Making Peace With Al Qaeda

[SoDesuKa]

Watching karate opponents bow toward each other the other day, I realized that it makes good sense to respect your enemy. One of the ways we lost the Vietnam war was that we underestimated the Viet Cong's courage and commitment. We should have learned from the 1968 Tet offensive that they were not going to give in. Instead the war dragged on at a cost of 30,000 more American lives.

We've underestimated the discipline and patience of Al Qaeda. They wait for their opportunities and they don't force things. It's a mistake to call them irrational or fanatical. They understood, for example, that Paul Johnson was not really a civilian - he was part of our privatized military. Decapitating him was no more "barbaric" than what our surrogates are doing on our behalf.

Sooner or later we'll negotiate with Al Qaeda. We'll sit down with them - as we did with the Vietnamese - and hammer out a settlement.

[wtmusic]

1. If you disrespect your enemy

it only makes them stronger. Excellent point.

There is considerable reference to this in "The Art of War". Respect and honor are not valid concepts for this administration.

[disillusioned]

2. until then

how many useless deaths will occur while we spasm in fits of patriotic fervor?

I swear, people must be viewing this thing like a fake TV war.

[Tamiati]

8. World Social Problems

I frimly believe that as we move into the global world economy that their are many social & economic problems that we will need to deal with....However, first we must get our ducks in order to continue to be the great leader that we have been in the past....

We should not be so arrogant or selfish to think that we are the only sophisticated people worthy of being in leadership positions, many people from many countries have been educated right here in the USA & share many of our qualities

ANYWAY, I wanted to share this with all of you, it seems that all countries have problems with honest reporting in the media......
& many are trying to address this....


This is from Al-Jazerra http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/093D5749-FBF1-485B-8B73-039F86F3ECFE.htm
Al-Qaida leader, captive killed
Saturday 19 June 2004, 8:52 Makka Time, 5:52 GMT

Saudi state TV said al-Muqrin was killed by the police in Riyadh


Related:
American killed, car bomb found in Riyadh
Westerners in Saudi face new threats
British journalist killed in Saudi Arabia
Bloody end to Saudi hostage crisis

Shock hangs over Saudi Arabia a day after local security forces say they killed the kingdom's al-Qaida leader, Abd al-Aziz al-Muqrin, accused of masterminding the grisly killing of an American citizen.

Saudi state television broadcast pictures on Saturday it said were of al-Muqrin and three other dissidents.

All four had been involved in recent attacks on foreigners in the kingdom, it said. The television also said 12 people suspected of involvement in the violence had been arrested and were being investigated.

However, a statement posted on a website which regularly published purported al-Qaida statements said that al-Muqrin is not dead.

"Following the lies ... about the death of Abd al-Aziz al-Muqrin, we affirm that such allegations, spread by the tyrants in Saudi Arabia, are intended to undermine the morale of the mujahadin on the Arabian peninsula," said the statement.

The authenticity of the statement could not be confirmed.

But al-Muqrin's death has been verified based on the pictures, forensic tests and family identification, Saudi political analyst Zuhair Harthy told Aljazeera.

He dismissed the website statement, saying they were trying to create a "media tempest" to shake what he said is the triumph of the Saudi authorities.

Saudi security official said a witness noted the licence-plate number of a car from which Paul Marshall Johnson's body was dumped just outside Riyadh on Friday and informed police.

Police stopped the car at a petrol station in central Riyadh and a shootout ensued in which al-Muqrin, Rakan Muhsan Muhammad al-Saykhan - the second most-wanted Saudi fugitive - and three other fighters were killed, said Saudi officials and Washington.

'Morale booster'

Saudi officials are hard pressed
to halt the wave of attacks

The killing of al-Muqrin, 31, would be a coup for the Saudi government, which has been under intense pressure to halt a wave of attacks against Westerners in the kingdom.

"The killing of al-Muqrin would raise our morale after the gruesome murder of the US victim Johnson," Saudi journalist Khalid Salih al-Shashri told Aljazeera.

