"These people are genuinely dangerous, says Sageman, and they must be captured or killed. But they do not pose an existential threat to America, much less a "clash of civilizations."
Given enough time, they will pose an existential threat to the several hundred thousand Americans, Europeans, or Canadians who would be their victims should they succeed in carrying out a nuclear, chemical or biological attack(s) on a major western city(or cities). The fallout from such an attack(s) would include a catastrophic, long term effect on the global economy. However, the most serious consequence would probably be terrorist ultimatums of further WMD attacks unless the U.S. government effectively ceases its projection of military power outside its borders, releases all terrorists in captivity, and ceases all support for Israel.
Such an outcome definitely poses an existential threat to Sageman's hypothesis. Many terrorism experts, including some who have been critical of the Bush administration's WoT, lie awake at night worrying about attacks of this nature.
I'm hopeful that someday, many years down the road, Sageman can erroneously claim he was right. If that does occur, it will be because today, and in the forseeable future, we listened to the worriers, rather than him.
Basically what Marc Sageman is describing is a budding political movement called Fascism that has ebbed and flowed for the past 1400 years.
Posted at 2008-02-29 04:26:23 [PermaLink]