WarSclerotic

Jihadism is Growing again not Dying, Breitbart, Warner Todd Huston, August 22, 2014

Despite Obama’s claim that we have al Qaeda on the run, attacks by al Qaeda and other global jihadis have taken a sharp swing upwards says Sebastian Gorka in a recent article and interview. ​As events in Iraq and Syria demonstrate, the US policy of focusing or organizations and individuals as opposed to the ideology of jihad has empowered our enemies.

​Dr. ​Gorka, ​the Major General Horner Distinguished Chair of Military Theory at the Marine Corps University, and National Security editor with Breitbart.com​, ​has just ​published a piece at The Journal of International Security Affairs in an effort to explain “Why Al-Qaeda Just Won’t Die,” and in the piece the evidence points to a resurgent global Jihad movement, not one being rolled back.

Gorka’s ​points to the fact that ​ ​the ​Director of National Intelligence James Clapper​, America’s highest intelligence officer ​told Congress that al Qaeda now has a base of operations in 12 nations across the world.

“By way of comparison,” Gorka writes, “in 2001, when we started the war against al-Qaeda, it had operations centers in just one country: Afghanistan.”

In a recent interview with radio host John Batchelor, Gorka pointed out the main misconception that the west has in this war against global jihad. It isn’t “just​” al Qaeda, it isn’t single leaders like bin Laden that we ​are ​fight ​ing​. It is, rather, an entrenched ideology.

“This isn’t about individuals nor is it about specific organizations. And this is the greatest failing–in fact the fallacy of the current administration’s analysis and strategic response. It’s not about a given group, it’s not about what they call A​l Qaeda ​S​enior ​L​eadership or ​just ​hunting down Aym​an​ al Zawahiri​. If you kill bin Laden, if you kil​l​ ​Zawahiri, ​that is utterly irrelevant because the enemy is the narrative, the ideology that drives these individuals, that​s what​ makes Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi so successful in recruiting fighters to capture most of Iraq.”

Gorka went on to explain why particular leaders or groups mean nothing ​by themselves ​in the long ​but why it is the ideas that matter more.​

“This is an age-old story,” Gorka continued, “it can be traced back to the dissolution of the Caliphate in 1924, the response less than five years later in the creation of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and then through seminal events–the siege of Mecca in 1979, the invasion of Afghanistan [by the Russians] in the same year–and then key documents such as the​ ​f​atwa issued by bin Laden’s mentor Abdullah Azzam in 1979 that stated, because the Caliphate is no longer, because we have no imperial command or authority, every ​individual​ has to become a sole Jihadi–this concept of f​ard ‘ayn​–that Jihad is an individual and universal obligation ​.That​ is what the threat groups leverage.”

“It’s exactly what Sun Tzu said,” Gorka added, “war is not about destroying the units of the enemy, war is about destroying his strategy. And unfortunately, America hasn’t even begun to do so in the last 13 years.”

To sum up his​ ​​argument​, Gorka concluded ​ ​by saying​, “We have to address the ideological center of gravity of the enemy and the bottom line is​ that​ the permanent solution to the Jihadi threat will not be a kinetic one (i.e. battles and boots on the ground firefights), ​because ​you cannot kill you​r​ way out of this problem. Killing terrorists is great, but that will not provide the ultimate solution. You have to destroy the ideology that mobilizes them.”

This “misdiagnosis” of our enemy has allowed global Jihad to steal a march on us and grow, not shrink.

The president’s​ claims that he has put a dent in al Qaeda is simply wrong and we are fooling ourselves if we believe it.

This entry was posted on August 22, 2014 at 6:09 PM and is filed under Uncategorized. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.