"Johnson's beheading has gripped the Saudi public in a sense of grief," he added.

Late on Friday Johnson's captors killed him after a 72-hour deadline for the Saudi government to release al-Qaida prisoners passed. Pictures of him decapitated were posted on www.ansarnet.ws.

The Saudi government had rejected the captors' demands.

Success questioned

Political analyst Munthar Sulaiman said al-Muqrin's death did not indicate a success for Washington's "war on terror" since the group he headed was logistically well organised and the death of its leader would not harm it.

The US is not keen to withdraw from Saudi Arabia or give up its interests in the Middle East including Riyadh, he told Aljazeera.

"This act is to heal the hearts of believers in Palestine, Afghanistan, Iraq and the Arabian Peninsula"
statement issued in the name of Falluja Brigade of al-Qaida in
the Arabian Peninsula

Washington may reduce the number of US citizens in the kingdom, especially the secondary staff in the embassy in Riyadh, in addition to advising them not to leave their residence, said Sulaiman.

Suleiman said Washington had reiterated its commitment to its "war on terror" and its cooperation with the Saudi Arabian authorities.

Series of attacks

Johnson, 49, was an employee of defence contractor Lockheed Martin, which manufactures US helicopter gunships. He was an engineer that repaired Apache helicopters and worked in the kingdom for over a decade.

His severed head was shown on a website on Friday. The photographs and a statement, in the name of Falluja Brigade of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, appeared after Johnson's wife went on Arab television and tearfully pleaded for his release.

A purported al-Qaida tape claimed
another killing of a US national

"Let him taste something of what Muslims have long tasted from Apache helicopter fire and missiles," said a statement which accompanied the pictures.

"This act is to heal the hearts of believers in Palestine, Afghanistan, Iraq and the Arabian Peninsula," it said.

Johnson was the latest victim of an escalating campaign of violence against Westerners that aims to drive foreign workers from the kingdom and undermine the ruling royal family.

He was seized the same day that dissidents shot and killed American Kenneth Scroggs in his garage in Riyadh.

Scroggs worked for Advanced Electronics Co., a Saudi firm whose website lists Lockheed Martin among its customers. The office number on Johnson's business card was for Advanced Electronics.

The same week as Scroggs' death, dissidents shot and killed another American, Robert Jacobs, and Irish citizen Simon Cumbers in Riyadh.

[merh]

39. That is the problem, it is viewed as a fake t.v. war or a video game...

The mainstream media has not covered the true brutality of the war, whether they are allowed to or they just don't want to or both.
(In his interview of M. Moore last night Lauer seemed pissed that Moore had actual footage of the violence, as if he was jealous he got the real footage. It was so petty.)

There is a recruitment commercial, I believe its the Army's, that looks like a video game, tantalizing the play station junkies to join up to play their real games. It is disgusting and it should be banned by the FCC (if it our country's admin was really interesting in protecting its youth). Sure we ban cigarette companies from gearing their ads to our youth, but that commericial is much more criminal than any ad a cig company go ever dream of. War is a video game.

I am so angry at the hypocrisy of this administration, I could spit, and I do cry, daily!

[slackmaster]

3. The VC's goals were well-defined and in retrospect reasonable

Could someone please explain exactly what AQ wants to accomplish? It seems to me they want to purge the entire middle east, at least the Arabian peninsula, of all Western influences.

The VC sought control (or self-determination depending on your POV) for one country.

[AlCzervik]

6. I think thats exactly what they want

no westerners living or visiting the middle east and no Saudi Royal family. They also want westerners to stay out of the Israeli conflict.

[Tamiati]

19. DO YOU REALLY BLAME THEM??

for wanting to purge the western influence?? By their standards, we are immoral, greedy, selfish & controlling.

We do not allow for their personal "religious" beliefs, as we believe we have the right to persecute those who do not hold our same "christian" attitudes.....

Matthew 7:1-5 Judge not, that ye be not judged. Read for further instruction...

