Jihadi Website and the election

More from al Qala'ah, the radical Islamist jihadi website which MEMRI cited as its evidence for the 'wilayet' theory.

"Al Islam" (creative name!), member since May 2004, writes:

"Bush declared war on Muslims and killed Muslims and continues to kill us.

"The whole world knows that, including Americans.

"What happened yesterday was that Bush presented himself before the Americans and Bush won.

"Therefore the American people support killing Muslims from jihadi terrorists [al irhabbiyyin al mujajidin] to civilians to children and innocents."

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This is entirely predictable... and still scary. The vanishing distinction between the policies of the American government and the American people has been one of the most disturbing aspects of the new anti-Americanism of the last couple of years. If this jihadist website is any indication, Bush's victory looks set to radically accelerate that process.

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Another poster offers a more MEMRI-friendly analysis (unlike MEMRI, I want to give as many sides of the story as I can find in my limited time and resources...):

Yusif al Shamri, member since October 2003, writes a post entitled "Does Bush's victory mean the beginning of the division of America into two warring nations [ummatayn mutaharribatayn]?"

Excerpts: "It is not hidden from anyone who follows American political scene that the USA is beginning to divide into two different parts, one part a Zionist Crusader religious extremist part led by George Bush.

"And another part opposing this direction.

"One of the most important reasons for the appearance of this division was the eruption of the project of bin Laden and al Qaeda, which in summary saw that dragging a great power fighting Islam into conflicts inside the Islamic world would bankrupt it economically and spiritually and would lead to internal divisions leading to its defeat and clear the way for the rise of Islam as a great power, after the collapse of the deceptive world order which is controlled by Zionist-Crusaderism and through which it controls the resourcese of the Islamic ummah, with the help of leaders funded by it corruptly....

"Bin Laden succeeded in unleashing his project which exceeded all expectations in the attacks of 9/11....

"It is clear that since that day the US has entered a tunnel of political and economic and military crises which are leading it to a great defeat, leading its reputation and its spirit to a surprising and sharp collapse, and it is an historical truth that the collapse of civilizations begins with a sharp and surprising blow....

"There is no doubt that the appearance of bin Laden's video in the heart of the American election campaign, which explained his project, and addressed the one great power from a position of strength, and which was able to compel America to build a counter-program which was un-studied... and whose results were catastrophic for America in Iraq, where it is is trapped and does not know how to escape... there is no doubt that all of this has had an effect in dividing America.

"But there remains one great question: will the victory of Bush hasten the beginning of the division of America?"

What makes this somewhat MEMRI friendly is the argument that bin Laden's project is aiming to divide America along these cultural/political lines; he doesn't say anything about the bin Laden tape having actually said that, but you could easily see how the author would see an offer to the Blue states as a clever strategic move to hasten the divide. But, given how amenable this would be to his argument, it's striking that he does not say: "as bin Laden cleverly suggested in his video...."
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So, as I've said before, you have to take all of these jihadi websites with a grain of salt. They are interesting windows into jihadi arguments, in the same way that reading Free Republic is an interesting window into wingnut arguments and worldviews. These aren't authoritative commentaries, nor do they necessarily reflect a dominant or widespread opinion. But if we're going to be taking them as important, we should look at all that they have to say and not just cherry-pick those that support a partisan position - which is, regrettably, the MEMRI way.

Comments

[Scott Martens]

Are the BBC "The Power of Nightmares" documentaries going to be broadcast in the US? They just finished here, and they strongly suggest that Al-Qaida is Osama bin Laden, a few of his buds and some inexpensive consumer electronics. The documentarist shoots big holes in the idea that Al-Qaida is something under someone's personal control or sufficiently tightly bound to actually take orders from anyone. Actual actions have to be planned a year or more in advance, funds have to be scrounged, new suckers have to be found and indoctrinated...

I don't have any independent way of verifying any of it, but it suggests that bin Laden is not much more than a media front designed to play to the Arab equivalent of the Freepers and to keep the Americans acting nuts. Any offer of a "truce" should therefore be taken with a kilo of Morton's Kosher, and outside analyses of Al-Qaida plans, strategies and brilliant understanding of American politics are probably even less credible.

[Nur al-Cubicle]

Scott, some of us have been watching tPoN. Every time I see Richard Pipe's ugly puss, I feel that I'm been subjected to cruel extra-terrestial psyOPS torture. Not to mention the segments with Michael Ledeen. Yes, the series is daring and praiseworthy---and certainly never to be seen on US commerical television.

[praktike]

No way that'll be allowed to play in the U.S.

[Diana]

I completely agree that we should be tracking the BS of the jihadi wesites just as we keep track of our own wingnuts. But aside from this site and Juancole.com, where am I going to find any real info about then?

[Nur al-Cubicle]

Here's another log for the fire.

Two US missiles were targeted on and destroyed the brand new, Saudi-financed Nazzal hospital in Fallujah. The hospital had not yet been inaugurated but had been equipped with beds, medical supplies, surgical equipment, etc.