The Atlantic discovers the stupid terrorists club

The Atlantic is a great magazine, and the new issue has a ton of interesting stuff in it. But one of the articles that is given a prominent sell on the cover, with the tag "Why we should mock terrorists," is hardly news. The story, written by Daniel Byman and Christine Fair, argues that we have been sold a myth of the scary, competent, well-trained Islamic terrorist. They argue that once we recognize that most of them are incompetent porn-addicted nitwits, we can make some useful adjustments to how we prosecute the war on terror:

Current U.S. public diplomacy centers on selling America to the Muslim world, but we should also work to undermine some of the myths built up around our enemies by highlighting their incompetence, their moral failings, and their embarrassing antics. Beyond changing how the Muslim world perceives terrorists, we can help ourselves make smarter counterterrorism choices by being more realistic about the profile and aptitude of would-be attackers. 

I couldn't agree more. Except, the authors act like they discovered the fact that jihadis are mostly useless. In fact, I made this exact same point six months ago in an article for Maclean's magazine. And in that piece, I conceded that I was more or less just rehashing a point that Daniel Pipes has been making since 2005, when he inaugurated his Stupid Terrorists Club. Byman and Fair suggest we call them "nitwits", but that's hardly a conceptual advance.

Pipes was widely mocked at the time by the left-wing media for his naive and confrontational views. Turns out he was just paying attention. 

 (If I sound irritated, it is because a while ago, the Atlantic published this over a year after I wrote  this.)