Good News -- Blowing Everybody Up Doesn't Make You Popular!

Well, here's some encouraging news:

Military setbacks are the least of the radicals' worries, however. Despite their continuing appeal to a segment of Arab opinion — think of young men shouting "Allahu Akbar!" as they watch endless iterations of beheadings on the Internet — Zarqawi and his followers have lost considerable ground in the struggle for Arab "hearts and minds." Their indiscriminate brutality in striking at Shiites and at Sunni "collaborators" has turned much of Iraq, including elements of the insurgency, against them, and their early November bombings of Western hotels in Amman, Jordan, sparked outrage across the Arab world. Even Ayman Zawahiri, Bin Laden's top lieutenant, felt compelled to rebuke Zarqawi, instructing him (in a recently intercepted letter) to cease actions that "the masses do not understand or approve."

I don't remember who said it originally, but the theory goes that an insurgency needs 5% active support and 90% passive support from the population. I wonder what tangible effects we might see as the Jihadis lose their base? Any guesses? How will we know if they're really losing steam? I got all worked up when Cheney told me that the insurgency was in its "last throes," so I don't want to fall into premature giddiness again.

well, "The Butcher" just got turned over to the authorities by Iraqi civilians.

The Baathist element of the insurgency has supported participation in the elections and warned AQ to back off.

Probably other stuff too.

I always thought this was the way the extremists would head. It's the endless way that 'purists' head.

Because they are 'pure' and know God's mind, any opposition is by definition godless.

it's the inisidious theories of the politicak Islamic extremism or Al-Zakarwi and Qutb taken to their logical end. Initially they thought it was ok to kill the leaders of secular muslim states because they were no longer pure... And they've made the decision that those Islamic people who don't support them can be killed as well. And just as happened in Algeria, eventually these groups turn on the people, and ultimately themselves.

As it seems nearly that the isalmic terrorist movement is a 'network' without a rigid heirarchy. So those extremists within the terrorists with the darkest & hardest to support definitions of purity will continue to act, because the higher ups can't stop these ultimately self destructive acts by orders...

unfortuneately, i think there are quite a lot of rotations down the spiral before the groups lose their steam.

Also unfortunately, for this process to work requires the atrocities to continue, and it's got a lot of innocent muslim blood on it.

Every Muslim in the middle-east already knew it, they just didn't want to say anything. Now it has been said...That terrorists are assholes, and deserve a beat down, by fellow muslims and outsiders as well.