Yet, we seem to have forgotten what those beliefs really teach us. The great teacher & saviour of "christ"-ianity certainly did not advocate use of force, or might to teach these priniciples.....

Matthew 12: 30-31, (30) You shall love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all your soul, and with all you mind, and with all your strength: this IS the first commandment.

(31) The second IS like, namely this, You SHALL love thy neighbor as yourself. THERE IS NO OTHER COMMANDMENT GREATER THAN THESE.

I am not a very devout or religious person, I do not go to church regularly (there seems to be so much hyprocrisy within organized religion) ....but, I do believe in the teachings of the master....Jesus the Christ.....I try not to judge others for their beliefs but influence thru my "walk" so to speak, we are not perfect in any sense of the word, but we must continually try to achieve some level of perfection each day.....

Certainly our NATIONAL LEADERS should look at & examine their thoughts & actions at this point in time....QUITE HEAVILY!! The events as they are unfolding could develop into something more than we have even bargained for or considered...

ONE MORE THING

WISE WISDOM TO LIVE & GROW BY IN THIS OUR JOURNEY OF LIGHT

COMMANDMENT NUMBER ONE: (of any truly civilized society)is this:
LET PEOPLE BE DIFFERENT!!!

[slackmaster]

24. Their fanatical behavior has no place in a civilized world

Yes, I do blame them. They're fanatical freaks, assholes.

The misdeeds of our national leaders do not excuse the murderous tactics of AQ. This is the 21st century. The economy is global. There is no room in this world for isolationists.

By their standards, we are immoral, greedy, selfish & controlling.

And their attitudes about women, Jews, atheists, etc. are...?

[Tamiati]

42. No justification

For our behaviors to stoop to their level...to use force to "reckon" them to our way of thinking??

As my Grandma used to say (& sometimes it works) You can draw more flys with honey than you can vinegar.

My point is that we should be setting the example, not by warring with the "fanatics"

[Taverner]

73. I agree

They see the other (jews, women etc) as less than human. Negotiating with them would include sharing that view with them...

[Tamiati]

77. It was Not that long ago

in our past that women, blacks & any other who did not fit neatly into the box were treated just as poorly.....

Man, as a whole is inherently (I dislike using this term) evil....for centuries women were considered less than equal & persecuted, tortured physically, raped and treated as objects.....

So now all of a sudden we are civilized, explain to me how this could happen to us....but expect no less from the Arab countries to evolve??

[Taverner]

80. Sorry I have no tolerance

for intolerance. And I never will.

[NewEmanuelGoldstein]

120. You know

Christianity and Islam share the same roots as religions? They're both offshoots of early Judaisim, & early middle eastern beliefs. In fact Jesus is in the Koran.

[indigobusiness]

44. welcome to DU...Tamiati

Your words are well taken by me.

I am much like you in my spiritual make-up. I believe it is a fundamental human duty to pursue wisdom. Wise words are self-evident, it makes sense to pay attention to them.

What are your Archeological leanings?

[Tamiati]

68. Leanings

to biblical archeology & the ancient history of man. I study this as I really believe that from mistakes of the past we could learn so much, then I try to apply them in this crazy mixed up world that we call home.

Thanks for the welcome, and the reply....:)

[indigobusiness]

71. You add to the dialog here.

I am always gratified by words that fall gently on my weary mind.

re:Archeology... I've always been fascinated by the origins of human culture and the history of man, but troubled by some of the conventions of Archeology. For me, many Archeologists are glorified grave robbers, while some of the men of new ideas are branded heretics. Some of the new discoveries are shaking the foundation...
I like that.

Cheers.

[Tamiati]

86. Archeology in Iraq

Thanks for the cheers....I am not about ego at all...just understanding...

Yes, the origins of archeology were "glorified grave robbers", much information was destroyed in the techniques (or lack of) employed at the time. More recent techniques are much more precise & encompass greater care..

