The U.S. Elections and al Quida

We have been warned that al Quida may try to disrupt the November elections. BlurGrassRoots has told us about a sign in the headquarters of the Republican Party in Louisville, KY stating " Kerry is bin Laden's Man/Bush is My Man". Now, Shibley Telhami in the Baltimore Sun tells us Al-Qaida on course and does a nice job of putting it all in perspective.

THE WARNING by the Department of Homeland Security that al-Qaida may be preparing to disrupt the presidential election has been sounded with little assessment of the terrorist organization's aims.
Some have questioned the extent to which the Bush administration may be using such warnings for political reasons, but few have challenged the notion that al-Qaida seeks to replicate its Madrid attack on the eve of the Spanish election for the presumed goal of defeating President Bush.

In fact, while al-Qaida is constantly trying to prepare massive acts of horror on U.S. soil, replacing the Bush administration is not likely to be one of its objectives. Broadly, there are two possible goals for al-Qaida as an organization:

• Al-Qaida aims not so much to change U.S. policy on specific issues but to rally Muslims worldwide against the United States to create a sense of a clash of civilizations and to isolate Washington in the international community. Ultimately, it would hope to create a puritanical Islamic order in the Muslim world. This is the most plausible of the two objectives and is one believed by the Bush administration.



• Al-Qaida seeks to change U.S. foreign policy on issues that many Muslims care about, such as the Arab-Israeli conflict, Iraq, the presence of U.S. troops in the Persian Gulf region and support for authoritarian governments in the Middle East. This objective has been put forth in a book by an anonymous CIA official and, if true, it would mean that current policy must be reassessed.

George W. Bush and his administration has done everything al Quida could have wanted them to do.

• We are now virtually alone in the world following unprecedented world wide support after 9-11.


• Public opinion today in every Muslim country is far more resentful of the United States than it was three years ago.

  Four years ago, over 60 percent of Saudi citizens expressed confidence in the United States. Today, less than 4 percent expressed a favorable view of the United States in a recent survey....



• The U.S. military is so extended and bogged down in Iraq that it would be difficult for the U.S. to respond to a "real" threat.

Telhami goes on to say that al Quida is happy with the way things are and has no desire for a change.

Above all, al-Qaida cannot possibly seek change in the current U.S. policy that has only widened the gap with the Muslim world.