Critical Threats – Al Qaeda and its Affiliates in 2013

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Commentary From The Blogger: President Obama, in an effort to distract from the recent trifecta of scandal, delivered a foreign policy speech just one day after a British soldier was just about decapitated a few yards from his post in broad daylight. In passing, the soldier leaves a young wife alone with their 2 year-old son; however, President Obama denies a War on Terror – if that is even a proper understanding – so there is no wonder that the American people felt much safer from Islam under President Bush than they do Barack Obama.

Samuel Huntington, and I know because I was an academic, must not feel the same gratification from the validation of “Clash of Civilization” that normally comes from being correct. The liberal internationalist theory has a serious problem in terrorism, and since it dominates our foreign policy, politicians such as Barack Obama want to conceal the threat and move on. Bruce Russell in “Grasping the Democratic Peace,” has widely been debunked because of his cherry-picking of empirical data to fit his theory; and this is true regarding other proponents of the democratic peace theory.

The “Bush Doctrine,” equally, failed to understand that it is not only the domestic policy and system of government, or the state of anarchy in the international system, which determines State and individual behavior. The culture and belief of Islam does not, and never will, allow for tolerance of Christian nations, people, or beliefs. The same is true regarding non-Christians so long as they are non-Islam, and Barack Obama’s statements to the contrary are either wishful thinking, or just flat-out ignorance. But that doesn’t mean we have to be ignorant. Katherine, Zimmerman, of AEI’s Critical Threats Project, provides a nice synopsis of the project below and certainly feel free to read it in its entirety if you have the time.

– Richard D. Baris @RichBaris – Author of “Our Virtuous Republic”

By Katherine Zimmerman: Al Qaeda is the terrorist organization founded by Osama bin Laden in 1988. The group’s ideology is founded on the premise that Muslims who follow secular leaders are treating these leaders as gods, and therefore, are apostates because they are disobeying the first principle in Islam, the assertion that “There is no deity but Allah.” Adherents to this ideology claim to be defending Islam when they kill these Muslims and Westerners who advocate or support this form of apostasy. Al Qaeda’s goal is to liberate Muslim lands of “apostate” governments and establish an Islamic state, a caliphate, in their stead.

Osama bin Laden envisioned al Qaeda as a global network that led the jihad against the United States, the West, and allied Muslim governments. The group known today as al Qaeda core serves as the center of the al Qaeda network, which now also includes groups recognized by the al Qaeda emir, or leader, as affiliates. These are al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, al Shabaab, al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, al Qaeda in Iraq, and the Islamic Emirate of the Caucasus. Recovered al Qaeda correspondence, especially from the Abbottabad raid, reveals continued communications about ongoing developments and operations between senior leaders in Pakistan and leaders of affiliated groups.

Al Qaeda and its Affiliates in 2013 | Critical Threats.