I would like to say that the archeology that we are destroying in Iraq is what many experts consider the heart of ancient man and the beginning of civilizations .... Ur(Mesopotamia) About 6200-6500 years ago between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers near the Persian Gulf & Babylon(The Hanging Gardens in the ancient city King Nebuchadnezzar II, and of course Sumer (3000 BCE).

Many of our laws and beliefs today still stem from the ancient law of Habarbi which included such rules of conduct as Human Rights issues and more.... "back at least until 1740 B.C. when King Habaraba concatified his laws against unfair trials, torture and slavery. But you know, Habarabi's codes applied only to his fellow Babaloniyans, they didn't apply to his archenemies the Assyrians, you could enslave or torture Assyrians all that you liked. It took almost 4, 000 years, that long for the world to recognize that what was required of us was not a document guaranteeing rights to ourselves and our own tribe, but a document guaranteeing rights to our enemies". Dr. William Shultz - Amnesty International
http://www.uwm.edu/Org/UN/HR/EVENTS/speech.html

It is shameful that these remnants of man & who we are is being systematically destroyed by scuds, and other military means.

[indigobusiness]

123. The loss is incalculable.

Who can guess at the historical devastation and the artifacts/treasures/clues that were lost as a result of the Iraq war?
Sumerian clay tablets tell a story that, perhaps, THEY would rather not be told.
The cradle of civilization has become a deathbed...and maybe the beginning of an end, of sorts...how's that for irony?
Zoroaster, Hammurabi, Nebuchadnezzar and George Bush...what doesn't fit?

Thanks for the link.

Do you ever look at the work of outlaws like Maurice Cotterell and Graham Hancock, Robert Bauval and John Anthony West? I have been won over by the skaters of the edge and have lost much respect for the accepted dogma of academic Archeology. I believe much of our history is about to be retold, revised, and clarified.

[Just Me]

133. Wonderful to have another who pursues "understanding",...

,...in lieu of obsessing with an "ego"!!!

Welcome!! :hi:

Perhaps, someday,...humanity can understand its own ills such that it ceases being one of the most destructive forces on the face of this planet.

[Raskolnik]

67. Hell yes you can blame them.

The people in Al Queda are not the victims of oppression, they use those victims for funding and to put a sympathetic face on their unquestionably evil goals. They aren't working for the common Muslim, they are fighting to oppress those people with their medieval form of fanatical Islam. Nuts to that, I say.

I have no problem at all in judging the idealogy, goals, and methods of Bin Laden and his associates as having no place in the civilized world.

[Tamiati]

69. However,

this is has been going over for over 2,000 years....it's an old battle one that can not be easily solved, similar to the Hebrew & Palestines.....

People have fought for their ideologies since the dawn of time......
Until our recent age of technology, the ways of war & the battles were matched fairly evenly ....now, however we have created powerful weaponary, we can even manipulate sound waves, microwaves and of course we have invented nuclear weaponary.....that certainly takes any & all war to a new & much different level.

We as the leading power of the world, should advocate more peaceable means to resolve these conflicts, rather than flexing our mighty "arm" of justice as we see fit....

What makes our leaders feel that we should jeapordize our soldiers in this?? Had we not had shady dealings with these countries, and maintained our integrity we would not have pissed off so many 3rd world countries.....

but really, let's face it.....it was never about the poor oppressed people of Iraq or anything of that nature.....

It WAS about controlling one of the last & vase resources of OIL that lie under Iraq. GW & his corporate elites desire to maintain there "status pro quo", they have no real interest in the human factor.....

[Raskolnik]

122. I think you're mixing up issues there.

The fact that W is doing the wrong things to fight Al Queda (namely invading Iraq, declaring a war on "terror") does not change the fact that they *should* be fought.

I realize that religious conflicts are not a new invention, but having a small group (like Al Queda) with the possible ability to kill huge numbers of people anywhere in the world is a relatively recent development.

You are right when you say that as the most powerful nation on earth we should be advocating the more peaceable solutions, but there is NO evidence to suggest that Al Queda is interested in any sort of compromise that we would be able to live with. They are not fighting for a state of their own, or to right injustices, they are fighting to be able to enslave millions of Muslims under their radical ideology.

