Recognizing The Two Fronts of al-Qaeda Rhetoric

http://rapidrecon.threatswatch.org/2007/10/recognizing-the-two-fronts-of/ ^ | Oct 1, 2007

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In The Two Faces of al-Qaeda, Raymond Ibrahim makes a successful attempt to succinctly identify and describe the two profoundly different messages al-Qaeda transmits.

One message is for Western consumption and part of a wildly successful propaganda campaign intended to cloak al-Qaeda’s true motivations in words that have a greater chance of resonating with a Western audience largely inclined toward critical self-reflection at times of crisis. That message seeks to position al-Qaeda in the minds of Westerners as simply a reactive force that is itself a victim of US foreign policy and aggression. While this is unlikely to cause overwhelming sympathy for the terrorist group, it does fuel often debilitating Western self-criticism over its own policies.

Ibrahim writes:

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