Well by looking at that presentation it's obvious Al Qaeda is definately not much of a problem at all. If you look at the figures under 5000 killings in seven years, that is less than 700 a year. Pathetic if you ask me. I mean Bush has about 878 a year with his little game he is play and the year's not up. All in all he'll probably average 1000 a year. Who's the real terrorist now?

I believe N/A's statement speaks for itself as the moral bankruptcy of the Left.

I just love it how moonbats twist the meaning of words. It's very Gramscian.

And it seems like he's not counting Al Qaeda in Iraq either.

Anyhow, not to mince words, doesn't intent mean anything? Is there really no difference between what us westerners call 'collateral damage' and planting bombs on subways?

It's like they are so obsessed with social/group consequences (not to mention social engineering) and body counts that they forget the importance of the motives of the individual in determining the nature of the act. Results (dead people) are only one part of the action, not to be neglected, yet intentions and underlying motives/ideology are another.

That's why terrorism shouldn't be used in a descriptive sense (like the teen who calls his parents fascists for making him clean his room) because it has a real meaning, a meaning that takes both ends and intentions into account.

Of coure, if the victims had been in an approved category, or the attackers from a Western group (or even .Christian.) the same attacks would have been a massacre worthy responding to...

Why start with only the 1998 attacks by Al Qaeda on. Why not start with the first days of this organization which grew from the covert CIA war against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan after 1979.

After the American experience in Vietnam, in which the Soviet Union used the government of North Vietnam in a proxy Cold War against the United States, the American government first under Carter, and then more heavily under Reagan allowed a huge CIA covert war against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan to take place.

With support from Pakistan's military intelligence agency and Saudi Arabia, Mujahedin fighter camps were established in remote sectors of Pakistan and Afghanistan. About 100,000 Islamic fighters were funded and trained at training camps with CIA support and funding. Saudi Arabia brought Osama Bin Laden and some of his brothers into this conflict, and they were actually surprised to find out that they were funded by the American CIA, in this huge covert war effort.

This is how the America CIA actualy paid to establish the Al Qaeda organization. But soon after the Mujahedin victory in Afghanistan, Al Qaeda and the Taliban quickly turned antiWestern influence in opposing all Western influence in Islamic nations.

In the 1300's the Turkish Ottoman Empire was successful at defeating Christian armies and establishing Muslim rule in much Europe, Africa, MidEast. The modern Al Qaeda organization intends to once again bring Islamic rule to the world by creating a showdown between the Islamic and Christian world. It is an "end times" religious moverment with an opposite philosophy of some Christian religion "end timers".

But the problem is clear, the American government helped to establish this organization, and now has a major problem with an international threat from a fundamentalist Islamic organization that intends to create a final showdown between the West and Islam. This American support for terrorism has proven itself to have a huge mistake. It is like America created a "Frankenstein's monster" that has turned on it's creator, the U.S.

Paul,

Starting points are tough. I was considering starting immediately after Adam & Eve, but then this would have been really long. The I considered starting at the Trojan war, but it got murky as we all know it was the Greek's fault for taking in Alexandros (Paris), who subsequently "requisitioning" Helen. Or Darius, Xerxes.....

Your distortion of the history is sad. The Mujahedeen was a multifaceted group, and all of the support flowed via Pakistan. The US never supported al Qaeda or bin Laden, and the Taliban did not exist until after the US disengaged from Afghanistan.

We chose 1998 because after al Qaeda openly declared war on US. Seems like a point when it was quite clear they had it in for us.

Simply outstanding work.

This is required viewing for all of my liberal friends wh blame attacks on Iraq rather than the true source.

What is clear from some of the above defeatist comments is that there is truly a monster other than AQ in our midst. They both work together to defeat the West. Thanks for an excellent presentation! And W., please shoot harder and faster.

"Well by looking at that presentation it's obvious Al Qaeda is definately not much of a problem at all. If you look at the figures under 5000 killings in seven years, that is less than 700 a year. Pathetic if you ask me. I mean Bush has about 878 a year with his little game he is play and the year's not up. All in all he'll probably average 1000 a year. Who's the real terrorist now?"

Yes, and the war to defeat Hitler took many more lives than those Jews, Gypsies, Homosexuals and all the others who died in his camps. Why the hell did we bother, right N/A?

Jim said it best. N/A has no concern for civilian casualties at all. They are merely pawns with which to play his own little game which is "Impeach Bush", or maybe its "Defeat the Imperialistic USA". If bringing about those ends cost a million of lives, N/A would endorse it, or at least look the other way. If supporting Bush or the U.S., or even keeping his trap shut would save a million, he couldn't do it.

The truly sad thing is that we know N/A is far from alone in his twisted thinking, don't we?

Hey, N/A, I got an idea, along the "Chickenhawk" meme which you guys love so much. If the Al Queda casualties are not so bad, why don't you volunteer to be one? You could go to the middle east, and offer yourself in exchange for someone else, and they can cut your head off. Let's see you put that fat mouth where your life is.

Awesome presentation! Some people don't get it until they see it. Hopefully this will open some eyes.

There should be something like this for AQ actions in Iraq and Afghanistan too.

I should read up on this whole 'the usa created Al Q' argument. Either way, it doesn't matter much. Even if Ronnie Reagan hand picked the Al Q organisation and personally founded the taliban (or any other american president), it doesn't really make a damn bit of difference does it?

I don't really understand its relevance. I suppose it might shake those who think that the USA is the governmental personification of Christ and can do no wrong, but for us realists, it's totally irrelvant.

Dunno. Considering that one of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed's nephews was involved in the '93 WTC bombing, I think a case can be made for pushing the start point back to the early 90s, at least. Regardless of exactly when al Qaeda started calling itself al Qaeda, it's fairly clear that a specific group of people who had a beef with the US started carrying out attacks some time before '98.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramzi_Yousef

rosignol,

Trust me, I know the history. '98 was a point of clarity: a declaration of war. Could have started with '93 WTC, or Somalia, or even earlier - the founding of al Qaeda. I am interested in presenting the global fron of the IIF. But the criticism is well taken.

Keep in mind that the WTC bombings may well have been synchonized with a parallel attack on Bombay.

Brings it home.. Very well done and thanks for sharing. AubreyJ

Great work! I know it took some time to complete, and, you certainly could have gone into much more detail if you chose to.

(Boy, you get some crazy comments on here!... moonbat haven!)

I fully understand there is much more to add.

Marvin and I could have made this into an hour movie with 6 second frames as in this presentation, there is just that much violence and destruction from al Qaeda. We wanted to keep the time to a reasonable length so it could be viewed in a single sitting. This part of the reason why we set the filters as such ('98 and beyond, Major mass casualty attacks, etc.)

The best part of your work here is the decline in severity and frequency of attacks in the Western world(geographically speaking) and those countries outside that geographic area that support Wetern values vs the increase in the Muslim world(Iraq excluded. It will be interesting to see how long governments in these countries can continue to absorb them and hold on to their status as "Protectors of the Faith".

The US did not create Al Queda. There were plenty of Islamic fundamentalists who were flocking to Afghanistan to repel what they considered to be the filthy atheistic infidels from the USSR. What the US did was to supply them with arms, the most important being the shoulder fired anti-aircraft missiles. This turned the tide and ultimately the Soviets withdrew. By some accounts this hastened the fall of the USSR. Within the context of the Cold War this made perfect sense.

I would submit that having Al Queda as our number one enemy instead of a superpower that could rain hundreds of thermonuclear weapons over the US within a matter of minutes is a rather huge improvement in the state of things. In the real world any course of action taken results in a mixed bag of good and bad consequences. The true measure of evaluating any policy decision is to determine whether the benefits outweigh the detriments. Any policy decision can be criticized by focusing on the negative consequences flowing from that decision, but any such critique which completely ignores the benefits gained is inherently flawed at best, if not intellectually dishonest.

