Gary Brecher, aka “the War Nerd,” asks the question over at exiledonline.com. He makes a compelling argument that Al Qaeda barely existed in the first place, blew its entire wad on a few dramatic actions that made it seem bigger than it actually was, and is now a ghost.

He starts by lamenting that he hadn’t expressed this idea earlier so he could have bragging rights:

There are times when you look back and wish you’d had the courage to say what you were thinking. With me it’s a spotty record: Sometimes I do, but more often I wimp out. I wish now I’d said the first thing that came into my head when I started hearing about Al Qaeda, which was, “No, it can’t be. Violates every rule of guerrilla organization.”

People are starting to see that now, starting to doubt whether there is such a thing—but that’s only because Al Qaeda has been no-showing like the Second Coming.

Here’s the marrow of his post:

By bringing Jihadis from around the world to get Osama’s blessing, Al Qaeda was giving them a short-term boost in morale and finances but pretty much guaranteeing they’d be penetrated and destroyed within a few years. And that’s what happened: a big splash on 9/11, a few aftershocks in East Africa, Bali, Madrid and London, and then nothing but cops breaking down doors all over the world to the soundtrack of Hellfire missiles from Predator drones vaporizing mud houses in Northern Pakistan.

What made Al Qaeda so scary was that they went all out, in an age where the military norm is to use a tiny little fraction of your actual power. To see that style in action, just look at Libya now: NATO has the largest common air force in the world and could make every Qaddafi-held town in Libya a column of black smoke in a few minutes, but what they actually do is hold a classic EU discussion before taking out a single tank.

Al Qaeda made its mark by using everything they had. Every contact in every country. Every dime of finance. Every pound of plastique… That sort of splurging really shocked bureaucrats who’ve spent their lives hedging their bets. And it worked, short-term; it made Al Qaeda look much bigger and more important than it really was.

This Al-Qaeda-doesn’t-actually-exist argument has been bopping around for awhile, but I’m guessing that Gaddafi gave this idea extra wings a few weeks ago when he claimed that if he stepped down, Al Qaeda would rush into Libya and set up shop.

Use any excuse too many times, and people start to get suspicious.

I’m really digging the War Nerd’s posts lately, which jump around in history from Libya to the Thirty Years’ War to why US military contractors spent so much time and money on the Harrier jet. The man knows his military.

Brend an Kiley has worked as a child actor in New Orleans, as a member of the junior press corps at the 1988 Republican National Convention, and, for one happy April, as a bootlegger’s assistant in Nicaragua....

16 replies on “Does Al Qaeda Even Exist Anymore?”

  2. The fact that Al Qaeda doesn’t really exist was explored really well 7 years ago in the BBC documentary “The Power of Nightmares.” I really recommend watching it.

    While it’s funny to watch us waste millions bombing empty mountains in Afghanistan, it quickly gets pretty sad to watch desperate Northern Alliance members dragging shepherds down from those mountains and selling them to the U.S. as “Al Qaeda” members.

  3. They were never that big, really.

    I mean total funding for ops usually was below $20k, which made the $10k wire limit inspection a total farce.

    Besides, they haven’t been in Iraq or Afghanistan for more than half a decade now.

  5. Does it even matter whether Al-Qaeda exists? Our own leaders in both parties have done a far superior job of destroying the US and everything it ever claimed to stand for than any terrorist could. In fact, they’ve accomplished all of the terrorists’ stated goals:

    1) Foreign troops out of Saudi Arabia? Check.

    2) Bankrupt the US by drawing us into unwinnable wars which will eventually cause a Soviet Union style collapse? Check.

    3) Destroy the US’s standing in the world through the daily violations of our own laws and stated values? Check and mate.

    Yes, we can thank both the Republicans and the Democrats for Al-Qaeda’s 100% raging success. (golf claps)

  6. no, GWB screwed the pooch.

    if anyone is thanking anyone, it’s al-Qaeda thanking GWB for destroying America and making us a third world nation that can’t even run lead on Libya due to lack of economic and military resources.

  7. London transit bombing type attacks are extremely easy to carry out and essentially impossible to prevent. All you need is hydrogen peroxide, acetone, drain cleaner, and some ball bearings. The fact that subsequent attacks have usually failed, or been essentially weak lone wolf attacks, shows that the big scary Al Queda poses a relatively limited threat these days. They certainly were effective on 9/11, but the response, for all it’s problems, dismantled them to a large degree. Even lone wolf attacks are rare. If there were as many motivated terrorists as some believe (or want us to believe) there would be shootings and bombings weekly.

  8. @6, don’t forget that their ultimate goal was to show that the US was a paper tiger who couldn’t defend their friends, the hated dictators all over the middle east.

    Now that part of the game is in play, and nobody knows how it will end. Potentially, our bleeding and treasure shredding in the middle east has only just begun.

  11. Of course Al Qaeda still exists. They just go by the name of the group that created them, the Central Intelligence Agency.

  12. I’d recommend readers interested in this question have a look at the excellent Pakastani journalist and author Ahmed Rashid, who’s recent book on Afghanistan and Pakistan, “Descent into Chaos,” is a masterpiece.

    Rashid has been on site all along for the rise of the Taliban, which he covered back when they were considered to be a complete joke in Afghanistan, in the early 90s.

    Rashid leaves no doubt in his detailed analysis that Al Qaeda is very real and a very serious problem, whatever distortions and lies we’ve heard from On High.

  14. @gendun, ahmed rashid is very accurate when it comes to Afghanistan. Al Qaeda At it’s begining was not so much an organization, but a classification of Islamic radical that shared similar traits. Al Qaeda exists because groups who fit this classification still exist but it does not mean that different sects don’t come and go. We have the same problem here in the US with other religions, political groups, activists, and our own Taliban. Most Afghanis don’t want to be represented by Al Qaeda or the Taliban, just as we do not want to be represented by Quran burning Christians from southern Florida. This is the line between cult, and religion. Whatever social issues make these cults attractive, that is what we need to work on. Ultimately you cannot stop terrorism with more of the same we need to take Al Qaeda out of the blogs, news, and chatter. We need to stop making them matter. If some @55 wants to blow himself up in a crowd, he needs to remain an anonymous @55.

  15. Al-Qaeda means ‘the base’; in this case –the computer data base of thousands of mujahideen trained and recruited by the CIA. The mission: defeat the Russians. So you tell me if Al-Qaeda still exists.

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