Yes Al Qaeda means base but I remember reading somewhere that the CIA made a blunder when setting it up and naming it. Seems that the word Al Qaeda does mean base, but is tied to many other terms meaning via its infinitive verb Qa"ada,ie. base,down, foundation, rules,sit, squat etc.All that is classical Arabic, what any bright eyed but wet behind the ears CIA translator would know. What he perhaps didn't know was that Al Qaeda colloquially means to go to the toilet. So,how does that work as a terrorist group name? You can't call your terrorist group (or even a football team)"the pussycats" " the sensitive new age terrorists" "the tampons" no, it has to be something fearsome, striking and impossible to ridicule. "The toilet" just doesn't do it. Who is going to give their lives for "the toilet", or declare jihad in the name of "the toilet", or "the toilet' has the west quaking in its boots, who would even join a group called "the toilet" (unless they were into scatology). Another little thing is how OBL has dropped out of discussion. GWB said once that he wasn't important, it didn't matter if he were caught etc. That just confirmed to me that OBL was the Emmanuel Goldstein of our time, a boogy man to be wheeled out to frighten the children when needed.
