'What Al Qaeda learned from Mao'

[Popular Front of Judea]

Fascinating. No copyright on insurgency theory, anyone is free to use it. Welcome to the 21st century.

Al Qaeda’s strategic foundations are laid out in a variety of documents written by its ideologues and trainers. Originally produced secretly for training recruits and as a legacy for future generations of jihadi guerrillas, the documents began to emerge in the early 2000s—published on jihadist forums, stored on commercial websites, or confiscated from terrorist safe houses and training camps by local police or military.


What this body of work reveals might strike even informed readers as surprising. When it comes to strategy, close readings of the documents suggest that Al Qaeda draws its ideas less from classical Islam than from a broad array of sources in 20th-century guerrilla warfare, as well as older European and Chinese military strategists. Its books and articles refer to the ideas of Mao, Che Guevara, Regis Debray, the Vietnamese strategist General Giap, Fidel Castro, and even the somewhat obscure Brazilian urban guerrilla Carlos Marighella. They are secular and analytic, and do not rely on religious arguments as a detailed guide to action.

To study Al Qaeda’s strategic literature is to realize that we should understand it primarily as a new type of revolutionary group—one that is, in fact, less classically “Islamic” than Maoist. It is a modern ideology built on Al Qaeda’s distorted version of Islam, one that is rejected by mainstream Islamic scholars. And this deeper understanding may give us new tools in what is shaping up to be a long fight against Al Qaeda’s influence.

What Al Qaeda learned from Mao | Boston Globe (http://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2013/09/21/what-qaeda-learned-from-mao/E7Ga91ZVktjgiyWC90nJ6M/story.html)

[Comrade Jacob]

If only they learned his ideology

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

So you're telling me a CIA created entity allegedly uses material written by, if not apparently exclusively, by socialist guerrilla warfare theorists? You don't say, well, of course they do.

[Sea]

I highly doubt that Al Qaeda learned anything political from Mao.

[Khalid]

Even Finnish neo-nazis sell Mao's writings on guerrilla warfare on their webstore.

[blake 3:17]

It sometimes backfires. One of the important ideological factors in the Portugese revolution was the exposure of soldiers to Mao, Che and Fanon as part of their training for counter-insurgency purposes... Oooops.

Robert Taber's War of the Flea is an excellent study and explanation of guerilla strategy. I believe the entire first edition was bought by the US military.

Most of the movements he studies are left wing, but a couple are right nationalist.

[Nakidana]

It sometimes backfires. One of the important ideological factors in the Portugese revolution was the exposure of soldiers to Mao, Che and Fanon as part of their training for counter-insurgency purposes... Oooops.

Robert Taber's War of the Flea is an excellent study and explanation of guerilla strategy. I believe the entire first edition was bought by the US military.

Most of the movements he studies are left wing, but a couple are right nationalist.

Awesome, you can even torrent it.

Anyone else got some suggestions for newish (post 2000) books on guerilla warfare? I know khad is a pretty big critic, just looking for a fair assessment of its uses throughout history.

[piet11111]

I am not surprised they sought out the writings of experts.
There are a lot of capitalists that read marx to gain an understanding of capitalism they just dont care about changing it because they are the ones benefitting.

[cliffhanger]

There are a lot of capitalists that read marx to gain an understanding of capitalismI'm skeptical about this. I mean I'm sure they read Marx to feel like they've learned something about capitalism, I just don't know what a non-revolutionary would learn from it, anymore than how military people say they obsess about Sun Tzu or something when that's mostly vague aphorisms.

If you think about it, Marx doesn't really say much in Capital that a capitalist doesn't already know in one way or another. Capitalists make money by selling goods for more than they cost to produce, and they do that by buying labour-power for less than the worker produces. Everything else that Marx talks about is more a critique of political economy than something a capitalist would find applicable to their financial strategy. They probably say they learned from Marx but they are probably just as likely to say they studied the Bible and figured out the secrets of wealth or whatever.

[erupt]

Kennedy read both Che and Mao when he first started sending "advisors" to Vietnam; it's pragmatism.

Radical Islam isn't blind to history, and military history in particular. It's amazing they are so indoctrinated religiously.

[piet11111]

If you think about it, Marx doesn't really say much in Capital that a capitalist doesn't already know in one way or another. Capitalists make money by selling goods for more than they cost to produce, and they do that by buying labour-power for less than the worker produces. Everything else that Marx talks about is more a critique of political economy than something a capitalist would find applicable to their financial strategy. They probably say they learned from Marx but they are probably just as likely to say they studied the Bible and figured out the secrets of wealth or whatever.

And yet many capitalists are utterly confused on the causes of this crisis and how to deal with them.