[Just Me]

135. Is that what they are doing? I just do not know.

I have nothing but information fed to me by primarily my government concerning this group's ideology or mission or crusade or whatever.

Have they published their vision or stated their cause?

I don't know anything, really, about this group.

[Raskolnik]

137. Yes you do. Judge them by their actions when in power.

When they had the run of the show along with the Taliban in Afghanistan, what resulted? They created an incredibly backward, brutal regime. They got to do what they wished, and what they wished was to install a fanatical form of religion as the absolute power. There simply isn't room in the world any more for their type of ideology in practice.

I understand your skepticism about any position that W takes, but it NOT just our gov't that has put out information on Al Queda. Independant journalists, human rights groups, and just about every other state in the world agrees about what these people represent.

And that's what is so frustrating about W's incompetance: he *should* be putting our resources into fighting Al Queda, but all his fuckups just make it that much more likely that we'll wake up to a mushroom cloud in New York some day.

[Booster]

72. I had this discussion with my Mother today....

and basically told her to put herself in their shoes. We attacked them and are daily blowing arms, legs, heads, etc. off their children and doing it in the name of our God who told Bush to free everyone, because our God is right and their's is wrong. What the Hell would we do if the tables were turned and some country invaded us and started doing the same thing. The biggest mistake (one of them) that Bush made was to refer to this as a crusade - dumb ass.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

4. What will defeat al Qaeda

is for moderate and progressive Muslims to resist the sway of the Wahhabist fundamentalists and to take back Islam from those who would distort it in hate and intolerance. This is starting to happen here in the States, but it is harder in places like Saudi Arabia. I think with the increase in terror attacks in the kingdom may make the royal family re-think their support of Wahhabist doctrines and schools which have gone a long way towards producing the terrorists.

What the US can do is respect Islam and support moderate and progressive Muslims and truly support those interested in democracy in countries where democracy has been suppressed. I also believe it would behoove the US to at least change the impression one gets that it is a servant of the Isreali government and Sharon. I'd like to see the US supporting the moderate Israelis who, along with Palestinians, have hammered out a peace accord which, up to now, has been largely ignored by the world community.

[Hoping4Change]

18. Its not just an impression that the US is a servant to Israel.

The US has set aside the little neutrality it ever had. To gain any credibility in the region it has to do more than just tinker with impression management.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

21. The US has chosen to go with the warmakers

and not the peacemakers when it comes to Isreal. The way to gain credibility is to bolster those Israelis and Palestinians who are sitting down together to work out a viable way to live together in peace.

[elf]

5. you can't sit down with Al Quaeda,

it's not a homogeneous group!

There are so many splitter groups, not connected to each other.
It's more like a mind set, a dogma of religious fanatics and foreign haters. Or just free the Muslim world from the "unfaithful".

We've been there in our entire world history!

Scary times.....we can't solve this with weapons

[ElectroPrincess]

11. religious fanatics?

Are you talking about folks here or within the Middle East. Remember that we invaded Iraq. That spurs on home grown terrorism like it would if, say China invaded the USA.

I think we know what would calm down the Middle East: 1) whatever it takes get the hell out of Iraq ... leaving with our best efforts to promote a peaceful turnover; and 2) be *even handed* and actually take an active and productive role at brokering a lasting peace between Israel and Palestine. Now the above would be a very good start... in fact, I'd venture to guess that the frequency of terrorist attacks would drop significantly IF we stop INVADING COUNTRIES and giving Israel MONEY and WEAPONS to destroy the Palestinians.

[Baltimoreboy]

12. Do you honestly expect " lasting peace between Israel and Palestine?"

What gave you that idea?

[elf]

17. I'm so much with you

everything you said, you said it for me (my Engl. is so poor)

Of course I didn't mean the religious fanatics here, I meant those in the Arabic world.
But you are right again, you'll find those fanatics here and there and everywhere!!
The thing is, how powerful will they get?