The religious ideology espoused by UBL and his cohorts existed long before the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. What their victory in Afghanistan did was to give them confidence that they could prevail against the great powers of the world. But the Soviet defeat there was one of the final blows which led to the collapse of the USSR. All things considered, I think it was worth it.

Very nice job.

Very powerful presentation. What more can be said.

>>Pathetic if you ask me. I mean Bush has about 878 a year with his little game he is play and the year's not up.

Let's not forget the Iraqi and Afghani civilian casualties. Note that nobody's really interested in these numbers. Also note that the civilian democide rate under Saddam is at least 10K/yr.

>>Yes, and the war to defeat Hitler took many more lives than those Jews, Gypsies, Homosexuals and all the others who died in his camps. Why the hell did we bother, right N/A?

None of the Allied governments gave a damn about the Jews, Gypsies, or Homosexuals. Had the German government been content to exterminate people within its own borders there would have been no war.

(/IRONY)

Note the strong USG response to de-Kulakization in Russia in the 1930s.

(IRONY/)

Not to put too fine a point on it, but embassy's and (to a somewhat lesser extent depending on which country you are in) schools, are not "civilian infrastructure" in the purest sense; since these are government installations.

I wrote an article on the War on terror and the current administrations approach to it. I believe there is alot happening that should make us worried here are two 1) Spain and London getting attacked 2) ignoring North Korea. Read my article to find out more and I'd like to here some comments. This issue is serious http://www.theobservationist.com/story.php?id=41

Troy: Your focus on Madrid and London in your comment and your article suggest that you didn't watch the presentation. I reccomend it.

What about the assasination of Ahmad Shah Massoud in Afghanistan on 9/9/2001? That was Al Qaeda, to protect their bases in Afghanistan, which they thought would be safer if the resistance leader was dead.

There was also the LA Airport shooting by Hesham Mohamed Hadayet on July 5, 2002, and two known failures, the Seattle millenium bomber, Ahmed Ressam, and Tariq Raja's, AKA Richard Reid, failed American Airlines airplane bombing, Dec 22, 2001.

Your presentation shows only successes, not failures, which we have no idea how many attacks have been prevented in the past 4 years.

I guess things could have been worse.

trantor,

Please read the entire post in conjunction with viewing the video, as well as subsequent comments by me in the post. Here is a sample from the main post:

The purpose of the presentation is to graphically demonstrate al Qaeda’s ability to conduct mass casualty assaults on a global scale. This presentation by no means documents every single al Qaeda attack. For example, the murders of journalist Daniel Pearl in Pakistan and USAID executive Lawrence Foley in Jordan were excluded, as have smaller impact suicide attacks and beheadings by al Qaeda in Iraq and elsewhere. al Qaeda's butchery in Iraq can fill a presentation of its own. Also, planned or foiled chemical attacks against Jordan, France and England, the assassination attempts on President Musharraf of Pakistan and numerous other incidents throughout the world have not been documented.

As I stated above in the comments, this easily could have been a 1 hour presentation.

An Iraqi Responds to London Blasts...Creepy or Not?

Great stuff, guys.

Excellent job.

Mere minutes before viewing your presentation a friend sent me a link to the following flash presentation with "The message is great... whatever your beliefs".

http://www.theinterviewwithgod.com/popup-frame.html

The message behind both presentations couldn’t be more different.

Your presentation is a sad, but very important reminder of the realities of living in today’s world.

Yes, that's very nice, but have you seen The Power Of Nightmares? The idea that there is an organized international network of terrorists is an illusion, meant to prevent society from falling apart so neocons can continue to rule the world.

The BBC told me so!

Madison,

"None of the Allied governments gave a damn about the Jews, Gypsies, or Homosexuals. Had the German government been content to exterminate people within its own borders there would have been no war."

