Is al Qaeda recruitment increasing or decreasing? – Poll Results #6

Beginning on May 2, 2012, the “1 Year Post Bin Laden” survey asked 208 respondents the following question:

Since Usama Bin Laden’s death, has al Qaeda inspired recruitment around the world increased or decreased?

The assumption of this question was that Osama Bin Laden, as of the time of his death, still played a key role in inspiring young men to join al Qaeda.  After aggregating all the votes, 60% of all respondents believed al Qaeda recruitment had decreased in the year since Bin Laden’s death.  Below are the results of the professional group breakdown.

Fairly unremarkable, roughly 60% of all groups thought al Qaeda recruitment had decreased while the remaining 40% felt al Qaeda recruitment had increased.  The only real variance in the professional group breakdown came from ‘Academia’ where almost 70% of professors and thinktank folks seem to feel al Qaeda recruitment is down after UBL’s death.  The ‘Academia’ voters fairly consistently believe al Qaeda’s in a tough spot regardless of the question – compare the ‘Academia’ responses here with results to questions #2, #3, #4 and #5.  If I ran the same question post-Benghazi and based on current conditions in Syria, would the results be the same?

After looking at the professional groups, I broke the results down by all the demographic questions.  The below table shows the results for each factor. Those results highlighted in green show groups selecting ‘Decreased’ higher than the overall average and those results highlighted in yellow selected ‘Increased’ higher than the overall average. Here are the results I found of interest.

  • While only 5 voters (small sample) said their primary (preferred) information source was ‘Intelligence Reports’,  80% of these respondents believed al Qaeda recruitment decreased since UBL’s death.
  • Those preferring ‘Social Media’, again, appear to still be quite worried about al Qaeda.  ’Social Media’ respondents were far more likely than average to believe al Qaeda recruitment has increased since UBL’s death.
  • Lastly, those born outside the U.S. also selected ‘Decreased’ at a higher rate than average.  The rate was only 10% higher than normal and I’m thinking its just a coincidence, but who knows.

 

Syria Support and ‘Loss Aversion’ – How do we think about foreign intervention? – 1 Year Post UBL – Results #5

Beginning on May 2, 2012, I wanted to find out two things with regards to one question.

  1. How supportive were voters to a Western intervention in Syria similar to the support provided to the Libyan resistance to overthrow Qaddafi?
  2. How susceptible were voters to the bias of loss aversion?  Much of the debate surrounding a Syrian intervention centers on the fear of military weapons and aid falling into the hands of al Qaeda affiliated individuals and groups.  Dan Ariely describes in his books, The Upside of Irrationality and Predictably Irrational, how fear of losses can loom larger than gains thus influencing our decisions with regards to risk. Having backed militias in Afghanistan that later provided the seeds for al Qaeda, the U.S. national debate with regards to backing the Libyan rebellion and now the Syrian uprising continually echoes with fears of “What if terrorists get our weapons?” – a justifiable fear.

To test these two things with one question, I’ve conducted a several month long experiment here at this blog via the “1 Year After Bin Laden” poll beginning on May 2, 2012 and a series of blog posts (#1,#2,#3,#4,#5,#6) during the months of August through October.  These blog posts used a variety of framing techniques designed to skew voting results with regards to ‘loss aversion’ testing (BTW – only @jeremyscahill - a journalist of course – called me out on my ridiculous framing of some of the questions).  The experiment and results come in two parts.

Experiment iteration #1 – Last question of the “1 Year After Bin Laden” survey – May 2, 2012 through July 16, 2012

Beginning on May 2, 2012, I distributed the “1 Year After Bin Laden” survey in a variety of venues.  However, there were two versions of this survey. Some respondents (90 in total) answered this question with regards to supporting Syria.

With regards to the current uprising in Syria, should the U.S. and European nations provide weapons, training and funding to the rebellion against the Assad regime if they can guarantee that 95% of all support will be gained by resistance fighters with no demonstrated connection to or ideological affinity for al Qaeda?

Some respondents (106 in total) answered this question with regards to supporting Syria – a question designed to frame the issue in terms of losses.  The hypothesis being those who receive the question referencing ‘loss of support to al Qaeda’ would select the choice to “not support the Syrian rebellion” at a higher rate.  Here’s the alternate question.

