In Bin Laden’s Papers, Columnist Observes Successful U.S. Policy
Thursday, March 22, 2012
Thursday, March 22, 2012
In Bin Laden’s Papers, Columnist Observes Successful U.S. Policy
Documents taken from the compound in Abottabad, Pakistan, where Osama bin Laden was killed suggest that the terrorist leader felt a shift in how U.S. policymakers talked about al-Qaeda succeeded in undermining the terrorist group. Washington Post columnist David Ignatius, who was allowed access to select documents, writes that “bin Laden’s biggest concern was al-Qaeda’s media image among Muslims…. The al-Qaeda brand had become a problem, bin Laden explained, because Obama administration officials ‘have largely stopped using the phrase “the war on terror” in the context of not wanting to provoke Muslims.’”
Other documents from the compound describe al-Qaeda’s media strategy and suggest that bin Laden lamented the killing of Muslims by his followers.
Learn More
John Brennan, the White House’s counterterrorism advisor, explained the rationale for the administration’s shift away from the “war on terror” in a May 2010 speech.
The White House’s National Security Strategy, also released in May 2010, explains, “This is not a global war against a tactic—terrorism or a religion—Islam. We are at war with a specific network, al-Qa’ida, and its terrorist affiliates.”