Al-Qaeda 1,2,3

A 10 second lesson.

Al-Qaeda-like organizations have been around for 1,500 years. Al-Qaeda takes its inspriation from Hassan Ibn Saba's Hashasheen, an underground society devoted to the demise of the Seljuk Empire through assassination and suicides. Afghanistan served as the modern day redoubt of Alamut where Bin Laden and his followers lived in reclusion and ascetism under Spartan conditions.

Al-Qaeda is influenced by the thought of Ibn Hanbal (VIII century) and Ibn Taymiyyah (XIII century) in which Jihad is of primordial importance. Naturally, the Wahhabis draw upon them as well.

Al-Qaeda has about 5,000 members and they are mostly rich capitalists from the Arabian peninsula. It's a cult of extraordinarily rich gentlemen, who are practitioners of chaos.

Al-Qaeda really doesn't give a shit about the downtrodden. Growing one's investment portfolio and building one's warchest chief enterprise. People like al-Zarkawi are wanna-be's. There is no al-Qaeda in a hellhole like Iraq. What Bush tells the Americans is hokum. And Al-Qaeda doens't care about the outcome of the US elections.

Bush to send expeditionary force into Pakistan

Update: Maybe Bush's chat with Musharef is about something else entirely. The French newspaper L'Est Republicain reports that Osama bin Laden died of typhoid a month ago. A Saudi intelligence source is said to have informed a French counterpart.

Oh this can't be good.

Le Monde's Islamabad Correspondent, Françoise Chipaux, reports that Bush has vowed to send US troops into Pakistan to hunt down bin Laden. [Big assumption that he's even there]. Pakistan Foreign Ministry spokesman Tasnim Aslam has come out and declared that the Pakistani government will not permit the deployment. Pakistan had sent 80,000 troops into Waziristan, but lost 600 men in fruitless combat with the locals. It recently threw in the towel and signed an agreement with local leaders. Bush doesn't have enough troops to do much in a rugged, hostile place like Waziristan. 80,000 Pakistanis troops weren't enough.

But the madrassas are not shut down (how could they be?). Hardline Muslims are a very potent force there and they have just won a big victory in forcing the government to implement an even harsher divorce law. Musharef is on the defensive, with a pressures from militants and discontent in the army. Musharef can't go to war against Pakistan.

Apparently Musharef met with Bush yesterday. I don't know what Bush has threatened, but he's low on manpower.