Tired Old Memo: Al Qaeda Threat Overblown; Urgent New Memo: Al-Qaeda Threat More Complex

The left has been fond of telling us that al Qaeda no longer poses a threat to us and in fact just yesterday the current occupant of the White House said it was really no big deal. Just shrug it off. Besides, we don't want to fuel anti-American extremism with our behavior, as preached here.

In 2008, in his book “Leaderless Jihad,” Marc Sageman, a psychiatrist and former C.I.A. officer who has long studied terrorism networks, wrote that Al Qaeda was in decline, to be replaced by dispersed terrorists for whom it provided mostly inspiration. The new generation of extremists, he believed, would be less skilled and would likely pose less of a threat than the network responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks.

Dr. Sageman said he saw no reason to revise that judgment today. The plots of the last year should be carefully analyzed and the findings used to improve counterterrorism, not turned into fuel for thoughtless anti-Muslim panic and discrimination, he said.

“If we overreact and upset 1.5 billion Muslims,” Dr. Sageman said, referring to the global total, “then we’ll have a lot bigger problem on our hands.”

Fast forward to today and what do you know, we've got an election to win, so it's time to panic, everybody!

Three top Obama administration officials in the fight against terror said Wednesday that the al-Qaida threat to the United States has grown more complex in the past year and underscores the challenges of pinpointing and blocking terrorist plots.

In remarks to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Wednesday, Michael Leiter, director of the national counterterrorism center, said al-Qaida in Pakistan is at one of its weakest points organizationally.

Nonetheless, said Leiter, the terrorist group remains a capable and determined enemy that has proven its resilience over time.

"Groups affiliated with al-Qaida are now actively targeting the United States and looking to use Americans or Westerners who are able to remain undetected by heightened security measures," said FBI Director Robert Mueller.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said al-Qaida has inspired an array of terrorist groups.

"We are all seeing more diverse activity" by a more diverse collection of groups, said Napolitano.

"The threat is still all too real," committee chairman Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., said as the start of the hearing.

If I didn't know better I'd suggest they're instilling fear int he public just six weeks before an election.

Wasn't that the mantra every election cycle during the Bush years any time terrorism was mentioned?

Just watch: The Obama media will dutifully parrot these threats today after years of downplaying them while Bush was president.

Mueller Predicts Terrorists With Nukes

Of course, such a proclamation will be met with ridicule on the left, he'll be accused of stoking fears, they'll question the timing (to distract us from Alberto Gonzales!) and say none of this would ever have happened had we not launched an illegal, imperialist war for oil.

Do I know these people or what?

FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III yesterday said that it was only a matter of time and economics before terrorists will be able to purchase nuclear weapons and that the world's law-enforcement community must unite to prevent it.

"Our greatest weapon is unity," Mr. Mueller said at the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism law-enforcement conference in Miami. "That unity is built on intelligence and interagency cooperation. It is built on the idea that, together, we are smarter and stronger than we are standing alone."

Unity. What a concept! Would be nice if we had some in this country, nevermind around the globe. Yet when you have a party hellbent on destroying the President and all those around him, notably the chief law enforcement officer in the land, unity is a pipedream. I honestly believe some on the left wouldn't mind seeing cities in smoldering ruins if it meant political harm to George W. Bush.

Mr. Mueller said the economics of supply and demand dictate that someone, somewhere will provide nuclear material to the highest bidder, and that material will end up in the hands of terrorists. He said the al Qaeda terrorist network has demonstrated a clear intent to acquire weapons of mass destruction, noting that Osama bin Laden sought to buy uranium in Sudan in 1993.

But, he said, al Qaeda is not the only concern, adding that the United States faces threats from other terrorist cells around the world and from homegrown terrorists not affiliated with al Qaeda but who have been inspired by its message of hatred and violence.

"Several rogue nations -- and even individuals -- seek to develop nuclear capabilities," he said. "Abdul Khan, for example, was not only the father of Pakistan's nuclear bomb; he peddled that technology to North Korea, Libya and Iran. Khan was one of many to prove that it is indeed a seller's market in the so-called atomic bazaar."

Speaking of Pakistan, things appear to be looking bleak for Pervez Musharraf, as reported today by Eli Lake in the New York Sun.

As a political crisis boils in Pakistan, American analysts both inside and outside the government are expressing new doubts that President Musharraf will be able to hold onto power through the summer.

Over the past month, the military regime in Islamabad has faced a rising threat of violent jihadis in its capital, as well as the struggle between the president and the suspended chief justice of the country, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry. The twin challenges have led some analysts in the American intelligence community to begin questioning whether Pakistan's military, traditionally General Musharraf's most reliable ally, will support the current regime for much longer.

A Musharraf exit could deal a stinging blow to America in the war on terrorism. President Bush has lavished the Pakistani leader with arms sales and low-interest loans while keeping mum on his spotty human rights record. The logic has been that the former general, who himself came to power in a 1999 military coup, had dismantled his pre-September 11, 2001, policy of supporting the Taliban and would be the best possible option for American interests in Pakistan.

UPDATE: I noticed this item from the Washington Post about Mueller using a corporate jet. Priorities. Forget about being nuked, let's hound the guy over this instead.

Also check out After the Bomb at the New York Times. Ironic how a newspaper that never saw a national security secret it wouldn't leak is now concerned with the fallout, so to speak.