These studies seem incohate to me. How can they infer strategic health or intention from tactical events sprinkled from London to Bali? The difficulty I think even pro-War folks have is that none of the conventional analyses seem to arrive at any Cause but Osama bin Laden/Zawahiri and the loose networks of jihadi groups. What is obvious is that none of the analysts have actual access to these groups themselves, and their public acts and pronouncements are all proganda for their cause. Could it really be that there has been some kind of coalescence of these widely scattered and fractious and decentralized forces – Islamic forces, whose primary cultural characteristic is deep incompetence – with no greater organziation? Personally I don’t think this is possible; these people simply can’t do anything like this worldwide campaign. I’m sorry, if you think so, the onus is on you.
And guess what? There are always huge pieces of the network missing in these analyses. Even hints at state sponsorship don’t ever go into much detail – for example, when citing Iran’s sponsorship of Hezbollah, there never seems to be much discussion of the channels between Hezbollah and another group it purports to helps, just an assertion that weapons X Y Z ended up in the hands of group B. The basic problem, it seems to me, about the Intelligence & Law Enforcement strategy is that it will ultimately require us to continue to tolerate these state sponsors. It’s obvious that sanctions do absolutely nothing, and that the target of sanctions have developed diplomatic strategies to reverse the political gains sanctions might otherwise afford.
And why has no one addressed Russia and China yet? Perhaps the government has decided it must space out the revelations over several administrations where such adversaries and such revelations are concerned. I just wish we’d stop playing diplomatic defense. It is embarrassing.