With regards to the current uprising in Syria, should the U.S. and European nations provide weapons, training and funding to the rebellion against the Assad regime even if 5% of all support provided would be lost to resistance fighters with a demonstrated connection and ideological affinity for al Qaeda?

Results Experiment #1: In this first experiment, I detected no sense of loss aversion skewing respondent choices with regards to supporting the Syrian resistance.  It didn’t matter which question voters received, they selected “Yes” or “No” in roughly the same distribution regardless of question context.  The overall balance of votes was 39% saying “Yes, we should support the rebels” and 61% saying “No, we should not support the rebels.”   In fact, those that received the loss aversion question were slightly more likely to select “Yes, we should support the rebels.”  I’ll have more analysis of these results below, but here is the breakdown chart of professional group votes for the Syria support question during the months of May through July.   Interesting points were:

  • ‘Academia’ voters were most likely to reject the notion of supporting the Syrian resistance.
  • ‘Military’ voters were more inclined to support the Syrian resistance even if some support were lost to people affiliated with al Qaeda.

 

Experiment iteration #2 – Single question posted at “Selected Wisdom” – August 27, 2012 through October 18, 2012

After analyzing the results from the “1 Year After Bin Laden” poll, I wondered if question wording, structure or placement made the bias of loss aversion not emerge.  Starting at the end of August, I decided to run this experiment again to look for 1) whether loss aversion was present with respondent choices and 2) if overall support for a Syrian intervention had changed since media coverage of Syria fighting became more profuse in recent months.
Through a series of blog posts on Syria and distribution of links on Twitter, several respondents (42 in total) answered this question with regards to supporting the Syrian resistance.

Should the U.S. and European nations back and resource the rebellion against the Assad regime in Syria if 95% of all support will be gained by resistance fighters with no connection to or affinity for al Qaeda?

Alternatively, some blog posts and Twitter links received answers to a different question (40 in total) with regards to their support for backing the Syrian resistance – again the hypothesis being those who receive the question referencing ‘loss of support to al Qaeda’ would select the choice to “not” support the Syrian rebellion at a higher rate.

Should the U.S. and European nations back and resource the rebellion against the Assad regime in Syria if 5% of all support will be lost to fighters connected to or aligned with al Qaeda?

Results Experiment #2: In the second experiment, despite significant changes in the intensity of the Syrian conflict, elapse of time, question framing, etc., I received almost the exact same results as in experiment #1.  I detected no ‘loss aversion’ bias.  Again, the overall balance of votes was 39% saying “Yes, we should support the rebels” and 61% saying “No, we should not support the rebels.”  A quick caveat, some of the voters to the second experiment were assuredly the same as those that voted in the first experiment. However, a significant amount were different as I used different and more dissemination platforms in the second experiment to gather an alternative sample.  I’ll post more cumulative analysis below, but here is a chart showing the results of experiment #2 from August 27, 2012 through October 18, 2012.

So, what does this all mean? I have lots of theories but a definitive answer would require more experimentation. Here are some of my initial thoughts:

  1. The crowd showed no real bias towards ‘loss aversion‘.  Looking at the table below, across the board respondents of all demographic breakdowns were generally split at a rate of 40% for intervention (‘Yes’ -Votes) and 60% against intervention (‘No’- Votes) with one notable exception in yellow.
  2. I believe the resistance to ‘loss aversion’, assuming I properly crafted the questions, results from a highly educated audience that knows a considerable bit about counterterrorism, counterinsurgency and national security in general.  Respondent knowledge of the topic helps them offset against question framing and arrive at decisions more analytically in this context.  This doesn’t mean that if you asked the same audience ‘loss aversion’ questions about the stock market, for example, that they would be equally resistant.  My guess would be I along with many of the respondents would be much more prone to a ‘loss aversion’ bias if queried on subjects for which we have limited knowledge and less data from which to offset the fear of losses.
  3. The ‘loss aversion’ question in the context of a Syrian intervention may not have worked because many I have talked to, and several respondents noted below, have a definitive ideological stance about foreign intervention of any kind.  Essentially, many I talk to reference getting involved in Syria quickly retort with “we should never get involved in these foreign interventions, look what happened in Libya (Iraq, Afghanistan, fill in the blank).”  Others will quickly respond with, “we intervened in Libya, so why shouldn’t we help out the Syrians?”  I believe individual respondent stance on foreign intervention in general overrides any bias detection injected by me through question structure.  Whether its Syria or any country, respondents have a pre-determined position on interventions.
  4. The recent U.S. support to Libya likely plays heavy on the minds of respondents and, depending on political preferences, can shape the responses to the Syria question.  The debate on Syria currently rests in a bizarre twist as I noted in a post this week.  The GOP appeared against a Libyan intervention under the Obama administration last year, but now has gone all in for supporting a Syrian intervention.  Meanwhile, the Democratic Obama administration backed the Arab Spring uprising in Libya but seems particularly reluctant to get involved in Syria before the upcoming election.  I’m curious how this will shake out in next week’s Presidential debate, and I have no idea how this shapes respondent choices to the Syria question during Experiment #1 or Experiment #2.

I’ll conclude with some last points related to the results breakout in the table below. The table shows the results by demographic attribute in Experiment #1 across both question types -”gain” and “loss”.  The results for Experiment #2 are at the bottom.  In green, I’ve highlighted lines I found particularly interesting and in yellow I’ve highlighted the most fascinating result.  Here are some final points:

  • Those identifying ‘Social Media’ as their primary information source were more against intervention on average.  Meanwhile, those that prefer ‘Newspapers’ seemed more balanced in their support for or against an intervention in Syria.
  • Those preferring ‘Television’ as their primary information source (a small sample) were ironically more supportive of intervention in Syria.  Is this because television portrayals provide more sympathy to the opposition and relate atrocities to the viewer in a different way?  No idea, but interesting.
  • The most interesting result is in yellow and relates to whether respondents live in and around the Washington DC metropolitan area.  Those residing around the nation’s capital were 20% more likely to be against a Syrian intervention than those that are currently living outside the beltway.  How about that?  What do folks in DC believe that the rest of the U.S. and world perceives differently?
  • In Experiment #2, I thought support for a Syrian intervention might go down after the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya.  However, the incident didn’t seem to change voting patterns.  In fact, the small sample of voters just before the attack were more against a U.S. intervention than those that voted after the Benghazi tragedy.

Here’s the full table, thanks to those that have voted and below the table are the additional comments provided by respondents to support their vote – some really insightful comments that define the key factors needing analysis as the U.S. sets its policy in Syria moving forward.

 

Here are the open comments submitted during experiment #1 from May through June 2012.

Here are the open comments provided during experiment #2 from the end of August through mid-October.

 

Ignatius take on Syria: “Get In There”

Only a few hours after I deliberated when the U.S. would take more aggressive action in supporting the Syrian Resistance against the Assad Regime, David Ignatius wrote an excellent commentary on the same issue referencing his recent trip to Syria.  Ignatius starts off his post where I concluded yesterday:

Left on its current course, America’s sensibly cautious policy toward Syria is unfortunately going to come to an unhappy end: The jihadist wing of the opposition will just get stronger and gain more power to shape Syria’s future.

Ignatius advocates the U.S. getting involved in funding distribution to the FSA – an argument also made by Asher Berman at SyriaSurvey.

If the United States helped coordinate funding, the Free Syrian Army would have several advantages: A better-organized opposition might defeat the regime, it would be better able to govern a post-Assad Syria and it could help the United States control Syria’s chemical weapons. That’s a trifecta — three good things in one.

Finally, Ignatius concludes with an interesting take on how the jihadists in Syria fund their operations through charitable gift packages from the Gulf.

Syrian jihadist battalions continue to raise their own money directly from wealthy Saudis, Kuwaitis and Qataris. The report to the State Department explains how this works. “The battalion rep or commander travels to Turkey, where he meets Gulf individuals or Syrians who live in the Gulf. The battalion presents ‘projects’ that need sponsorship, for example: targeting a checkpoint costs $20-30K, while targeting an airport cost $200-300K. . . . A video taping . . . is required to provide evidence of the operation.”

An interesting read….survey results of what you believe should be out tomorrow.

U.S. Decision On Syria Intervention Likely 30 to 120 Days Away

The news from Syria this past week has consistently returned the same general themes.  Here are some media reports I’ve been reading and I’ll highlight what I think are some key points with some commentary.

The New York Times article, “Rebel Arms Flow Is Said to Benefit Jihadists in Syria” notes:

Most of the arms shipped at the behest of Saudi Arabia and Qatar to supply Syrian rebel groups fighting the government of Bashar al-Assad are going to hard-line Islamic jihadists, and not the more secular opposition groups that the West wants to bolster, according to American officials and Middle Eastern diplomats.

Clarissa Ward of 60 Minutes (new Lara Logan I guess) provided a rather unremarkable post from her trip inside the Syrian resistance. A brave journey but the report doesn’t really reveal much that has not already been covered.  She does interview a jihadi leader in Syria but this was no PBS Frontline Ghaith Abdul-Ahad documentary.

The best article come from the The Guardian in their post “Syria dispatch: Rebel fighters fear the growing influence of their ‘Bin Laden’ faction.” If you are going to read one article on the Syrian resistance and its issues, I recommend this one. First, the article notes the FSA has had enough of the jihadists.

“Libyans”, muttered the rebel Free Syria Army leader under his breath, shooting the men a dirty look. “We don’t want these extremist people here. Look at them; we didn’t have this style in Syria – who is this? Bin Laden?”

Second, here’s the real danger – jihadists are uniting more than the FSA.

After more than a month of secret meetings, leaders of Islamist fighters – including the heavyweight Farouq Brigade that operates mainly in Homs province and influential Sukour al-Sham brigade of Idlib – have formed the “Front to Liberate Syria”.
“We are proud of our Islamism and we are Islamists. We do not want to show it in a slogan because we might not live up to the responsibility of Islam,” said the leader of the Front, Abu Eissa. “But we want a state with Islamic reference and we are calling for it.”

Interesting, so they don’t want to be called Islamists, Salafists or jihadists? They instead want to focus on local issues and institution of Sharia governance. Sound familiar?

Third, moderate secularists in Syria are worried about jihadists in Syria.

The Sunday Telegraph accompanied the head of the Free Syrian Army Supreme Military Council, General Mustafa al-Sheikh as he moved the FSA’s command centre from Turkey to inside Syria. They travelled nervously through Idlib’s countryside, in cars with blacked out windows, heavily armed, and with their rifles locked and loaded.
“It’s not because of the regime that we are carrying weapons. It’s because we are afraid of being attacked by the jihadists,” an FSA rebel later admitted.

Fourth, foreign fighters bring the cash.

Resistance groups that adopt a more overtly Islamist hue are finding it easier to attract financial support from abroad. Religious fighting groups are the prime beneficiaries of money and weapons donated by the government of Qatar, as well by wealthy businessmen and religious leaders in the Gulf and Saudi Arabia.

Foreign fighters from the Gulf brought lots of cash to Iraq. For a breakdown of foreign fighter donations upon arrival in Iraq, see this chart from my past research. The columns show what foreign fighters from each country contributed as a donation (first 2 columns), total cash on hand (second 2 columns) and what they had on hand in Syria (last 2 columns). The money data is confusing so read here, here, and here if you want more explanation of the Iraq foreign fighter records.  Bottom Line: If you want cash, get a Saudi recruit.

Here are my thoughts:

  • The Syrian resistance is not making significant gains against the Syrian regime.  After an initial flurry of success, the fight in many places appears to be at a stalemate.  This pseudo stalemate has resulted in….
  • An increase in foreign fighters, most of whom are jihadists.  These fighters come from both the Arabian Peninsula and North Africa and provide needed manpower, weapons and …..
  • Money.  Not only are foreign fighters bringing resources with them, but wealthy donors from Qatar and Saudi Arabia are backing the jihadists resulting in them expanding their influence in certain sectors and in many ways outpacing the Free Syria Army (FSA).
  • The FSA needs the support of the foreign fighters and the Gulf – weapons, manpower, and experience – but fractures continue to emerge.  FSA elements are now as worried about fighting the emerging jihadists in the country as they are about fighting the Assad regime.  This will distract the FSA from overthrowing the government, extend the revolution and result in even more foreign fighters being inspired and migrating to Syria.
  • Lastly, while the FSA can control certain sectors of cities like Aleppo, they still lack heavy weapons and remain completely vulnerable from the sky.

