Fighting the Jihad of the Pen: Countering Revolutionary Islam's Ideology

Al Qaeda's ideology is not new; their critique of the existing political and social order and vision for how to redeem the Muslim world builds on preexisting arguments of several 20th century predecessors who called for an Islamic revolution that would create a new order based on Islam. The persistence of revolutionary Islam suggests that these ideas need to be countered in order to strike at the root of the problem driving Islamically motivated terrorism and insurgency. U.S. efforts to defeat Al Qaeda, however, continue to focus primarily on killing or capturing the leadership, interdicting operations, and defensively bolstering the homeland and U.S. assets against various types of attacks. In order to confront Al Qaeda's ideology, U.S. efforts should focus on indirectly fostering “a market place of ideas”—the space and culture of questioning and debating—in order to challenge the grievances and solutions proposed by revolutionary Islam.     

陈瑸理“番”政策述论

陈瑸是清朝康熙年间著名清官,做过台湾县令和台厦兵备道。"番"指台湾原住民,是台湾社会处于原始状态的特殊群体。陈瑸的理"番"政策,包含着儒家文化的"民胞物与"的民本思想。他在理"番"中施仁政,与他的儒学修养有密切关系。     

Research Note: Hassan al-Turabi,Osama bin Laden,and Al Qaeda in Sudan

This research note explores the events and circumstances surrounding Osama bin Laden's stay in Sudan from 1991 to 1996. In particular, it discusses the role that the Sudanese politician, Hassan al-Turabi may have played in the development of bin Laden and al Qaeda. It draws particular attention to the role of the Popular Arab and Islamic Congress (PAIC) in the emergence of a distinctive form of Radical Islam and offers a preliminary discussion of the emergence of particular qualities of al Qaeda ideology.     

The afterlife of Osama bin Laden: performative pictures in the “war on terror”

In his interview with CBS News on 4 May 2011, US President Barack Obama acknowledged the power of images when he explained that his government would not release a photo of the dead Osama bin Laden due to moral considerations and security-related issues. How is it possible that a photo is perceived as too horrific to be published and as a powerful threat to national security? In this article, I argue that the concept of performativity helps to acknowledge the iconic power of an image as well as its discursive contextualisation. Yet, the meaning of a picture is not only discursively constituted but made possible by a performative act of showing/seeing. Empirically, I focus on pictures that refer to the killing of Osama bin Laden, based on a critical reading of three defining and prominent images in the US public discourse (that circulated worldwide): the Situation Room photo by Pete Souza, a photo-shopped image purporting to show the terrorist’s dead body and the iconic X-ing out of bin Laden on the cover of Time magazine. This reading looks at three dimensions of performative pictures: (1) their success and failure, (2) their self-reflexivity and sociability and (3) their performativity.     

The Evolution of Saudi Foreign Policy and the Role of Decision-making Processes and Actors

Abstract

Saudi Arabia has witnessed a centralisation of power in the office of the deputy crown prince, which has amounted to a shift in decision-making from consensual and deliberative to swift and adventurous, most markedly in foreign policy. This centralisation is coupled with an increase in institutionalisation. A new decision-making pattern and rising Iranian power in the region have affected the evolution of Saudi foreign policy. The Saudi crown prince’s strict handling of Shia dissidents acknowledges the perceived extension of the Iranian threat to internal security. The relationship between these two princes and Saudi political competition with Iran will affect the evolution of Saudi foreign policy in a critical manner in the future.     

The 2006 Usama Bin Laden Tape: Interpreting an Adversary

Editor's Note: This essay is an excellent example of why we should be reading and analyzing the public messages of our opponents. Too often we dismiss the statements of Bin Laden and other criminal-soldiers as pure rhetoric and propaganda. In our struggle against Al-Qaeda and other criminal-state entities it is imperative that we know and understand the leadership of ‘thine enemy’ in order to disrupt, dismantle, and ultimately defeat them.

This essay discusses the rationale behind Usama Bin Laden's January 2006 tape, released by the Al-Qaeda leader after a 13 month hiatus. The essay puts forward theories behind the timing of the release of the tape and highlights Bin Laden's changes in strategic thought in response to changes in the political landscape of the Middle East. Bin Laden has also been carefully monitoring the anti-war movement and, for the first time, urges Americans to read an American author as a means of understanding his geo-political desires for the Muslim world. Readers will also be able to place Bin Laden's January 2006 tape in the context of recent statements by Ayman Al-Zawhairi and Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi.