Counterterrorism expert Leah Farrall has a typically smart post on the hysterical reactions to al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the group said to be behind the failed underwear bombing:
My bug bear is that that there's an awful lot of people covering AQAP now (especially after the Xmas Day plot) and offering advice to government without a grounding in what this organisation is, where it came from, what it has done previously, how it has changed since its earlier campaign, what it is now and how it fits into the bigger picture of AQ. The problem is that without historical background people see change instead of continuity, they see a new threat instead of an extension of an existing one or they miss things all together.
And when this type of commentary influences decision makers and also creeps beyond AQAP into the issue of Yemen more generally it is extremely concerning, especially when it essentially calls for opening another front in Yemen and escalating US involvement. The lesson of Iraq and to a lesser extent Afghanistan has not been learnt, and it is rapidly becoming the greatest failure of the war on terror: the failure to learn that lionizing al Qaeda only further empowers it. Add this to calls for greater US involvement, especially in a country like Yemen and with the sensitivities this entails, and you have the perfect propaganda recruitment recipe for al Qaeda.
It's not just that we've "failed" to learn this lesson. It's that one of the two political parties in the country has decided their political interests are best served by lionizing al-Qaeda, spinning their failures as successes and treating wannabe terrorists like invincible super-soldiers. The GOP's demands that suspected terrorists be tried by military commission only elevate criminals to the status of uniformed soldiers -- a status that is both consistent with their worldview that the West is "at war" with Islam and more than they deserve. Never mind that the commissions themselves have proven to be slow and inefficient compared to civilian courts. Pete Hoekstra's shameless profiteering off of the failed Christmas bombing shows the GOP's incentive to "lionize" al-Qaeda hasn't changed since the days of Tom Ridge manipulating terror alerts.
Now, the Obama administration has now decided that it will empower al-Qaeda by instituting a regime profiling travelers from certain countries. It's not as though terrorists can't simply go through an airport in say, Paris instead of Nigeria. How can the U.S. credibly argue that it is not at war with "Islam" if it is instituting a policy of systemic discrimination, treating all travelers from certain majority-Muslim countries like they are potential enemies? More important than whether the administration can argue it, is whether their target audience, namely the people now being pulled aside and searched because they happen to be from Syria or the Sudan, will buy it. Would you?
-- A. Serwer