The U.S. remains largely on the sidelines. Reports suggest the U.S. is providing non-military aid to the Syrian resistance.  However, the U.S. fears providing much needed heavy weapons to Syria’s rebels as these weapons might have the potential of falling into the hands of terrorists operating in Syria.  So the U.S. and the West remain largely on the sidelines while donors from Qatar and Saudi Arabia back jihadist groups that continue to grow in Syria.  Essentially the fear that something might go wrong in the future (Terrorists getting U.S. weapons) results in the U.S. not playing a role in Syria and surrendering influence in a post-Assad Syria to those with the biggest wallets (The Gulf), while ignoring the other awful future scenario – an uncontested jihadi enclave in Syria threatening Israel to the west, undermining Iraqi stability to the east, and operating a safe haven projecting violence against the West globally.

The U.S. election continues to put the decision to further support to the Syrian resistance in delay.  The Obama administration, once criticized for intervening in Libya, likely fears getting involved in another unruly conflict (Syria) before an election and after the death of an Ambassador in Libya.  If the Obama administration wins a second term, will they begin dedicating more support to the overthrow of Assad? If so, the decision and support could come in as little as 30 days potentially.

Meanwhile, the Romney campaign has gone all in on backing the Syrian resistance despite being part of the party that only a year ago criticized U.S. intervention in Libya.  If Romney wins, his administration wouldn’t take office or likely make any substantive move before February.  If they did decide to intervene in February, would the FSA be able to hold out?  Would the FSA be completely eclipsed by the emerging jihadists in that four month period? Maybe so.

Regardless of which campaign wins, it seems to me the most useful action the U.S. could support, engineer, participate in is the institution of a No Fly Zone.  This would help put the resistance on level footing (closer) with the Assad regime and plays to the strengths of the U.S. and West as a whole.

So, the question is up to you, what do you think – cast your vote here and the final results will be published early next week. Thanks to all those that have already voted.

al Qaeda’s Stronger Again Today – Unstoppable In Fact – AQIM, AQAP

Special thanks to Bloomberg and James Walcott for their misleading article title, “Al Qaeda Affiliates Getting Stronger, Says U.S. Official.”  Walcott goes on in the article to explain that David Cohen, U.S. Treasury Department Undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, attended a London conference at Chatham House (where they apparently didn’t follow Chatham House rules) discussing the fundraising of al Qaeda affiliates.  Thank you James Walcott for the alarming title with little details.

Perfect timing for this blog as the article arose the same time I was compiling the results of the “One Year After Bin Laden” question which asked voters which al Qaeda affiliate would get al Qaeda’s donor support after Bin Laden’s death.  David Cohen said:

“The U.S. government estimates that terrorist organizations have collected approximately $120 million in ransom payments over the past eight years,”

To me, this isn’t that much money.  This equates to $15 million per year spread across numerous al Qaeda affilaites.  As I argued in January this year and a couple years back with regards to AQIM’s kidnapping schemes (and here), this illicit funding comes with all sorts of challenges.  Additionally, the “terrorism is cheap” argument propagated after 9/11 focused solely on the costs of executing a single al Qaeda attack while ignoring al Qaeda’s significant fixed and operational costs on a year-on-year basis.  While the article addresses how these ransoms are used for daily operations, the account doesn’t address how difficult and costly it is to operate in the middle of the Sahel (AQIM) or actually provide governance in rural Yemen (AQAP).  Both are costly enterprises I noted in January.

The misleading article goes on a confusing spiral guaranteed to scare and confuse a reader.

“Al-Qaeda’s core is not in the position to provide generous funding to its affiliates, such as al-Qaeda in the Lands of the Islamic Maghreb, ‘AQIM,’ operating in the Sahel, and al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, ‘AQAP,’ operating primarily in Yemen,” Cohen said. “Instead, these al-Qaeda offshoots are self-sufficient, raising their own funds and themselves providing support to the next generation of violent groups.”

“AQIM, the al-Qaeda affiliate that has likely profited most from kidnapping for ransom, has collected tens of millions of dollars through KFR operations since 2008,” he said. “It raised significant funds from kidnapping for ransom operations in early 2012, and was holding nine hostages as of the middle of last month.”

So al Qaeda’s affiliates are stronger because they don’t get donor funding from AQ’s core?  That doesn’t make sense. Being self-sufficient may make an al Qaeda affiliate independent in its operations and target selection, but self-sufficiency doesn’t necessarily make a group stronger; especially if a group, like AQIM gets involved with a fringe AQ upstart that kills a U.S. Ambassador without having sufficient local popular support.  This sort of self-sufficiency may actually represent weakness depending on the U.S. response.  Time will tell.

