to what degree does al qaeda actually exist?

I thought the entire point behind the organization of groups like Al Queda was that they were decentralizied coalitions with similar aims and some amount of cross-pollination in terms of funding but no strong, direct ties?

does it even exist in this sense, though?

if so, can anyone be al qaeda by deciding they are al qaeda? and wouldn't that make it a completely subjective and essentially meaningless identification?

Not meaningless. Aligning yourself with a cause means becoming part of that cause, whether they hand out membership badges or not.

It seems that the first level is shrinking and the second level is growing. But I doubt anyone really knows.

it's amazing when you hear about how much iran helped out with the whole afghanistan thing. the whole world was in love.

http://www.biografiasyvidas.com/biografia/d/fotos/descartes.jpg

then we wandered away and they started coming back, and thus we have afghanistan as it currently is.

It's kind of like how there are Starbucks stores and then there are those Barnes & Nobles and random delis that serve Starbucks coffee.

x-post

James Miller, 34, pleaded guilty in Sarpy County District Court to five counts of possession of child pornography.

District Judge David Arterburn dismissed the remaining 91 counts at the
prosecution’s request. Miller, who was a youth football coach in the Millard
Athletic Association, was confronted in July by a parent and another coach about images on some fliers.

Miller allegedly told the parent he had been looking at child pornography on his computer and accidentally printed explicit images on the reverse side of some of the fliers. The sign-up was for a football camp for boys 12 to 14 years old.

Each count of possession of child pornography is punishable by up to five years in prison. Sentencing was set for April 6.

Why is that on this thread again?

An Islamic group in Algeria has changed its name to al-Qaeda after getting the approval of Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda leader, according to a statement posted on the internet.

The move on Friday by the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) marked the latest attempt by Islamic groups exploiting the ‘al-Qaeda’ brand name and follows the establishment of regional branches in Saudi Arabia and Iraq.

The GSPC, a strong opponent of Algeria’s secular government, said it was adopting the name al-Qaeda organisation in the Islamic Maghreb.

“We had wished to do this from the first day we joined [al-Qaeda] but we wanted the permission of Sheikh Osama, may God protect him. This obstacle has now been removed,” the statement, which was signed by the GSPC and dated January 24, said.

In the summer of 2009 the two brothers designed a clever and macabre plot that came very close to what would have been a devastating blow. The younger brother, Abdullah, traveled to the Saudi border to pose as a defector to Prince Muhammad bin Nayif, the chief of Saudi Arabia’s counterterrorism agency. Abdullah had passed through security by putting a small bomb—designed by his brother—up his rectum. The prince allowed him into his study and embraced him. Moments later, Abdullah’s cell phone rang, and the detonator fired. “Abdullah’s body absorbed most of the blast as the explosion went straight up, separating his head from his body and blowing a blood-spattered hole in the roof,” Johnsen writes. “Somehow bin Nayif, who had been standing less than a yard away from Abdullah, survived the blast.”

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/dec/06/jihadis-yemen/

clever ass bomb, guys

do unsuccessful suicide bombers still get to ascend to paradise

just the same as all the others do

doesn't that strike you as an incentive problem? nobody would run an investment bank on that basis

not every investment generates big returns. sometimes they blow up on you.