Burke begins by considering ominous comments made by British prime minister David Cameron following the recent attack on an Algerian-Norwegian-British gas plant. When reading Cameron's remarks, I thought of the past and ongoing attempts by the Republican party to create hysteria and al-Qaida paranoia over the consulate attacks in Benghazi last September. Attacks in both cases did occur, but the responses to each have been peculiar. (Actually, with regard to the GOP's charade over Benghazi - such as the pressure brought to bear on Susan Rice and the dramatic congressional hearings on the subject - the response could best be described as a disgrace. I have no solicitous or sentimental desire to defend Ms. Rice or Secretary Clinton, but the operatic exaggeration performed by the GOP, using the death of innocent people as a device in the process, signals nothing but party desperation.)
All in all, Burke makes the point that while terrorism is and will be with us for some time to come, what we know as al-Qaida has largely been diminished in size and ability, despite its use by some Western leaders as a bogeyman.
In the article, Burke also makes this important observation:
Equally damaging [to al-Qaida and its efforts] has been the rejection by successive communities over the past two decades. Almost every attempt by al-Qaida central [its core leadership] to win genuine popular support has failed - in Iraq, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere ... This is particularly true when communities have direct experience of extremist violence or rule.
This is a point I have discussed elsewhere at some length, including this blog: that the people of North Africa (called the Maghreb), the Middle East, and Southwest Asia - often chalked up as "those people" - are not what they are commonly portrayed and assumed to be, namely, violent, irrational, religious fanatics. "Almost every attempt by al-Qaida central to win genuine popular support has failed." That sentence says a lot.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jan/29/al-qaida-terrorism-threat-west