Additionally, this article mirrors the argument made by the AFRICOM commander General Ham earlier this year where he noted that AQIM remains the best financed al Qaeda affiliate.

In conclusion, if you read mainstream media accounts of al Qaeda, I believe you’ll be persistently confused.  In February, a casual reader would have thought al Shabaab, having officially joined al Qaeda, was on the brink of taking over the Horn of Africa and leading al Qaeda into a new era.  Today, al Shabaab defectors leave by the hour and the group’s safe haven continues to shrink as they move from conventional operations to more limited-resource guerilla tactics.

In May, news reports anointed AQAP as the new al Qaeda Central as they held territory and governed parts of Yemen. Today, the Yemeni government continues to push back AQAP and drone strikes from the U.S. engage and eliminate more and more key AQAP leaders.

So now in October, a month after the Benghazi tragedy, we are reading new hype about AQIM being the next “Getting Stronger” al Qaeda threat to challenge the U.S.  Really?  Are we in the counterterrorism punditry and media just looking for a new enemy?  Was anyone really tracking AQIM’s revenues in 2008 when they were doing kidnappings and likely receiving donations from AQ Central?  They may in fact have less resources if we could actually gain enough data to properly evaluate this question. But that story doesn’t sell advertising.  So yesterday, today and tomorrow, we’ll see that al Qaeda is “getting stronger” as we wildly pivot from one alleged al Qaeda affiliate to another.  Despite the fact we can’t even agree on what al Qaeda is or who is in the organization.  Terrorism and counterterrorism: two industries trying to find their way ten years after the attacks of 9/11/2001.

For those that continue to charge there is an al Qaeda and it continues to get stronger by the day, I ask but one question: “Under what conditions would you declare al Qaeda defeated?”  If you can’t describe those conditions when al Qaeda is defeated, then why should we listen to your analysis that al Qaeda is stronger?

My take is we should stop seeking a link between all violence in the Middle East and the subsequent labeling of it as “al Qaeda”. Again this week, @gregorydjohnsen and I were discussing the random al Qaeda linking occurring in the news between an AQAP attack on a Yemeni security official at the U.S. Embassy in Sana’a and the Benghazi attacks.  Garbage!  Continuing on this path will lead the U.S. to over-reach in its response and improperly assess threats – at a time when cyberattacks from state adversaries and criminals, not al Qaeda, may actually be the greatest threat to our national security. Analyze each attack or threat as its own entity instead of forcing everything into a dated understanding of al Qaeda 2001.

 

AQAP in Yemen Getting the Money After UBL – 1 Year After Bin Laden – Poll Results #4

In my opinion, one of the most critical questions after the death of Osama Bin Laden was where would donor funding to al Qaeda go after the death of the group’s leader?  Last year, after Bin Laden’s death, voters (40%) forecasted that Gulf donor funds would shift to AQAP in Yemen.  However, an interesting contrast occurred with ‘Private Sector’ voters, who using their experience with business and money, noted that it may instead be “Emerging Islamist Groups in North Africa amongst the Arab Spring” that receive a boost in funding.  Another interesting finding from the spring of 2011 was from the week prior to Bin Laden’s death where voters believed funding would remain focused on supporting al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan.  The implication of these two forecasts appeared clear: Bin Laden was central to drawing donor support from the Gulf.  For the full results of last year’s forecast, see this link.

A year later, on May 2, 2012, I asked the following question:

Since Usama Bin Laden’s death, the largest portion of Gulf donor contributions to extremism have gone to:

  • al Shabaab in Somalia to create an alternate safe haven for AQ
  • AQ in Iraq to counter Iraq’s Shia dominated government
  • AQ in Pakistan & the Taliban in Afghanistan/Pakistan to sustain AQ Central
  • AQAP in Yemen as a more viable group proximate to the Gulf
  • AQIM to help them exploit North African insecurity
  • Islamist groups vying for power amongst North African uprisings
  • Other

Overall, ‘AQAP in Yemen’ received the most votes across the board (40%) and the majority of every professional group.  After AQAP in Yemen, just under 20% of voters voters selected ‘AQ in Afghanistan and Pakistan’ and ‘Emerging Islamist Groups in North Africa’ –  an interesting result that concurs with the forecasts of the ‘Private Sector’ voters last year.  Essentially, voters thought the investment in an emerging al Qaeda affiliate was of equal value to backing the old original leaders of al Qaeda in Pakistan.  Here are the results for each professional category across all groups surveyed.  I went with raw vote totals for this graph and the vote totals and percentages for all demographics is below in a table.

