The first perception of the terrorists after 9/11 was that these guys are foreigners coming from the Middle East to export the Middle East crisis to the West. There was a feeling in the States, and in Europe too, of being under siege in a sense, of being attacked from abroad by a different civilization, a different culture, and so on. But in fact, if we look at the background of the terrorists -- and we know who they are, we have hundreds of names, terrorists who have been killed, jailed, assassinated, died in terrorist action or fleeing, escaping. We have hundreds and hundreds of names, and what is striking is that most of them have a Western background.

It's interesting to see, for instance, that there's no Palestinian, no Iraqi, no Afghan coming to avenge what is going on in their country, to fight against the West, no. These guys have de-territorialized backgrounds. For instance, they may be born in a country, then educated in another country, then go to fight in a third country and take refuge in a fourth country, things like that. None of them has a religious background. None of them comes from a very traditional family. All of them are born again, all of them are young, at least most of them are young, and they jumped to fundamentalism and to political activism almost at the same time. So, it's not a long process of religious brainwashing when younger, [as] school children, not at all.

These guys become born again and suddenly they decide to go for the real thing, and the real thing is doing something which will reverberate on the global sphere, something which is highly visible, which will be on the TV the same day. They are not interested in long guerilla warfare, they are not interested in mobilizing the masses, in making political parties, in making propaganda. They are interested in TV, in making the news immediately.

These guys live in a global world. For example, some of them, the pilots of the World Trade Center, came from the Middle East but had been educated in Germany. They became born-again Muslims in Germany, not in Egypt nor Lebanon, and they decided to go to Afghanistan for training, then to go to New York to destroy the World Trade Center. Among these guys, all the networks, we have a lot of converts.

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The Islamicists are people who consider that Islam is, first of all, a political ideology. So, the founders of Islamism, like Hassan al-Benar, Maldoudi, and to an extent Halbani, have been influenced by the Western political ideologies of the twentieth century -- Marxism, for instance. (Of course, they are not Marxists.) But they came to the conclusion that Islam is not just a religion, it's not just a legal system, it has to become a real political system. For the Islamicist, the state is the key to the re-Islamization of the society. So, they insist on political action, on taking the power at the state level, of building a true Islamic constitution, a true Islamic economy, Islamic social justice, and in a sense they are very interested in social sciences and in all the aspects of a modern society, including women, for example. The Islamicists did promote women's organizations, the women's movement, and usually they consider that women can work and should work, and [solidified] some political positions, as in Iran now.

politics, economics and soverignty

of throwing off the wahabbi/salafi "outside agitators" ...

While it's likely premature to expect such a thing, I've heard no specultation as to how Iraq's people will react to the likelihood of at least another year of 130,000 american occupation (and 130,000 independent contractors ... and god only knows how many "support personnel" who fail to fit into either category ... sorta like our casualities or how we count dead iraqi -- parse long enough and -- presto-chango -- the number shrinks before your very eyes).

So this goes back to the shift that we saw in January that has resulted in what I would call the infrastructure, the security infrastructure required to secure the population. So these are the joint security stations, the combat outposts. You've all seen the dotted maps and so forth. That did not exist before. So now, when we transition to the Iraqis, we're transitioning this new concept and the infrastructure to allow them to do it. So there is some element of stand up, stand down, but it is not -- it is now focused on population security, when it was not, pre-January

We are FINALLY placing civilian security as a HIGH priority and "doing it" shoulder to shoulder with Iraqi forces on an ongoing basis.

Unlike everything else we've (theoretically) tried (while in fact playing cowboys and indians whack a mole) this might actually produce some dividends ... in a more reliable local (Baghdad) police force/presence.

Beats the hell out of running all over the place acting touch and getting blown up in Humvees ... seriously.

Hate Team Bush, Hate this war ... but, if it can be sustained, this is a good thing ... even if I thought it was to have started with "the surge" ...

I'm kinda doubtful that "Iraq" (whatever or whoever THAT is) really wants to be "allies" (BFF) with the country that invaded and occupied it .... y'know ... but we all know that they don't get to vote ...

seems analogous to some sort of reverse Stockholm syndrome ... or a rapist claiming "she needed it" -- perversely, Bush still really really thinks the Iraqis should not only "be grateful" but that they should "like" us.

pathetic, no worse, delusional.