Did you read the report? There is only a chart at the end of six pages of description about al Qaeda's umbrella network, allied Sunni extremists and other insurgent groups. And it is there as a visual aid to help connect the dots on the various factions that have coalesced into what we generally call the insurgency in Iraq.
It isn't intended to explain cultures, issues, or individual motives of the people involved. It is to aid us in identifying our enemy (“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not your enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.” - Sun Tzu) so we can destroy them.
Did you also think the Militant Ideology Atlas that Lawrence posted was naive? It was over a years worth of study of the Jihadi movement and its research compendium is a 361-page document with biographies of the subjects they studied. It was created by the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point and is the best document of its kind I have come across.
And to answer your last sentence, you left out the primary option: victory.
~Brian On Dec 31, 2006, at 4:39 PM, JimKandJulieB@xxxxxxx wrote:
The notion of complex and highly nuanced (didn't I say this before? maybe somewhere else...) cultures, issues, religious beliefs, to say nothing of actual individual people, being able to be explained in charts seems naive to me. I doubt that flattery, aggravation, or appeasement are the only options in conflict.