In the following table, I’ve totaled the votes of each demographic for each terror affiliate and percentage of votes from each demographic breakdown selecting each terror affiliate.  In green I’ve highlighted a couple demographic breakdowns where the voting pattern is slightly different and higher with regards to ‘AQAP in Yemen’.

  • ‘Academia’ was more likely than the average and more likely than other professional groups to select ‘AQAP in Yemen’. ‘Academia’ was also less enthralled with ‘Emerging Islamist Groups’ than other professional groups.
  • Likewise, those that chose ‘Newspapers’ as their primary information source also selected ‘AQAP in Yemen’ at a slightly higher rate than the average.  This also makes me wonder if newspapers have been reporting on AQAP in Yemen more than other threats.  Don’t know, just a theory.

Highlighted in yellow are lines where votes were lower than average for AQAP.

  • Military voters selected ‘AQAP in Yemen’ less than any other group.  In fact, ‘Military’ voters selected ‘AQAP in Yemen’, ‘AQIM in Sahel’ and ‘AQ in AFPAK’ at roughly the same rate.  Maybe they know something the rest of us don’t know.

 

More Reasonable Discussion Challenging Anti-Drone Critics

I noted last week that @myraemacdonald had alerted me to some new debate arising in Pakistan where Urdu language newspapers discuss the utility and tradeoffs of drone engagement versus Pakistani military deployment into the tribal areas.  Well, Myra MacDonald has followed up with one of the more reasoned articles illustrating the contrasting perspectives on the drone debate.  In her article, “Living Under Drones – the anti-drone campaign can do damage too”, Myra discussed the recent Columbia University study while also contrasting it with the need for counterterrorism options.  She notes:

Much has been written criticising the use of drones, some – like the recently published study by Columbia Law School “The Civilian Impact of Drone Strikes” – raising serious questions about the secrecy of the programme and the risk of it being overused. But just as the United States stands accused of ignoring people on the ground, so too do some of the most vocal of the anti-drone campaigners in ways that can be just as insidious.

MacDonald also pushes back on the anti-drone advocates use of data to refute the legitimacy and efficacy of drones.  Anti-drone advocates continually question the quality of data produced by the government in terms of ratios of civilians killed.  However, MacDonald asserts, and I believe she is correct, that the anti-drone advocates produce equally dubious data to support their conclusions.

Commissioned by Reprieve, the UK charity whose founder Clive Stafford-Smith is campaigning alongside Pakistani cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan against drones, it is based on 130 interviews with people in the region, including victims and witnesses of drone activity. It won wide media attention, particularly for its assertion that “the number of ‘high-level’ targets killed as a percentage of total casualties is extremely low – estimated at just two percent.” This was not, however, a conclusion reached through field research – a footnote in the report acknowledges it comes from a September piece on CNN by Peter Bergen and Megan Braun.

In fact there was no field research in FATA. And of the 69 people interviewed with direct experience of drones, the majority were arranged by the Foundation for Fundamental Rights (FFR), Reprieve’s partner organisation, which funded their transport costs from FATA to Pakistani cities. No effort was made to randomly select the interviewees; nor was there a control group to check the accuracy of their statements.

I recommend all read Myra MacDonald’s piece and particularly before listening to the Center for National Policy debate “Death from Above: Drones and Targeted Killings” tomorrow (9 October) featuring Peter Bergen (of CNN) and @christopheswift - see his past work here.

 

Pakistan’s Internal Drone Debate

The International Tribune ran an interesting story lately entitled “Are drones the sticking point?”.  @myraemacdonald alerted me to the article on Twitter and helped me understand that Pakistan’s internal media and newspapers were debating the efficacy of drones and their use in comparison to Pakistan military intervention into the tribal areas.  For those familiar with my arguments on drones (#1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #7), this has been one of my central points for the past two years.  If one is against drones, then one must be for military intervention or arming of tribal militias.

