Andrew C. McCarthy:
We’re being had. Again.
For six years, President Obama has endeavored to will the country into accepting two pillars of his alternative national-security reality. First, he claims to have dealt decisively with the terrorist threat, rendering it a disparate series of ragtag jayvees. Second, he asserts that the threat is unrelated to Islam, which is innately peaceful, moderate, and opposed to the wanton “violent extremists” who purport to act in its name.
Now, the president has been compelled to act against a jihad that has neither ended nor been “decimated.” The jihad, in fact, has inevitably intensified under his counterfactual worldview, which holds that empowering Islamic supremacists is the path to security and stability. Yet even as war intensifies in Iraq and Syria — even as jihadists continue advancing, continue killing and capturing hapless opposition forces on the ground despite Obama’s futile air raids — the president won’t let go of the charade.
Hence, Obama gives us the Khorosan Group.
The who?
There is a reason that no one had heard of such a group until a nanosecond ago, when the “Khorosan Group” suddenly went from anonymity to the “imminent threat” that became the rationale for an emergency air war there was supposedly no time to ask Congress to authorize.
You haven’t heard of the Khorosan Group because there isn’t one. It is a name the administration came up with, calculating that Khorosan — the –Iranian–Afghan border region — had sufficient connection to jihadist lore that no one would call the president on it.
The “Khorosan Group” is al-Qaeda. It is simply a faction within the global terror network’s Syrian franchise, “Jabhat al-Nusra.” Its leader, Mushin al-Fadhli (believed to have been killed in this week’s U.S.-led air strikes), was an intimate of Ayman al-Zawahiri, the emir of al-Qaeda who dispatched him to the jihad in Syria. Except that if you listen to administration officials long enough, you come away thinking that Zawahiri is not really al-Qaeda, either. Instead, he’s something the administration is at pains to call “core al-Qaeda.”
“Core al-Qaeda,” you are to understand, is different from “Jabhat al-Nusra,” which in turn is distinct from “al-Qaeda in Iraq” (formerly “al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia,” now the “Islamic State” al-Qaeda spin-off that is, itself, formerly “al-Qaeda in Iraq and al-Sham” or “al-Qaeda in Iraq and the Levant”). That al-Qaeda, don’t you know, is a different outfit from al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula . . . which, of course, should never be mistaken for “al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb,” “Boko Haram,” “Ansar al-Sharia,” or the latest entry, “al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent.”
Coming soon, “al-Qaeda on Hollywood and Vine.” In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if, come 2015, Obama issued an executive order decreeing twelve new jihad jayvees stretching from al-Qaeda in January through al-Qaeda in December.
As these columns have long contended, Obama has not quelled our enemies; he has miniaturized them. The jihad and the sharia supremacism that fuels it form the glue that unites the parts into a whole — a worldwide, ideologically connected movement rooted in Islamic scripture that can project power on the scale of a nation-state and that seeks to conquer the West. The president does not want us to see the threat this way.
For a product of the radical Left like Obama, terrorism is a regrettable but understandable consequence of American arrogance. That it happens to involve Muslims is just the coincidental fallout of Western imperialism in the Middle East, not the doctrinal command of a belief system that perceives itself as engaged in an inter-civilizational conflict.
Being President means never having to say you’re sorry. Or wrong.
Unless, of course, you’re talking about something American has done… or hasn’t done.
I can’t believer obama lied to us.
“The Khorosan Group” was a tag for an al Qaeda cell. You still believe in al Qaeda, don’t you?
Al Qaeda Plotters in Syria ‘Went Dark,’ U.S. Spies Say
Bush’s WMDs were entirely real and an imminent danger, but the existence of an al Qaeda group planning terror attacks in Europe and the U.S. can only be purely imaginary?
Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri , September 12, 2014:
Nah. He probably doesn’t really mean it.
THE KHORASAN GROUP — IT’S LEGIT
More here:
Misunderstanding al Qaeda
Is somebody surprised that our intelligence agencies know more than a conservative media writer knows?
@Jeff+D:
Here’s what incoming White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said on Tuesday when asked to name the top accomplishments of Hillary Clinton’s term as President Obama’s secretary of state:
“In terms of important foreign policy accomplishments for which Secretary Clinton can rightly claim her share of the credit, I would put ending the war in Iraq, responsibly winding down the war in Afghanistan, and decimating and destroying core al Qaeda – that those are a handful of accomplishments that certainly this president and this commander-in-chief are proud of. But it’s one that – those are the kinds of accomplishments that Secretary Clinton can justifiably be proud of, as well.”
