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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 January 2010
ROHAN GUNARATNA
Why did al Qaeda attack America's most iconic landmarks on 9/11? I ask this question of my American friends and they tell me that al Qaeda does not like our values. I want to tell you that al Qaeda has no problem at all with your values. Al Qaeda's problem is with your foreign policy. And if we look at the founding charter of al Qaeda, it was created as the pioneering vanguard of the Islamic movement.
Al Qaeda was created for the very purpose of leading this fight. The predecessor organization of al Qaeda, known as Makhtab al-Khidamat (MAK, the Afghan Services Bureau), played a very critical role in the anti-Soviet, multinational, Afghan Mujahideen campaign, a campaign that finally led to the defeat of the largest land army at that time in Afghanistan.
In many ways the battle that al Qaeda is conducting today is an attack on the remaining superpower. The strategic threat posed by al Qaeda has been underestimated by the Americans and by their allies and friends. Specifically, the Western response to fighting al Qaeda has been an event-driven response. It must be a campaign-driven one. The current response to al Qaeda has been largely a response that I would say is called a Rumsfeld approach.
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