NPR—The Decline And Fall Of Al-Qaida

Posted by Kendall Harmon

There is a lot of reporting on how terrorist groups get started and how they develop, but very little about how they end. Obama administration officials have been saying for weeks that its drone attacks over the past year have got al-Qaida on the run, but experts say it isn't just drone attacks that are weakening al-Qaida. The group is defeating itself.

Al-Qaida is still a serious threat, and nothing could deny the fact the group is focused on attacking the U.S. any way it can. But if history is any guide, terrorist groups can eventually burn out.

Audrey Kurth Cronin, a professor at the National Defense University, lists the way such movements end.

"There are different ways that groups end, and those include decapitation, the capture or the killing of the leader," she said. "Sometimes negotiations can help lead to the end -- success which is, by the way, relatively rare; failure where groups lose popular support; and finally reorientation of the violence of a group."

Read or listen to it all.

Filed under: * Economics, Politics • Terrorism

5 Comments
Posted April 26, 2010 at 7:00 am [Printer Friendly] [Print w/ comments]



1. John Wilkins wrote:

Thank you, President Obama for creating an environment where Muslims could oppose other Muslims without feeling like 5th columnists.

April 26, 11:52 am | [comment link]
2. azusa wrote:

#1: I think President Bush got there a lot earlier.
But, Gawain, what do think of the ethics of Predator attacks? Aren’t these targeted assassinations of possibly innocent people? How do they compare with waterboarding?

April 26, 1:10 pm | [comment link]
3. Sarah wrote:

Wow—and the Dear Leader did that all in a year? 

Heh—but who am I to doubt.  He has, after all, managed to set our economy even farther down the road of complete pulverization through his various buffoonish schemes than even I had predicted.  Perhaps he does have a hotline to “Muslims” that he used to influence them all in the past 14 Incredible Months.

April 26, 8:48 pm | [comment link]
4. John Wilkins wrote:

#3 seems to be discussing the economy, which seems to be recovering from the complete pulverization that occurred from 2004-2008.  She might have missed that.  At least the stock market is doing better.

What seems to be the case is that it was a lot easier for Muslims to hate America when Bush was in power.  Easier for them to support Al-Quaeda.  Now they can concentrate on the injustice in their own countries rather than hate the Great Satan. 

Let the [tea party attenders] in this country hate the president of the U.S.A. while he finds effective ways to protect the country.  All they have is privatizing war and tax cuts.

[Slightly edited by Elf]

April 26, 11:56 pm | [comment link]
5. Sarah wrote:

RE: ” ... #3 seems to be discussing the economy ...”

Naw—just marvelling over the godlike powers of The One, Gawain.  ; > )

RE: “She might have missed that.”

Heh—and most of the nation, too.

RE: “What seems to be the case is that it was a lot easier for Muslims to hate America when Bush was in power.”

No, actually it doesn’t seem to be the case at all—Muslims were helpfully doing the kind of work we needed during Bush’s presidency as well.

RE: “Let the [tea party attenders] in this country hate the president of the U.S.A.  ...”

Oh dear.  Red herring alert!  Never attended a tea party.  I’m just a normal conservative—not all those violent Klansmen bigots who “hate the president”—tee hee.

Besides—he’s not worth hating, Gawain.

RE: “All they have is privatizing war and tax cuts.”

Man—even just tax cuts would be great.  How wonderful that conservatives have so much more in their toolkit.

See ya in November, Gawain.  ; > )

April 27, 10:14 am | [comment link]
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