In my opinion, I believe most local populations would prefer none of the three. But assuming some action must be taken against al Qaeda, I believe local populations would choose drones over the other two as they are the least invasive and least casualty producing.  The collateral damage of drones doesn’t even come close to that of military intervention and arming of militias.  Again I return to my post from July, “No Drones, No Detention, No Intervention”, where I ask the U.S. media if it’s not drones, then what options should we pursue?  I’m surprised that Pakistan may actually be having a more sensible debate on drones than we are in the U.S. If anyone is an Urdu speaker that can track down and provide analysis of the Urdu language debate on this topic, please let me know what is being said in Pakistan.  I’d definitely be interested to hear their take on why they are for or against drones and if they are against, what options they provide for going after al Qaeda, the Taliban or any other militant group for that matter.  This is an important question as our U.S. media simultaneously calls for justice over the killing of a U.S. Ambassador in Libya while also shouting the woes of U.S. drone use – ridiculous.

Here’s an excerpt from the article:

Pakistan is ‘linguistically’ divided over drones. But there is a rare glimpse of realist commentary in some Urdu writings. An article in a major Urdu-language newspaper on August 28 asked whether it was wise on the part of the army to invade North Waziristan, while earlier operations in Swat, Bajaur and Orakzai had produced mixed results. Peshawar, Lahore and Islamabad were not safe as a result of these inconclusive operations. The fact was that the Taliban and al Qaeda were not hurt by the army but by the drones, which took a heavy toll on them. The fact was also that al Qaeda’s commanders were killed by drones and Taliban leaders such as Baitullah Mehsud and Qari Hussain fell to drones.

Counterterrorism Lessons Learned from 25th Anniversary of “The Princess Bride”

I guess today is roughly the 25th anniversary of the movie “The Princess Bride.”  For those that are not familiar with this movie, I assume you’re either an international reader or suspect.  Kelsey Atherton (@the_boy) did an insightful and modern lessons learned analysis from this movie entitled, “False Flags, Piracy, Waterboarding, Deception, Accidental Guerillas and Targeted Strikes: Strategic Lessons from The Princess Bride.”  An excellent piece of work I encourage all who enjoy The Princess Bride to check out.  Here’s a quick snippet from Kelsey:

Twenty five years ago we were first warned against two classic blunders,  “The most famous of which is “never get involved in a land war in Asia*,”” but the Princess Bride has far more to offer strategic thinkers.

Before delving into lessons, it’s worth establishing that none of the strategy comes from an actual war. Instead, and much like In the Loop, the entire film concerns the machinations of a government to justify starting a war. (Unlike In the Loop, the rest of story is about resisting those machinations, rescuing a princess, and something about True Love?). Prince Humperdinck, confident of his ability to win and eager for glory, wants a war against neighboring Guilder, and with this in mind he manages to get his fiance kidnapped (and, later, [spoilers] attempts to get her killed). Now, on to the lessons!

Check out Kelsey’s analysis here.

BTW, What happened to Cary Elwes? Another lesson learned revealed in discussions on Twitter after Kelsey’s post is: Never get Cary Elwes agent as your personal representative.  His career declined steadily after “The Princes Bride.”

Also, if you’re needing to refresh your memory of the War of Guilder & Florin, refresh your memory with this map courtesy of Kelsey.

Bakos on Libya Attack – Good Read

Today, the Huffington Post published an article by @nadabakos on the recent attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya.  Nada’s article, “Attack in Libya Represents Subtle But Meaningful Shift In Threat to American Interests“, provides a needed counterbalance to the hopped up politically charged and flawed al Qaeda analysis proliferating the media after the death of a U.S. Ambassador.

I enjoy Nada’s post and it mirrors in many places my own thoughts (here and here) on how we assess and move forward in a post-al Qaeda world.  In fact, it was a Twitter discussion with Nada that inspired the title of my article from July “What if there is no al Qaeda? Preparing for Future Terrorism.”  Here’s Nada’s conclusion and I encourage all seeking an al Qaeda explanation to all current and future violence in the Middle East and North Africa to take notes.

Going forward, the U.S. needs to embrace a new calculus for assessing and responding to these loosely affiliated networks and militias, and watch to make sure that they do not coalesce into a successor to the threat posed by al Qaeda at its zenith. The tactics used in Benghazi resemble those used by al Qaeda, but, smaller in scope and scale, and mainly threaten our interests and assets overseas. Our diplomatic presence in other countries has always served us well when it’s open and engaging, but, like any other deployment of U.S. national power, incurs a certain degree of necessary risk. Withdrawing from the world is every bit as implausible as treating every militia as if it is al Qaeda.