Friday, July 22, 2005
AL QAIDA AS THE " ISLAMINTERN "
A couple of important posts on the GWOT yesterday and today gave me some food for thought along with the new from Europe. Dave at the Glittering Eye raisedthe point that many people assert that Islamist terrorism is a leftover problem from the the Cold War and at The Daily Demarche, Dr. Demarche went at length about the national security problem posed by al Qaida recruitment of second and third generation European muslims coupled with the bureaucratic idiocy and political correctness of our own VISA policies.
Al Qaida's days of a tightly knit, hierarchically organized, paramilitary army appear to be over unless they can gain the unqualified support of a strong state sponsor that can provide the facilities and security to allow bin Laden and Zawahiri to rebuild those capabilities. Instead al Qaida has shifted into being a network of networks in its campaign against the West and the United States. There is a certain parallel here in terms of tactics with the days of Lenin's rule over the Bolshevik regime in Russia.
Lenin, once the Reds had gained the upper hand in the Russian civil war made an attempt to spread revolution by direct military action by invading the newly created state of Poland in 1920, which under Marshal Pilsudski had taken advantage of Russia's weakness to intervene and annex land in Ukraine. This plan had been supported by Stalin and other radicals but opposed by Red military professionals like Tukhachevskii; Stalin carried the day with Lenin and the Sovnarkom and the offensive was launched. The Bolshevk invasion of Poland ( the USSR had yet to be created), while it succeeded in driving Polish forces out of Ukrainian territory, proved to be a near total military disaster for the Bolsheviks. Stalin was humiliated and Lenin abandoned military conquest as a policy and reverted to the tactics to which the Bolsheviks were most familiar to spread world revolution, secrecy, subversion and conspiracy.
As detailed by the late Soviet/Russian military historian General Dimitrii Volkogonov, Lenin was to squander enormous sums through the Comintern to set up open and underground Communist party cells and spy networks in Europe, North America and Asia. Some of these early Comintern-GRU-CHEKA-NKVD projects produced future revolutionary Communist leaders ( Ho Chi Minh) or penetrated the highest reaches of Western governments.
Al Qaida is becoming more of an " Islamintern", an inciter and far-off high command of Islamist revolutionary activities. While other Islamist groups continue to beat the drum to attract general movement sympathizers, al Qaida is looking for agents who have outwardly assimilated in to western society - the children of immigrants or Western converts. Right now in light of terrorism, Western intelligence agents are focused on the likeliest suspects in their midst the way European police and A. Mitchell Palmer's Justice department once concentrated on labor movement radicals and Eastern European emigre communities.
But in order to get ahead of the curve, what Counterintelligence and Counterterrorism specialists really ought to be scanning for today is the Islamist equivalent to Alger Hiss. ¶ 7:28 AM
A couple of important posts on the GWOT yesterday and today gave me some food for thought along with the new from Europe. Dave at the Glittering Eye raisedthe point that many people assert that Islamist terrorism is a leftover problem from the the Cold War and at The Daily Demarche, Dr. Demarche went at length about the national security problem posed by al Qaida recruitment of second and third generation European muslims coupled with the bureaucratic idiocy and political correctness of our own VISA policies.
Al Qaida's days of a tightly knit, hierarchically organized, paramilitary army appear to be over unless they can gain the unqualified support of a strong state sponsor that can provide the facilities and security to allow bin Laden and Zawahiri to rebuild those capabilities. Instead al Qaida has shifted into being a network of networks in its campaign against the West and the United States. There is a certain parallel here in terms of tactics with the days of Lenin's rule over the Bolshevik regime in Russia.
Lenin, once the Reds had gained the upper hand in the Russian civil war made an attempt to spread revolution by direct military action by invading the newly created state of Poland in 1920, which under Marshal Pilsudski had taken advantage of Russia's weakness to intervene and annex land in Ukraine. This plan had been supported by Stalin and other radicals but opposed by Red military professionals like Tukhachevskii; Stalin carried the day with Lenin and the Sovnarkom and the offensive was launched. The Bolshevk invasion of Poland ( the USSR had yet to be created), while it succeeded in driving Polish forces out of Ukrainian territory, proved to be a near total military disaster for the Bolsheviks. Stalin was humiliated and Lenin abandoned military conquest as a policy and reverted to the tactics to which the Bolsheviks were most familiar to spread world revolution, secrecy, subversion and conspiracy.
As detailed by the late Soviet/Russian military historian General Dimitrii Volkogonov, Lenin was to squander enormous sums through the Comintern to set up open and underground Communist party cells and spy networks in Europe, North America and Asia. Some of these early Comintern-GRU-CHEKA-NKVD projects produced future revolutionary Communist leaders ( Ho Chi Minh) or penetrated the highest reaches of Western governments.
Al Qaida is becoming more of an " Islamintern", an inciter and far-off high command of Islamist revolutionary activities. While other Islamist groups continue to beat the drum to attract general movement sympathizers, al Qaida is looking for agents who have outwardly assimilated in to western society - the children of immigrants or Western converts. Right now in light of terrorism, Western intelligence agents are focused on the likeliest suspects in their midst the way European police and A. Mitchell Palmer's Justice department once concentrated on labor movement radicals and Eastern European emigre communities.
But in order to get ahead of the curve, what Counterintelligence and Counterterrorism specialists really ought to be scanning for today is the Islamist equivalent to Alger Hiss. ¶ 7:28 AM
