Al Qaeda's Arab chauvism

Strategy Page:

Al Qaeda is having increasing problems with ethnic frictions. There was always a problem with the Arabs, who founded, and largely run, al Qaeda, being disdainful of non-Arab recruits, and non-Arab members. The Arabs tend to have an attitude problem. Not only do they feel that Arabs are superior, in general, to everyone else, but they also project a "more-Islamic-than-thou" vibe that really irritates non-Arabs. This has always been a problem, even though the senior al Qaeda Arabs tried to make every recruit feel welcome.

The current problem comes from the fact that all of the original al Qaeda senior leadership is either dead, arrested or in hiding. Dealing with new recruits is left to middle management. These fellows are nearly all Arabs, and often recent replacements for more experienced operators who are dead or arrested. The people dealing with new recruits often have to do it under stressful conditions, and this does not make the experience very welcoming for the new guys. It quickly becomes obvious that new Arab, particularly Saudi, recruits are seen as more promising than the others, especially the non-Arab others. The recruits are usually young men, and the Arab recruits take the cue and begin razzing the non-Arabs. Often, this induces the non-Arabs to just leave. The misbehaving Arab recruits are rarely punished, although the most abusive of them may be encouraged to undertake a "martyrdom" (suicide) mission. Office politics in al Qaeda can get rough.

An interesting way of weeding out the trouble makers.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Should Republicans go ahead and add Supreme Court Justices to head off Democrats

Washington Post: Some Democrats eye adding more justices to the Supreme Court to change its ideological bent The once-remote idea has gained the attention of liberals angered by the GOP push to remake the federal courts. Probably the easy way to defeat this court-packing scheme is for Trump to propose doing the same thing now.  It would lead to Democrat denunciations and claims that it would be wrong, thereby blowing up any attempt by them in the unfortunate event of Democrats winning a presidential election.
Read more

29 % of companies say they are unlikely to keep insurance after Obamacare

Conn Carroll: A new survey of 368 midsize to large companies found that 29% of them are considering terminating their active employee health care plans when Obamacare is full implemented in 2014. Only 71% of employers surveyed said they did not expect to drop their health coverage, while 20% said they did not know and 9% said they were planning to exit. The latest survey, conducted by Towers Watson, echoes an ealier survey by McKinsey & Co. finding that 30% of private-sector employers were planning to drop their employee health insurance coverage by 2014. When the Congressional Budget Office crunched Obamacare's spending numbers, they estimated that only 7% of employees currently covered by employer-sponsored plans would lose their plans. ... This means the cost of the health care fiasco will be hundreds of billions more than estimated by the CBO and Congressional Democrat. It is also clear that Obama's pledge that you could keep your health care plan if you wanted t
Read more

Bin Laden's concern about Zarqawi's remains

James Robbins: ... Bin Laden suggests that President Bush should allow Zarqawi’s body to be returned to his family in Jordan, but this is a matter that is up to the Jordanian government, which so far has not shown much interest in facilitating a homecoming. Bin Laden mocks King Abdullah II, calling him a Coalition minion, and asking “w hat scares you about Abu Musab after he’s dead? You know that his funeral, if allowed to happen, would be a huge funeral showing the extent of sympathy with the mujahedin.” A large crowd would definitely turn out, though most people would be on hand to demonstrate their anger and disgust. Last November’s hotel bombings in Amman , masterminded by Zarqawi, are still fresh in people’s memory, and mentioning them to Jordanians has the same visceral impact as memory of the 9/11 attacks does here. Jordan has adopted a zero-tolerance policy towards those who choose to mourn the country’s least favorite son, and four opposition members of parliament who paid con
Read more