You missed my point. N/A was trying to say that since the body count of AL Queda did not reach that resulting from the GWOT (ignoring his numbers are off for a number of reasons), it really was not much to worry about. My point was that was a ludicrous argument, and a coldy cynical one at that.

And whether or not the Allied gave a damn about those in the Death Camps before the war (I think you overstate the case a bit), they sure as hell cared when they saw what was actually happening to them. Whether there was any doubt about fighting a war that cost so much, I believe it was obliterated when the mounds of corpses and legions of walking dead were found there.

Very interesting presentation. Very sobering too. I've tried to track back 3 different times but it isn't showing. Thanks for the presentation.

I war is not considered just based on absorbing more casualties than your enemy. That is insane. Shockingly inflicting more casualties on the enemy is generally considered a good thing in war. The only problem with AQ is they consider any and everyone their enemy including fellow muslims that just get in the way, and certainly civilians everywhere. We dont target civilians intentionally in case you forgot.

I only viewed the video once....but did you forget to mention the bombings on the 2 russian airlines a year ago??

Very powerful presentation. It does show the insanity of what Al Qaeda is doing.

For example, WHY attack Tunisia? Turkey? Objectively for Al Qaeda's immediate political goals these attacks make no sense whatsoever. Yet, there they are. [Tunisia had hosted the PLO in exile, and Turkey denied the US the northern route into Iraq].

The utter insanity of Al Qaeda comes through in that presentation. As does it's global reach (unlike say the Tamil Tigers or IRA or FARC or other limited terrorists who concentrate on regional terror).

I personally would date the war on terror against us with the PLO blowing up airliners in Amman Jordan. Overshadowed for so long by the Cold War. But that's just me.

Paul, what you say is not entirely accurate, though well thought out. Without going into the entire Afghan-Soviet War, a couple of things you imply are different than they were include Osama Bin Laden's involvement, some factions of the Mujihadeen not knowing U.S. funding existed (their Korans were printed here) and you also assume every faction in Afghanistan during that time was anti-Western when in fact they were not.

The ones that were anti-Western after the conflict were also anti-Western before and during the conflict as well. Considering the ISI was in charge is distributing the funds including diverting CIA funds from Massoud you can hardly come to the conclusion that Al Qaida, a distant relative of the entire conflict, was funded by the CIA. Somehow though, you do.

Bill, Marvin, Joe:

This outstanding presentation was just featured on MSNBC's Coast to Coast.

Outstanding work, Gentlemen. Glad to see it's getting the attention and exposure that it warrants. Well done.

Marvin and Bill, that is a fantastic film. My hat is off to the both of you. .

I can see you've also attracted a number of leftie trolls, which really tells me you're doing good work! Keep it up.

You forgot the Al Queda slaughter of Jews in Egypt at the beach this year!!

I would submit that having Al Queda as our number one enemy instead of a superpower that could rain hundreds of thermonuclear weapons over the US within a matter of minutes is a rather huge improvement in the state of things.

...and I agree.

What can be done that would result in the US dealing with islamic militancy in general, and al Qaeda in particular, with the same determination, resolve, and bipartisanship as we dealt with the Soviets?

I fear part of the problem is that al Qaeda is much less of a threat, thus there is much less percieved need to be serious about the problem. That will change if al Qaeda ever succeeds in a WMD attack, but I would prefer it not come to that.

Actually, I think I'd rather have the USSR pointing nukes at me than Al Q.

The Russians were rational pseudo westerners. They knew they couldn't use them, and so did we. The only thing I would be fearing was an accident like mistaking a satellite launch for an ICBM attack or something like that (I remember reading a story a few years ago about this happening).

Al Q has totally irrational goals that can only be called political by the farthest stretch of the imagination. The Russians wanted to live, the Islamists want to die.

Give me the Russians any day!

Matthew, waves of Islamic extremists have being trying to assault Europe for the last 1300 years. Bizantines, Spanish, Italians, Portugueses, Germans, Hungarians and Austrians fought them in countless battles. What we see today is the way the world has been for many years. The Communist rising just froze this problem during the Cold War, but it has always been there.

