[detbuch]

Originally Posted by spence

It doesn't appear to establish anything new. It's been known for some time that participants in the attack had some level of linkage to groups claiming to be al Qaeda in north Africa,

"some level of linkage"?? what would that level be, Spence? Is dismissing the affiliation as "some level" without having to describe it supposed to make the linkage irrelevant? Please do describe the linkage so we can see how insignificant it is.

but there's still no evidence of material involvement by those groups or involvement by core alQaeda in Pakistan.

What is "core" Al Qaeda, Spence? My understanding of a core is the center of something. What is Al Qaeda the "core" of? Isn't the core usually smaller than the mass that surrounds it? Isn't that which surrounds it connected to the core? Let me quote a statement in the New Yorker article which you called a good perspective:

". . . Al Qaeda today involves decentralized local affiliates."

Would the "participants in the attack" who had "some level of linkage" be part of that mass which surrounds the "core" of Al Qaeda?

Would "core" Al Qaeda ever be large enough to accomplish the worldwide Jihad Bin Laden summoned the children of Islam to do? Did he, or his "core" organizers envision such a feat to be done by a small "core"?

The short answer is no. The longer answer is THEY PLANNED ALL ALONG THAT THEIR MESSAGE AND MISSION WOULD BE DONE BY OTHERS. That's what Al Qaeda was about. Al Qaeda means "the base." It is only a base, a core ideology, from which the children of Islam would rise to reclaim the Muslim soul from the corruption of Western influence, especially from the influence of the Great Satin, the United States.

"Core" Al Qaeda could train leaders to infiltrate or start "affiliate" groups and so branch out into the larger "non-core" Al Qaeda brand. This is the way a religion grows, fractures, disseminates into different, seemingly disparate sects or groups or lone wolves, who in their separate ways preach and proselytize, or force their way into dominance.

That you, yourself, refer to a "core" Al Qaeda implies that there is a larger "Al Qaeda" beyond that core.

And not to understand this would lead to fatal errors such as Benghazi. As your New Yorker article states "in other words, it was the people the Obama administration judged to be our allies who turned on us . . . in a rational political environment, the President's opponents might see this as damning."

I think they do see it as damning, and in a rational environment of national security, the rest of us should see it so as well.

Anyone can raise a black flag and claim to be alQaeda.

-spence

Yes, exactly. That is all it takes to be an Al Qaeda affiliate with "some level of linkage."