When Mr. Clarke asked for citations, I assumed that he was requesting the article, a reasonable request, and you assume that he is asking for much more that perhaps would not be reasonable to request. To me, then, the request for more information was a direct response to a question dealing with the Times. To you, I assume, it was an irrelevant request, having nothing to do with Al Qaeada.
Finally, your “absurd irony” (even though I find nothing either absurd nor ironic about the charge) “that so far, no one has been able to answer my original question: In what way was Al Qaeda less than fully fledged in 1996 if that was the year that it declared war against the US?”
In fact, I did address that point. In my response to Mr. Lederer, I implicated that of course it was “fully fledged” in 1996. I note that the primary article itself contains the inconsistency of calling it otherwise in 1996, when it acknowledges terrorist activities.
Perhaps the mistake was mine for intervening in an exchange that I was not a part of. It is an annoying habit, I know. In any event Irfan, I hope this post clears things up between us and I also hope that my posts did not in any way indicate a hostility for your ideas and comments, of which I hold the utmost respect for. Continue reading “I think if we read over the past exchanges, things will make a little more sense”