Talk:Al-Qaeda/Archive 2

message: Where did this business about the group "changing its name" to "Qaida-al-jihad" come from? Did they issue a press release? Reletter their headquarters? Can someone give a source for this? Graft 17:35, 18 Sep 2003 (UTC)
thread_title: The Name

message: I strenuously object to the inclusion of all these websites. What evidence is there that these are related to al-Qaeda? Can someone provide some references for these? Do they need to take up so much space in the article? They're not very important. In other words, if someone can't mount a good defense of them, I'm going to remove the whole section. Graft 21:07, 9 Nov 2003 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay... al Qaida MAY be communicating over the internet. This is very, very, very different from saying "Al Qaida had possessed several websites." First, many of those sites are down and we can't trace their content... Second, I haven't seen the chain of reasoning establishing an ORGANIZATIONAL connection between those websites and al-Qaida, other than allegation and sympathetic content. I could put up an al-Qaida news website tomorrow, but that doesn't make it an al-Qaida website, because I am not an al-Qaida operative. At the very least this section is publishing allegation as fact. Perhaps alneda really was an al-Qaida site used for disseminating information, but I think the rest of it is pretty weak, and we should at the LEAST be heavily qualifying the truth of the claim that al-Qaida is using the internet, if not ignoring it altogether lacking any substantial evidence. Graft 16:46, 16 Nov 2003 (UTC)
replies: text: The main reason that people felt that Alneda was an Al Qaeda website was because the site was used to connect to more secure servers, which may have been run by the organization. In addition, Al Qaeda claimed responsibility for two of its attacks on Jehad.net
Its really odd how persistent the guys were in trying to keep the site alive. I'm going to put a link about it in the Alneda.com article. WhisperToMe 21:38, 16 Nov 2003 (UTC)
thread_title: Websites

message: WhisperToMe, would you care to demonstrate how you know the Mossad has not pulled tricks like the one in Gaza in the past? This one incident casts doubt on every supposed "al Quada" terrorist attack in history. Each of those instances needs to be reexamined and cautions need to be added to ensure people have a neutral point of view. It is CLEARLY BIASED to remove this evidence that the Mossad DO fake terrorist activities to further the military goals of Israel. Unless you can wiggle your way out of this trap you talked yourself into, I think it's time you put that entry back where it belongs. Energybone 07:25, 26 May 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Mossad Connection

message: Many people would call any one who defends al-qaeda a terrorist,but as a matter of fact this group of people is standing infront of the american monster that has taken morals and values in its own hands and manipulated them to what suits its perverted view of freedom.Apart from the killings of civilians,al-qaeda is a ligitimate resistance against the de-moralization of the world and neo-colonialism,besides USA has killed more civilians than al-qaeda might dream of,hiroshima & nagazaki 250,000 innocent lives in a blink of an eye,Iraq and afganistan 10,000 and counting.War is hell,and al-qaeda is fighting what more than 30 muslim countries are not willing to fight,because of their american appointed puppets and their iron fists.Al-qead is a step on the road to a free palestine and a free iraq and a free afganistan,not the american version of freedom(strip bars and gambling casinos) a decent and respectful freedom,because that is what islam represents.
That's a POV. Here, we go with the facts, not an opinion. WhisperToMe 21:06, 16 Jun 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Speaking of facts, has Osama bin Laden been charged yet or simply accused of allegedly masterminding or ordering the September 11 attacks? The FBI's website still doesn't mention it, it only says he's wanted in connection to the embassay bombings and conspiracy to kill american citizens outside the united states. --Omar 11:52, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: He has not been charged with 9/11. The current wanted posters specify the charge (and, IIRC, conviction in abstentia? or am I wrong on that) that he was behind the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings. I think the high dollar award, though, $25 million from the US government, was done primarily after 9/11. Before then, I think it was $5 million. --Golbez 14:00, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)

text: Al-Qaida-backed crackers probably were behind an October 16, 2003 denial of service attack against a website called Internet Haganah (web (http://haganah.org.il/haganah/)).
I read the external link; the self-inflating guesswork of a desktop cowboy don't qualify as enough evidence to justify that "probably", at all. Can you provide some hard facts?
This page is cluttered with "maybes" and "probablys" and lots and lots of really dubious junk. This is an encyclopedia, not the Daily Mirror. Let's keep it clean, shall we? Graft 21:35, 27 Jun 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Al-qaeda represents muslim struggle. 

