Did CNN Get A Response From Al Qaeda?

Yemeni-American cleric Anwar al-Awlaki has posted an essay responding to a piece by CNN.com's National Security Analyst, Peter Bergen, in which he called Al Qaeda the “loser” of the Arab revolutions.Bergen said that in his previous piece, he said that Osama bin Laden must be “watching the events in the Middle East unfold with a mixture of glee and despair.”“Glee, because overthrowing the dictatorships and monarchies of the Middle East has long been his central goal,” Bergen wrote. “Despair, because none of the Arab revolutions has anything to do with him.”Bergen also reiterated his point about the outcome of the revolts, which he did not believe would be to al Qaeda's satisfaction “because almost no one in the streets of Cairo, Egypt, Benghazi, Libya, or San'a, Yemen, is clamoring for the imposition of a Taliban-style theocracy, al Qaeda's desired end state in the Middle East.” Bergen said that protestors desire a government that is accountable for its actions – one that does not abuse its population or the rule of law.According to CNN, Awlaki is “playing a leadership role in ‘Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.'” Awlaki was allegedly involved in the attempt to blow up Northwest Flight 253 over Detroit on Christmas Day two years ago. He has also been accused of inciting Nidal Hasan, a U.S. Army Major, to kill other soldiers at Fort Hood, Texas.With regard to Awlaki's essay, which he released earlier this week, Bergen says, “Awlaki makes the uncontroversial point that the regimes based on fear are ending in the Arab world because of the revolutions and protests from Egypt to Bahrain. But he goes on to assert that, contrary to commentators such as CNN's Fareed Zakaria, who has said ‘the Arab revolts of 2011 represent a total repudiation of al Qaeda's founding ideology,' rather the world should ‘know very well that the opposite is the case.'”