A nice presentation, Bill, but I disagree in one point: there were no homicide bombers in Madrid, as there were in Kenia, Tanzania, Yemen, New York, India, Iraq, Bali, London... 3/11 was problably carried out by imitators. I'd compute that death toll among the 175 million people killed by Nationalsocialism.

Why is this so "powerful"?

The slow graphics with annoying islamic music?

The idea of mapping the attacks is certainly NOT new!

Thomas P.M. Barnett's Idea has been around for years.

Link below illustrates the "functioning core" and "non-integrated gap"

The Map

How about acknowledging this?

Great work.

I have one request: could you please translate the lyrics, and tell me the title of the song and what it means in context? (By "what it means in context" I mean culturally. For example "Waltzing Matilda" means a lot more to an Australian than just the title and the lyrics might lead you to expect if you knew nothing about that song.)

It bothers me that for all I know the tune could be a soap powder jingle. I mean, I assume it isn't, but I'd still like to know what it really is.

The music is called Muhammad al-Mustafa.

It is translated as:

O' Allah shower your prayers upon Muhammad the Chosen One, O' Allah.
O' Allah shower your prayers upon Muhammad the Chosen One, O' Allah.
Allah, Allah shower your prayers upon Muhammad the Chosen One
O' Allah shower your prayers upon Muhammad the Chosen One, O' Allah,
O' Allah, O' Allah
O' Allah shower your prayers upon Muhammad the Chosen One, O' Allah
Allah, Allah shower your prayers upon Muhammad the Chosen One, O'
Allah, O' Allah, O' Allah

It was written, and performed, by Yusuf Islam (formerly Cat Stevens). It is not a prayer or du'a but is similar (of course) to the du'a used in prayers calling for blessings on Muhammad and his followers.

Hope that helps.

Stunning presentation. Thank you very much...

One question though. You place the Beslan Middle School tragedy on this al Qaeda/bin Laden timeline. Certainly Basayev and Maskhadov are Muslim, but is that enough to link them to al Qaeda/bin Laden? If you have more information on such a connection, please direct me to it.

Cheers,

Moze,

I recommend Dan Darling's analysis on Chechen terrorists here at Winds.

Basayev and Beslan was a more difficult one to get solid data on. As I noted at The Fourth Rail in the end it came down to the suspected connections, the State Departments words and al-Qaeda's use of the incident to recruit.

Basayev is unlikely to be a subordinate to any al-Qaeda organization. He isn't taking orders. However, his objectives, tactics, funding, and support (if only ideological) from al-Qaeda and IIF types warranted it. Or so we believed.

Thank you, Marvin. That tells me everything I needed to know.

It seems that most who responded to N/A were taken with his/her assertion of the moral equivalence of Bush and OBL and proceeded with the usual indignation and ideology. -- But forget that for a while. I take it the presentation was supposed to show what a dire threat al Qaeda is. But for me, and N/A, it exposed just how weak AQ is. -- So, let's keep hitting and pressuring them to the max, but let's not overestimate the danger they pose. They pose no long-term danger; they are just a short-term nuisance, though sometimes deadly.

Jack, that's a relative statement. Al Queda is weak ... sure, compared to what? Compared to a hostile Soviet Union with ICBM and long range bomber forces? Yep, weak. Compared to a drive by by the Crips? Relatively strong.

It is easier for us to comment on more factual assertions.

Loosely coupled cells operating on their own started way before. OBL get to the head of franchise and developped it later. I remember bombs in Paris metro in 95' and of course WTC in 93'. 1995 bombing recap

Marvin, I followed the links from your post #50.

I should have expected "Al-Qaida uses Beslan attack to recruit". Still that is a really remarkable moral statement about what Al-Qaida or jihad international is about.