message: I agree with Graft, that we should be careful about defining Al-Qaida as an "organization."  The major news outlets seem to have created the image that Al-Qaida is an organizational structure, along with "top officials" and such.  The fact that there is no official name (Al-Qaida was, as the article states, a name coined by investigators, not OBL or anyone linked to him).  The problem is that this creates a simple world-view, resulting in the advocacy of unilateral action that doesn't take into account the fact that terrorist "groups" are small, funded from a variety of disparate (unrelated) sources and seem to rarely communicate; they simply seem to have a similar mission.  For example, I doubt OBL gives "orders" to any terrorists directly -- he's a leader only in the sense that the disparate groups follow his misguided principles and teachings.  They probably hear about him the same way we do -- through the media (or by word of mouth).  Is there anyone with more experience or insight into how these groups work who can help me clarify the point I'm trying to make?
    --Sarcasticninja 07:11, Aug 3, 2004 (UTC)
:I've somewhat changed my mind since then. I think we should be careful about stating that the structure is unknown, especially now - however, if you read the US vs bin Laden trial transcript linked above, you will see testimony from an al-Qaida defector, Jamal al-Fadal (nicknamed "Junior" by the fuzz), who seems to be the major source for information on al-Qaida structure. He was cited in FBI (i think) testimony to the 9-11 commission along with "other sources", which presumably are about as important as the text on the back of Cracker Jacks boxes, as having given the FBI a clearer picture of the structure of al-Qaida. I don't know what to think of his testimony, but it provides a cogent picture, names the right names, and doesn't seem wholly ridiculous. It gives a picture up until about 98? or so, when al-Fadal "defected", i.e. was caught in connection with the embassy bombings. He's a rat and a crook, the sort of low-life you'd expect to say anything to get free. Anyway, he gets quoted with some authority, he probably really WAS al-Qaida, and he lends a certain air of credibility to the claims of structure. Graft 19:56, 3 Aug 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Organizational Structure 

message: Can we dump this section? It's really shitty and POV. Or at least pare it down considerably. Graft 17:26, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  US Actions created al-Qaida 

message: An anonymous user has been changing the spelling of al-quaeda/al-quaida and usama/osama throughout the document? Was there consensus around the previous spelling? Is this change controversial? — David Remahl 12:21, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Name translitteration 

message: How can we make a list of countries that Al-Qaida has operated in? Can we add specifics? Can we show how the sources on them differ? How does a country "count"? Here is a listing based on the U.S. Department of Defense. This section was removed by Graft.
"According to the United States Department of State as of 2001, al-Qaida has operated in the following countries.
 
 *Albania    
 *Algeria    
 *Afghanistan    
 *Azerbaijan    
 *Australia    
 *Austria    
 *Bahrain    
 *Bangladesh    
 *Belgium    
 *Bosnia and Herzegovina    
 *Egypt    
 *Eritrea    
 *France    
 *Germany    
 *India    
     
 *Iran    
 *Ireland    
 *Italy    
 *Jordan    
 *Kenya    
 *Kosovo    
 *Lebanon    
 *Libya    
 *Malaysia    
 *Mauritania    
 *Netherlands    
 *Pakistan    
 *Philippines    
 *Qatar    
 *Russia    
     
 *Saudi Arabia    
 *Somalia    
 *South Africa    
 *Sudan    
 *Switzerland    
 *Tajikistan    
 *Tanzania    
 *Tunisia    
 *Turkey    
 *Uganda    
 *United Arab Emirates    
 *United Kingdom    
 *United States    
 *Uzbekistan    
 *Yemen    
  