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2014/06/get-me-rewrite-white-house-talking-points-on-iraq-and-al-qaeda/
For Obama apologists like you, here’s a news flash: the Khorasan Group IS core Al Qaeda and is made up of core Al Qaeda leaders.
So call them what you want, they are core leaders of Al Qaeda and Obama knew about them for years in the PDBs. The meme “decimating core Al Qaeda” is just another fairy tale like “If you like you doctor, you can keep your doctor, if you like your insurance, you can keep your insurance. Period.”
@retire05:
“For Obama apologists like you, here’s a news flash: the Khorasan Group IS core Al Qaeda and is made up of core Al Qaeda leaders.”
For verbally challenged people such as yourself, “decimate” means to reduce by a tenth, and “destroying core al Qaeda” refers to the reduction of most of al Qaeda’s original leadership core to their basic physical elements. “Destroying core al Qaeda” has been an ongoing project because replacements appear.
@Jeff D:
I got news for you, when even ABC (Apologizing for Barack Central) points out the fallacy of the Administration’s claims, you are on the losing end trying to defend it still.
So who are the 1/10th of the leadership that Obama has decimated? Name them, and then tell us how many were there originally. Ayman al Zawahiri is alive and well.
@retire05: A thread from last year. There was another thread around that time addressing the decimated issue with an almost verbatim comment made by Greg about decimating meaning 1/10th. Draw your own conclusions as to who you may be debating.
http://floppingaces.net/most_wanted/lets-drop-the-white-house-myth-of-core-al-qaeda-okay/comment-page-1/
@another+vet:
Yeah, I remember that thread. Thanks,
But here is what I said back then:
“AQ is NOT on the “run” as The Won has claimed. Instead, it is regrouping, re organizing and changing tactics. And most think that ObL was the ultimate head of AQ. He was simply the bag man who retired to Pakistan. You know we will be making headway when we take out al Zawahiri, who was actually the brains behind the bag man.”
Part of that regrouping was relocation. As we currently have a POTUS that lets the enemy know what he is NOT going to do, he gives them wide latitude to do what they are going to do.
The name “Khorasan” simply refers to a region. And there is no proof that it was al Zawahiri, and not the Administration, that assigned the nomenclature.
@retire05:
“The name “Khorasan” simply refers to a region. And there is no proof that it was al Zawahiri, and not the Administration, that assigned the nomenclature.”
Who said it was al Zawahiri that assigned the nomenclature? Who said Khorasan wasn’t part of al Qaeda?
@Jeff D:
Do you not understand the spin? Al Qaeda is on the run, the core has been decimated, or so said the POTUS.
They were not. And they are the CORE.
@another+vet:
Decimate means to reduce by one tenth. That’s the definition.
@Jeff+D:
Don’t be redundant.
Now, again:
So who are the 1/10th of the leadership that Obama has decimated? Name them, and then tell us how many were there originally. Ayman al Zawahiri is alive and well.
@Jeff+D:I’m well aware that decimate means reduce by 1/10th. Another definition is reduce drastically especially in number. The question is what context Obama used it in. I had an identical debate with another poster called Greg about the same. You and him have extremely similar writing styles, make extremely similar arguments, have the same criticisms of Retire, and you began posting here right around when he stopped. Any relation by chance?
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/decimate
@another+vet:
And another vet takes the golden ring.
@retire05:
“Don’t be redundant.”
Obama didn’t say 1/10th of the leadership was decimated. To say that would be an example of redundancy. It would mean 1 out of 100 was killed. Obama’s claim has been that al Qaeda’s core leadership was destroyed. That claim was mangled by a White House press secretary who may also have a problem with definitions. Make a list of the original al Qaeda leaders and cross off the names of the dead or imprisoned. How many are still living or at large?
@another+vet:
“I had an identical debate with another poster called Greg about the same. You and him have extremely similar writing styles, make extremely similar arguments, have the same criticisms of Retire, and you began posting here right around when he stopped. Any relation by chance?”
The same attacks and claims pop up in multiple locations like somebody blew a whistle. There will be similar replies. Or chalk it up to the liberal hive mind.