"Al-Qaida's latest military journal, obtained by NBC News, claims the attack changed the course of the war between Chechen terrorists and Russia, saying "the 'Reds' are humiliated. Victory is coming in an hour.""

I do not think that anyone, any military organisation, has boasted of, and recruited on the basis of, a more depraved act. And the human race has been around quite a while.

Sometimes, when I think I could not possibly be more hostile to everything these people stand for, they still surprise and impress me a little.

You forgot the Philippines. The bombing a couple months ago.

The plane bombed in 1993 (?YR) and the attempted assasination of the Pope, where the Alquada guy was stopped by crowds. And then there was another plane that had a bomb go off while taxing down the runway (it took off two hours late), again in the 1990's, two weeks after a local flight disappeared over the South china sea....NW airline now no longer parks their planes overnight in Manila after these incidents...
Yes, we have communists who kill mayors, and Moro insurgents who kidnap and kill priests and teachers and American missionaries, but the bombings, based in Manila and showing sophistication, were probably Alquada...

my father forwarded your presentation on the al quaeda war to me because we essentially agree on the war on terror and he knew i'd appreciate it, but your presentation had a gaping absence. i thought i'd forward my reply to you as well. i hope you agree and change your presentation to include all victims of terror. :

dad, thanks. that's an insightful presentation....but he missed a few things.

this same enemy has been in israel's backyard nay..their house...for years.and since the last intifada, it's been a tragic victim, much ignored by the world and obviously the creator of that website.

why does the world think the terrorists that hate them are different from the ones that are bombing israel? perhaps if we had more compassion for the victims of terrorist attacks in israel, we would have been able to recognize our enemy sooner.

but as churchill once wisely said "an appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last." we still ignore that israelis fight the same enemy, but the crocodile has gotten to us anyway.

imagine if the creator of that website had included all the victims of the same enemy who have been murdered or hurt in israel, so frequently we rarely hear it in our western news, and its rarely covered with any concern or compassion, as though israelis should "expect it"...it's very sad that EVEN NOW people still don't recognize the suffering of israelis as victims of violent hate-filled terrorists.

imagine if the creator of that website included these figures:
just since 2000 7132 israelis have been injured and 1060 have been brutally murdered by terrorists 80% of those people were civilians. this in a country of 6.2 million, that's a ratio of 1 in every 700 people being attacked by a terrorist. indeed, having visited the country several times, it's difficult not to know someone who hasn't been personally harmed or affected by terrorists. these terrorists are funded and harbored by the same countries and organizations that attacked those 16 other countries.

imagine if the creator of that website included those victims. then what? the presentation would last an hour.

then imagine if that were us and the world admonished us for protecting ourselves, our family and our country. i think we know how that feels now and we can all admire israel for doing their best in the fact of extreme adversity.

the real terrorist is an i quote 'THE STATE OF ISREAL'

the three isreal prime ministers and their major terrotist act are:

Menachim Begin took part in terrorist acts in the 1940s, including the attack on the King David Hotel which killed 91 people. Begin ordered ... the destruction of the central British administrative offices in the King David Hotel..............

Yitzhak Shamir was the operations commander, and later leader, of the Stern Gang, a terrorist group which was responsible for a string of political assassinations.
Shamir was a member of two militant Jewish underground organizations which ... were active in counter-terrorist acts against Arabs as well as sabotage against the British. ? The Department for Jewish Zionist Education (Note the use of the term counter-terrorist to disguise terrorism.).............

Ariel Sharon initiated the Sabra-Shatila massacre in which between 1000 and 3000 people (mostly Palestinians) were murdered, and now leads a terrorist campaign against all Palestinians living in the occupied territories of the West Bank
As commander of the notorious Unit 101, Sharon led attacks on Palestinian villages in which women and children were killed. The massacre in the West Bank village of Qibya, on October 14, 1953, was perhaps the most notorious. His troops blew up 45 houses and 69 Palestinian civilians ? about half of them women and children ? were killed. ? The Electronic Intifada

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