Al-Qaida is also considered to be responsible for the March 11, 2004 Madrid attacks in Spain, and a suspected member named Lionel Dumont is suspected of laundering money while working as a used-car dealer in Niigata, Japan."
--  WhisperToMe 21:38, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I removed it because I don't find this list useful at all. Giving equal prominence to Sudan and Italy (where, as far as I know, there have been no al-Qaida attacks at all) is daft; if the list were highly detailed, I wouldn't have a problem with it, but I feel that purpose is better served by, e.g., the history section and the attacks section. Plus, given the crap floating around about how Iran "gave safe passage to" 9/11 hijackers (like Germany "gave safe passage to" 9/11 hijackers), lists like this should be taken with a huge brick of salt, especially when they come from U.S. propaganda outfits. Graft 13:09, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)
replies: text:  The idea that al-Qaeda is omnipresent, that this organisation is behind all the Islamist terrorist attacks the world is experiencing, is actually helping al-Qaeda. That in itself is not an argument for not including it in this article. However, it is a fact that there is not very much evidence that al-Qaeda is the organiser behind all these attacks, and that there is no evidence that al-Qaeda exists as a centrally controlled globally operating organisation, and that is a very important point for this article. al-Qaeda has been made into a global brand name, for political propaganda reasons which suit the interests of the Bush government. We should not collaborate in this propaganda effort, because it is factually difficult to support. See for example this article  which makes these points. - pir 14:09, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  List of countries that Al-Qaida has operated in

message: Please don't dismiss this question too quickly — I think it is a side of the story that Wikipedia should address. I've seen a number of sources which argue that "al-Qaida" is not an organization at all, but rather a rubric invented by the U.S. government to describe a disparate bunch of sometimes-allied Islamic terrorist organizations with similar religious views. One recent quotation:
:"The Power of Nightmares seeks to overturn much of what is widely believed about Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida. The latter, it argues, is not an organised international network. It does not have members or a leader. It does not have "sleeper cells". It does not have an overall strategy. In fact, it barely exists at all, except as an idea about cleansing a corrupt world through religious violence.
:"Curtis' evidence for these assertions is not easily dismissed. He tells the story of Islamism, or the desire to establish Islam as an unbreakable political framework, as half a century of mostly failed, short-lived revolutions and spectacular but politically ineffective terrorism. Curtis points out that al-Qaida did not even have a name until early 2001, when the American government decided to prosecute Bin Laden in his absence and had to use anti-Mafia laws that required the existence of a named criminal organisation." The Guardian, "The making of the terror myth"
If this is true, then it suggests that referring to al-Qaida as a membership organization, with a particular number of members and a particular internal structure, is misleading. It would also show several statements in the article, such as "Al-Qaida was established by Osama bin Laden in 1988", doubtful if not entirely meaningless. Moreover, it suggests that describing any person as a "member of al-Qaida" is dangerous; if there is no roster of members of al-Qaida, and no specific enumeration of terrorist groups that are part of al-Qaida, then such an accusation would be unfalsifiable. —FOo 13:42, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: To follow up to my own comment — The claim that "al-Qaida did not even have a name until early 2001" is apparently quite inaccurate. The first reference to "al-Qaeda" (the more common spelling) on Usenet is here, a U.S. government news release from August 1998. —FOo 14:06, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: There's a fairly specific account of the history of al-Qaida by a defector named Jamal al-Fadl, who describes the structure of the organisation at its inception in Afghanistan in 1988 and its early activities in Sudan through the 90s. While I think it's true that it's made to be somewhat more than it is, and every Tom, Dick and Harry terrorist gets stuffed into the al-Qaida sack, I think it's reasonable to conclude based on the evidence of him and other defectors/captives that there is an organisation led by bin Laden with some sort of membership. I'll take the "sleeper cell" stuff with a grain of salt, but there is certainly some bit of truth in all the lies surrounding al-Qaida. Graft 17:23, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Does al-Qaida exist?