@Jeff D: This is only blog site I go to. I imagine the arguments on all sides are relatively the same at the others. There have been a few who come here who change their screen names from time to time to “fool” us.
@Jeff D:
It seems your math skills are as lame as your debate skills. 1 out of 100 would be 1/100th, not 1/10th.
Therein is the lie, Ayman al Zawahiri is still very much alive. He was second in command under ObL. Core Al Qaeda. Many of the others are still alive. They are all core Al Qaeda.
Since you seem to be aware of what core Al Qaeda leaders have been killed, you should provide the list of names. Also list those who have NOT been killed. Don’t dump your responsibility on me.
@retire05:
“It seems your math skills are as lame as your debate skills. 1 out of 100 would be 1/100th, not 1/10th.”
“Decimated” already means to reduce by 1/10th. If you decimate 1/10th you’re eliminating 1/10th OF 1/10th, which comes out to 1/100th of the total.
@Jeff D:
Well, first you have to determine the total. Can you give us the number of the total core members of Al Qaeda?
@retire05: In military operations, if a unit’s manpower is reduced by 1/10th, it is still considered to be very much combat effective because it would still be at 90% strength. As a matter of fact, if a unit in the U.S. Army is at 90% strength, it is considered deployable. For this reason, given that Obama made additional qualifiers in his statement such as being “on the run” and “on the path to defeat” or something similar, it is most likely that the definition of decimated he was using or implying was the one meaning “reduce drastically especially in number”. An organization whose numbers were reduced by 1/10th would still be considered very much combat effective and not on the path to defeat only an organization whose numbers were reduced drastically would be considered so. Even so, if AQ was in fact as bad off as claimed, it was allowed to reconstitute and reorganize itself into a much more efficient organization as evidenced by the successes both it and its affiliates have registered since the statement was made.
If you all had read The Al Qaeda Reader, a collection of letters and speeches by al Qaeda leadership, you would understand that you can NEVER destroy al Qaeda by decimating its leadership.
Every single al Qaeda cell is organized under a larger, but still decentralized group of lesser leaders.
Those leaders, in turn, communicate with al Qaeda leadership in their own countries.
Those national leaders of al Qaeda swear fealty to and are ordered around by the top al Qaeda leader.
Basically this is an organization that is constantly training NEW leaders.
People from either below or laterally can replace any leader who dies, from the top man to the cell leaders.
Al Qaeda will not go away unless or until it is totally destroyed in battle.
Al Qaeda is organized exactly like Mohammad organized his fighters in his own day.
It’s pretty obvious that “The Khorosan Group” is just an alias for Al Qaeda. Criminals, and their accomplices, are long known for creating aliases. Meanwhile, I’m expecting 0Muslim to fake up another alias for Islamic terror such as “The Workplace Violence Group”.
The Korosan Group has been identified as a particular unit of al Qaeda with a particular goal that made them very dangerous to the United States and its allies. What’s so difficult about any of that to believe or understand? I would really like to hear an explanation. My current theory is selective stupidity.
@Jeff D:
So are you saying the leadership of Al Qaeda, which is what the Khorasan group is, is more dangerous now than it was when Obama took office? You really want to go there?
What I’m saying is that a claim that Khorasan does not exist or was not an emergent threat that represented an imminent danger is either dishonest or stupid. You people and your goddam zeal to damage a president’s reputation and effectiveness no matter what it takes are like a fifth column movement. Is that clear enough?
@Jeff D:
Oh, there is a group of Al Qaeda leadership that the Administration has placed the label “The Khorasan Group” on in order to divert attention from who they really are. They are not decimated, or even dented.
Would you like a history lesson in all the things you on the left did to “to damage a president’s reputation and effectiveness no matter what it takes are like a fifth column movement” when that president’s name was Bush?
Now, answer the question: are you saying the leadership of Al Qaeda, which is what the Khorasan group is, is more dangerous now than it was when Obama took office?
Or are you just another cowardly liberal?
@retire05:
“Oh, there is a group of Al Qaeda leadership that the Administration has placed the label “The Khorasan Group” on in order to divert attention from who they really are.”
Did you read the Powerline article?
“Although they haven’t used Khorasan publicly to describe themselves, that name is actually taken from the Khorasan shura with al Qaeda, which is a specific advisory council.”
Still unclear? Try this one: Khorasan, explained: why the US is bombing an al-Qaeda group you’ve never heard of