Loosing the War

“Fighting Al Qaeda involves a security side and an ideological side. The security side is successful, but the other side of combating Al Qaeda is ideological and it is not successful.”

al Qaeda's goal here is fairly clear. The present world power structure is largely built on the backs of a U.S./Saudi agreement of sorts wrt oil and investments. The weakest link is in Saudi Arabia (closer to the radicalized population) and that weakness is now being exploited. They believe if they take the present Saudi government down then they bring the U.S. down with it. Energy independence never looked so good (and the war in Iraq never looked so stupid).

clipped from www.nytimes.com RIYADH, Saudi Arabia, April 27 — Saudi security officials said Friday that they had broken up a vast terrorist ring, arresting 172 men who planned to blow up oil installations, attack public officials and military posts, and storm a prison to free terrorist suspects. Officials said that the suspects had trained abroad, in Somalia, Afghanistan and especially Iraq. The chaos in Iraq has fueled radical ideology among the region’s youth, while providing an environment for militants to train Some suspects had begun training to use weapons and others had been sent abroad to learn to pilot aircraft, though the authorities did not say what, specifically, the pilot training was intended for. “We have never actually said we have reached an end,” General Turki said in an interview. “We always confirm that security forces’ efforts are not enough. Not unless you really tackle the ideology that is inspiring these people in order to be involved in these activities.”