If they don't care, why should we?

Anthony Shadid and David Kirkpatrick have an article in The New York Times about the aftermath of the death of Anwa al-Awlaki:

Until about two years ago, few in Yemen or the Arab world had even heard of Anwar al-Awlaki, the American-born propagandist for Islamic radicalism whose death President Obama celebrated as a major blow against al-Qaeda. “A dime-a-dozen cleric” was one response, by Gregory Johnsen, a Princeton professor who studies Yemen. Another: “I don’t think your average Middle Easterner knows who Anwar al-Awlaki is,” said Emad Shahin, a scholar of political Islam at Notre Dame University.
While Western officials and commentators saw the end of Awlaki as another serious loss for al-Qaeda, a very different reception in the Middle East was the latest reminder of the disconnect between American aims and Arab perceptions. In a region transfixed by the drama of its revolts, Awlaki’s voice has had almost no resonance.
“I don’t think this will really get people’s interest, I can’t imagine why it would,” said Shadi Hamid, director of research at the Brookings Doha Center. “It seems totally irrelevant to how Arabs view the world right now. They don’t care about Awlaki.”
It is a remarkable feature in the Arab world these days how little al-Qaeda actually comes up in conversations. Even before the eruption of revolts and revolutions, a group that bore some responsibility for two wars and deepening American involvement from North Africa to Iraq was losing its significance. When Osama bin Laden died, his killing seemed more an epitaph for another era. As is often remarked, the events of 11 September seem a historical note to much of an Arab population where three in five are younger than thirty.
In that atmosphere, many saw Awlaki’s death as an essentially American story: here was a man that American attention helped create, and its Hellfire missiles killed, in a campaign born out of American fears of homegrown militancy. What distinguished Awlaki was not his ideas or influence but his American upbringing, passport and perfectly idiomatic English.
“When the Obama administration and the U.S. media started focusing on him, that is when al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula pushed him to the fore,” Johnsen said, referring to the group’s Yemeni branch. “They were taking advantage of the free publicity, if you will. And any stature he has now in the Arab world is because of that.”
Another analyst, Michael Wahid Hanna, a fellow at the Century Foundation, echoed the idea that Awlaki’s fluency in English generated more interest about him. “The US focus on Awlaki was a function of his language abilities and their understanding of his role as a recruiter and propagandist. If recent events can be said to further marginalize violent rejectionists such as Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahri, then there is very little room for a virtual unknown such as Awlaki to command any serious attention.”
Hanna said that was even more the case with the Arab world having plunged into what he described as “this transformational juncture”.
Given the enormity of political turmoil that has toppled or threatened leaders across the region, many in the Arab world appeared to see Awlaki’s death not as a turn in the battle between the United States and al-Qaeda, but rather as a twist in the dramas of popular uprisings in Yemen and five other states. Commentators evaluated his killing mainly as a potential factor in the Obama administration’s relations with Yemen, where pressure on President Ali Abdullah Saleh to step down has intensified. “To the White House: This will not change our call for the departure of the Yemeni president,” was the headline in the Saudi-owned newspaper Asharq Alawsat.
Some feared Saleh would use the killing to try to convince the United States that he remained an essential ally in the battle against al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Others hoped that the American perception of a defeat for al-Qaeda might encourage the Obama administration to turn its back on Saleh.
“For Yemenis, they are much more likely to see this in terms of the domestic drama,” said Sheila Carapico, an expert on Yemen and professor at the University of Richmond. “ al-Qaeda does have some role to play. But the standard narrative in Yemen is that Ali Abdullah Saleh cultivated al-Qaeda for a long time.”
Analysts are debating how much of an operational role Awlaki might have played in the group. One view is that Awlaki was more important as a source of inspiration than as a vital facilitator for attacks: Awlaki’s words appear to have touched a chord with a series of independent freelancers like the American Army officer of Palestinian descent who opened fire at Fort Hood in 2009, or the Pakistani-American who last year attempted to set off a bomb in Times Square. Those cases helped stoke national anxieties about a new wave of homegrown militants, evidence of which still seems incidental.
Whether the interest in his words was a cause or a symptom of their motivation to violence is, of course, impossible to answer, like the related question of whether they would have acted without him. But he is not unique in his role as the American voice of al-Qaeda recruiting. United States counterterrorism officials say there are as many as one hundred English-language sites offering militant Islamic views.
Samir Khan, a Saudi-born American who moved to Yemen two years ago and was killed along with Awlaki, produced Inspire magazine, an al-Qaeda publication aimed at English-speaking Muslims. Its issue celebrating the tenth anniversary of the 11 September attacks included an interview with Adam Yahiye Gadahn, an American convert and al-Qaeda supporter, also based in Yemen.
Johnsen argued that al-Qaeda would continue to try to court potential “lone wolves” inside the United States, as Awlaki did, because they cost little in training or organization, for a big potential payoff in attacks. But others in the Middle East suggested a turn toward audiences in Europe and the United States seemed symptomatic of their flagging audience here.
Assassinations of top leaders have done little to diminish the pull of militant organizations like Hamas in the Palestinian territories and Hezbollah in Lebanon, organizations with mass constituencies, extensive charitable outreach, and pervasive grassroots networks. But then al-Qaeda shares almost none of those attributes; so amorphous it sometimes seems more a state of mind.
“It doesn’t really matter who leads Hamas,” said Hamid. “The organization is much stronger than the sum of its individuals. It probably does have more of an impact with a group like al-Qaeda, which is losing support, hemorrhaging support. It needs all the leaders it can get. It needs all the members it can get to stay viable.”

Rico says we'll just have to start killing the members, as well...