Mr. Al Qaeda Becomes Mr. Right Wing Extremist?
by Dr. Sebastian Gorka 16 Apr
2014, 2:01 PM PDT
Peter Bergen, CNN’s Mr Al Qaeda, has declared via the New America Foundation, that the real threat to America is not the terrorist group responsible
for 9/11, the Fort Hood
massacre, or the attempted Time Square bombing, but “right wing extremists.”
As our own John Sexton has ably
demonstrated here
already the whole edifice of Bergen’s argument is built on a foundation of
sand.
The comparison of numbers killed
by Jihadists and right winger zealots conveniently leaves out the 2,996 killed
on 9/11. Why? That is the most important datapoint of all, surely? Then
numerous attacks are added under the rightwing tally that are clearly not
rightwing and several Islamically-motivated killers, such as the DC sniper,
have been magically erased from the jihadi column.
Besides (intentionally?) sloppy
math, the whole exercise is fundamentally flawed at the strategic level.
Al Qaeda is not just a domestic
threat to the continental United States
or just to Americans in America.
One can argue all day long about President Bush and Iraqi WMDs, but on what
basis does Bergen and the NAF exclude the death
and maiming of US troops fighting al Qaeda in Afghanistan
or our Ambassador in Benghazi
and the three brave Americans who tried to save him from local jihadists?
Then there is the absurdity of
only counting successful attacks and using this as the measure of who is a more
serious threat.
Sixteen
jihadi plots targeting NY alone have been
intercepted since 2001. We can never know how many more across the country
since many will have been thwarted without an arrest or a prosecution, but it
is likely hundreds, and hundreds that each could have had hundreds or thousands
of victims. And the counterargument that white supremacists and rightwing
extremist may have also plotted many more attacks is fallacious too, as these
actors usually kill in the single digits. Al Qaeda specializes in spectaculars,
be it 9/11, 7/7 in London, or the Bali and Mumbai attacks. I challenge Bergen to point to one rightwing attack on
the scale of any of these.
Then of course there is the issue
of why there have been so many intercepted jihadi plots here in the US. The
Director of National Intelligence stated earlier this year in open
congressional testimony that al Qaeda has operational centers in 12 nations around
the world. Every member of each one of those organizational hubs is committed
to destroying America after
they have killed President Assad, taken over Mali,
or retaken Egypt
for the “true believers.” Can we compare this to rightwing extremism or any
other organized threat to America?
Even North Korean and the Russia Federation pale in comparison to the
international conspiracy that is Global Jihad.
If one makes a more honest
assessment of the threat then the facts tell a different story and the relevant
dangers reverse.
Below is a chart of the number of
attacks linked to al Qaeda globally over the last few years, based upon
unclassified sources.
If you add information from the START database to the above
you get the following disturbing graph.
The key fact here is the
trendline.
Despite the narrative of the White
House that al Qaeda is spent and dying, AQ has in fact become more and more
dangerous. So why does Peter Bergen and why does the NAF want to convince us of
the opposite, that rightwing extremists are a bigger threat to America than
those who were responsible for 9/11?
Perhaps the clue lies in Fort Hood.
The authors of the study state unequivocally:
Today, almost 13 years after 9/11,
al Qaeda has not successfully conducted another attack inside the United States.
Excuse me? So the Fort Hood
massacre was indeed “workplace violence?”
The fact that Major Nidal
Hasan--before he killed 12 of his fellow soldiers, a civilian, and an unborn
child, and wounded another 30-plus people--was in regular contact with Anwar
al-Awlaki, one of the top leaders of al Qaeda in Yemen, doesn’t make it a jihadi
attack? Should we list it under the Ku Klux Klan perhaps?
Peter Bergen built his career on
al Qaeda, as “the man who interviewed bin Laden.” He must have a very strong
reason for trying to make his career-building subject of al Qaeda seem
irrelevant. Could it be the crown he now hangs with? The NAF board members bios
are here. The real report on Fort Hood
written by the former director of the FBI--that was of course released by the
Obama administration on a Friday afternoon--is here.
You be the judge of who threatens
us more.
CNN
Fareed Zakaria
GPS is a CNN program.
Note: Fareed Zakaria is
the host for Fareed Zakaria GPS, and
a director at the New America Foundation.
Foundation
to Promote Open Society was a funder for the New America Foundation, and Human
Rights First.
George
Soros was the chairman for the Foundation
to Promote Open Society.
Kenneth R.
Feinberg is a director at Human
Rights First, and was a special master for the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund of 2001.
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