With Osama bin Laden’s death it seemed for a moment that the U.S. government and the media might begin to assess why al-Qaeda and the Islamist movement are larger, more geographically dispersed, and more active in the United States then they were at 9/11. Having treated bin Laden for more than decade as a celebrity rather than as the thoughtful leader and modern manager he was, his death ought to have sidelined the Entertainment-Tonight approach to bin Laden/al-Qaeda/Islamist analysis and allowed all concerned — officials, journalists and citizens — a chance to step back and ask why America’s Islamist problem continues to expand. Two weeks after bin Laden’s death, however, the chance of such a clear-headed assessment — like the so-called Arab Spring — seems to be fading.
1.) One kind of specious analysis, however, seems to have been skewered by leaks describing bin Laden’s hands-on management of al-Qaeda even from hiding. This is the social scientists’ pet theory of “leaderless jihad,” which — like their other fatuous theory about deradicalizing Islamists — has never been much more than a means by which social scientists can entrance naive politicians and thereby get their hands on money from the public treasury.
2.) The term “disloyal” in this context refers to any U.S. citizen who seeks — via rhetoric, lobbying, bribery, campaign contributions, or media manipulation — to involve the United States in another country’s wars or external disputes even though no U.S. interests are at risk. The Israel-Firsters certainly fall into this category, as do George Clooney and his fellow Hollywood celebrities who have helped to create a situation in Africa that will lead to war by successfully pressing the U.S., the UN, and the EC to back the theft of oil-rich lands from Muslim Sudan and give them to a new Christian state apparently to be called Southern Sudan.
