Al-Qaida’s Demands and Strategy
One of Al-Qaida’s websites published bin Laden’s last speech in his life. It said that before his people in Palestine have a peaceful life Americans cannot have a peaceful life because it is not fair that Americans have a secure homeland and they don’t. He also said that messages that they conveyed by words were ignored and that was why they used bombs. In other words if we consider how they think they will not act as terrorists. They give us a way to end the conflict and we don’t care. We think we can do whatever we want to do no matter how many trillions of dollars we have to spend.
Bin Laden was already dead and if he was alone what he said will be just a threat. However, it looks like he still has supporters who will carry his goal. Therefore we should face the reality that killing bin Laden can’t make us safer. We have to use some other ways to deal with terrorists such as negotiations.
Al-Qaida actually put down their position there. They want a piece of land that allows them to live peacefully. They also protest that the U.S supports Israel. Their demand for a piece of land is fair just like Israel wanting to have a Jewish country is acceptable. Their goal of eliminating Israel of course is too much. No matter what we should still negotiate with them, get close together but not simply ignore them. Otherwise we have to face wars that we couldn’t sustain in the long – term.
Now Ayman al-Zawahiri is considered the leader of Al-Qaida. It is said his strategy is to set up Muslim governments and control some countries. He was from Egypt where 90% of the people are Muslim and 10% of the people are Christian. That means if Egypt has an election after Hosni Mubarak stepped down, Muslim people will have a better chance to control the government. Ayman al-Zawahiri’s influence will be increased as well. How much support he got will depend on how he presents himself and what the United States policy is in the Middle East.
To promote democracy and freedom, the United States pressured Hosni Mubarak to resign. Egyptians who once demonstrated together to fight against Mubarak now are fighting each other. On May 8th 2011 another conflict occurred in Cairo that caused 12 people to die and over 100 people to be wounded. Five hundred Muslim people surrounded a Church with the excuse of an ex-Christian woman being detained because her new faith is Islam. The church meanwhile denied such an accusation. That was a very dangerous situation. If some powers want to create conflicts they can make different kinds of excuses and get what they want when people fight.
Regarding things happening in Libya, Al-Qaida first told Muslim people to overthrow Gaddafi and set up a Muslim country. All of a sudden it asked Muslim people to be against NATO’s bombing. It looks like they try to cover up something and help the rebels get support from NATO. We don’t know the background of the rebels in Libya. News from the Western world disclosed that some rebels did admit their relationship with Al-Qaida. Even though not all the rebels are supporters of Al-Qaida, Al-Qaida can still have chances to take the power eventually because they fight more desperately.
Pakistan’s government is confronting big pressure from the majorities because bin Laden was killed by U.S. Navy Seals in that country. People in Pakistan demonstrate and order their current governor and military commanders to resign. If U.S carries her faith in democracy and listens to the protester’s demands the Pakistani government will be controlled by Al-Qaida easily. The U.S government now is forcing the Pakistani government to shut down websites that support Al-Qaida. Theoretically if they accuse Gaddafi of killing rebels in Libya they should not support the Pakistani government moving to stop the protesting in Pakistan. All those protesting are reflecting peoples’ wills. It seems that the United States will lose in the process no matter whether they stop the demonstrations or not. We can’t use old concepts and old strategies to handle things anymore. We need a new way to work things out.
On the whole radical Muslims are getting stronger and they are too strong to be eliminated. To stop the conflicts the only thing we can do is to listen to their demands and negotiate with them on reasonable grounds. If there is no such grounds we have to make them. The United States can do whatever she wants to do. Can’t she?
