control its affiliates, making this premise untenable.

In contrast to both these positions, we argue that al-Qaida's dispersion needs to be taken more seriously as a political, military, and organisational challenge. Paradoxically, the very dispersal strategies that have allowed the centre of al-Qaida to survive by making it harder to target militarily, also make it easier to bypass politically. The same adaptation that has led to the calls for talking to al-Qaida - its flexibility and resilience - is also the strongest reason for not doing so at its centre. Engagement should take place: but at the periphery, not at the centre.

Devolving engagement in this way requires reinterpreting the conflict between al-Qaida and western militaries. It is not a single global clash between Islam and the west, but a series of overlapping local, national, and regional conflicts with multiple players, which may or may not be interconnected.

Building on this notion, the focus of our attentions should not be a single al-Qaida centre, albeit with many peripheries. It should be multiple centres and peripheries, with varying degrees of attachment to al-Qaida and to Osama bin Laden. Each of the numerous armed groups seen to be associated with al- Qaida - such as the Taliban, Abu Sayyaf or even al-Qaida in Mesopotamia - can be distinguished from the centre of al-Qaida. In each case, and depending on the shifting military and political contexts, the group's goals may range from building clinics to treat the sick, to establishing a global caliphate to convert unbelievers. In some cases, these goals are aligned with those of Osama bin Laden and the centre of al-Qaida, and in many cases they are not (for more on the tensions between al-Qaida and the groups at its periphery, see Audrey Kurth Cronin, "Al-Qaida: end of the beginning", 11 September 2007).

Instead of the high politics and hard force that some observers suggest should characterise the engagement with al-Qaida, once the peripheries are taken seriously engagement looks quite different. It allows a range of actors - states, international organisations, security services, NGOs, and even businesses - to play a role. There is of course no reason not to engage the centre as well - politically and militarily - but in a decentralised organisation the peripheries matter. This kind of engagement may or may not involve issues such as removing US troops from the middle east, or curbing US support of Israel and/or its occupation of Palestine. But it is likely to involve more mundane local issues, which matter to peoples at the peripheries, such as policing and security, healthcare, education, and jobs.

Dealing with al-Qaida is a complex challenge. What is beyond doubt is that the time has come to shift our focus away from the centre of al-Qaida to its peripheries.

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