Time to talk to Al Qaeda?

Mohammad-Mahmoud Ould Mohamedou (associate director of the Program on Humanitarian Policy and Conflict Research at Harvard University) wrote in Boston Globe As the war between the United States and Al Qaeda enters its fifth year, the nature of the armed, transnational Islamist group's campaign remains misunderstood. With the conflict viewed largely as an open-and-shut matter of good versus evil, nonmilitary engagement with Al Qaeda is depicted as improper and unnecessary.

And completely stupid, as is Harvard employing a nut case like you.

.... Since the attacks on New York and Washington, Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri have delivered, respectively, 18 and 15 messages via audio or videotape making a three-part case: The United States must end its military presence in the Middle East, its uncritical political support and military aid of Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories, and its support of corrupt and coercive regimes in the Arab and Muslim world.

In other words The West must allow al Qaeda to take over the Middle East, so that it can obtain a foothold from which it can achieve its ultimate object of turning the entire world into a large Islamic state.

Al Qaeda believes that the citizens of the states with whom it is at war bear a responsibility for the policies of their governments. Such democratization of responsibility rests, it has been argued by bin Laden, in the citizens' ability to elect and dismiss the representatives who make foreign policy decisions on their behalf.

In other words, we can't defeat the US, so we hope by getting the left wing Boston Globe to print this claptrap, to get America to elect people that will surrender to al Qaeda.

Al Qaeda is an industrious, committed, and power-wielding organization waging a political, limited, and evasive war of attrition -- not a religious, open-ended, apocalyptic one.

Baloney.

Over the past year, it has struck private and public alliances, offered truces, affected elections, and gained an international stature beyond a mere security threat. No longer able to enjoy a centralized sanctuary in Afghanistan after 2002, Al Qaeda's leadership opted for an elastic defense strategy relying on mobile forces, scaled-up international operations, and expanded global tactical relationships. It encouraged the proliferation of mini Al Qaedas, able to act on their own within a regional context.

Consequently, and aside from the war in Iraq, between 2002 and 2005 the United States and seven of its Western allies were the targets of 17 major attacks in 11 countries for a total of 760 people killed.

And how many al Qaeda middle and high level operatives were taken out in that same period of time.

In 2001, Ayman al-Zawahiri had explained the cost-effective rationale of these measures, namely ''the need to inflict the maximum casualties against the opponent, for this is the language understood by the West, no matter how much time and effort such operations take." Last month, he reiterated that commitment and announced new attacks against the United States.

How can the war be brought to an end? Neither side can defeat the other. The United States will not be able to overpower a diffuse, ever-mutating, organized international militancy movement, whose struggle enjoys the rear-guard sympathy of large numbers of Muslims.

At least you are afraid they might be able to, which is why you are resorting to this stupid attempt.

Likewise, Al Qaeda can score tactical victories on the United States and its allies, but it cannot rout the world's sole superpower. Though dismissed widely, the best strategy for the United States may well be to acknowledge and address the collective reasons in which Al Qaeda anchors its acts of force.

We are doing exactly that

• The United States must end its military presence in the Middle East
  We intend to leave as soon as we have achieved our objectives
• end its uncritical political support and military aid of Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories
  We are pushing for a Palestinian state, living side by side, in peace, with the State of Israel (and if that is not possible), then we expect Israel will wipe out the Palestinians rather than attempting to occupy them
• and end its support of corrupt and coercive regimes in the Arab and Muslim world
  we hope and expect that they will be replaced by democratic governments

Al Qaeda has been true to its word in announcing and implementing its strategy for over a decade. It is likely to be true to its word in the future and cease hostilities against the United States, and indeed bring an end to the war it declared in 1996 and in 1998, in return for some degree of satisfaction regarding its grievances. In 2002, bin Laden declared: ''Whether America escalates or deescalates this conflict, we will reply in kind."