[Karenina]

64. Naaaa, Duuu Elf!!!

Die Amis verstehen einfach nicht. Al Quaeda has no resemblance to the top-down structures with which they are so familiar. Their media has fashioned a boogey-man with Osama or Sadr or whoever the BIG BLACK VILLAIN of the day is (an archetype easily grasped in their racist society) and have NO POINT OF REFERENCE other than their owned flawed model for how things are organized in other cultures. One can no more "make peace" with Al Q than one can conduct a "war" on a noun. It is NOT ONE THING and cannot be confined in a box.

Und Du hast rechts. 100%. Weapons and violence are USELESS.

[frankly_fedup2]

7. Well, It's good to be optimistic about it all . . .

however, I feel that would only happen in a perfect world. And, unfortunately, we don't have one of those.

They are well educated, wealthy, and believe in their cause. They want us just as dead as they want all the Jews in Israel. Maybe even more than they want the Jews.

I don't sense any compassion from the terrorists. I mean they are willing to kill other Muslims with their suicide bombers. This is an abomination in the Qua'ran. Their Qua'ran must not have those pages in it.

I have read some of their Qua'ran and just like our own Bible, a lot of things can be interpreted to justify their "jihad". Just like Jerry Falwell states proudly that all Jews will go to hell or will not get into Heaven unless they accept Jesus Christ as their Savior. Just like the Qua'ran states that they are to give their enemy a chance to convert to Islam, praise the profit, and swear Allah is the one and only true God. If the enemy does not, then it is okay with Allah and the profit Mohammid (PBU) that they kill this person as they are "infidels".

Look it up. Allah wants the "infidels" dead. Also, Allah feels this is the only justifiable murder there is . . . killing the "infidels."

This war will never be over unless everything and everyone goes back to 600 a.d.

Hey, Maybe we can get "Bill & Ted" to have another "Excellent Adventure" and save our butts. (Yeah, Keanu could do that for us).

:nuke:

[TheFarseer]

9. agree with one point, disagree with the other

yes we should have a grudging respect for Al Queda. They have shown to be very commited and resourcful, however, I don't think there will ever be peace with them. What do you think we could do for them to make them stop wanting to terrorize us? and don't say Isreal, that is only a small part of this. To stop this we probaly just have to wait about a hundred years until their religious fervor dies down and try to contain them in the meantime.

[Hoping4Change]

20. The importance of a solution to the Israeli/Palestinian

conflict is not that it will dissuade AQ but rather it will reduce hostility of moderate Muslims.

[Baltimoreboy]

10. You might

Most of us will not -- ever.

They are terrorists. I don't deal with such as them.

[ElectroPrincess]

15. Then you will be destroyed ... generation after generation.

Haven't we learned ANYTHING from Israel's continued failures. Dammit we don't know that all these folks in Iraq are "terrorists."

We're being used: Now the Bush Administration labels *anyone* or *any group* who don't agree with their form of democracy as TERRORISTS. No, this is bullshit! I won't play that game.

It's time to take a deep breath and open communications. Also, as I stated above, we KNOW the basics of what the Middle Eastern PEOPLE want from the West.

[Baltimoreboy]

25. I don't plan on being destroyed

Nor do I consider everyone in Iraq a terrorist. The terrorists are ones who deliberately blow up ordinary people to make a point. Al Qaeda is a terrorist organization. We can never make peace with them. Nor should we try.

[indigobusiness]

47. Few people plan on it.

It is generally the result of human folly.

[Tamiati]

91. Open Communications

I like the way you think ElectroPrincess....I too agree open communications, any ideas how we can get this idea up the ladder??

I won't play that game either......Patriot I & II is a great threat to our own freedoms....I have written my representatives, & senators for what it's worth.....

Bill Moyers in one of his speeches (bless this man) has called for organization of the people......how is the simple question I pose???

[Deja Q]

26. You know, this might just shock you, but they see us as terrorists too.

They fear of us what we fear of them.

Maybe they pulled a "Bush Doctrine" by pre-emptively attacking us? (and * didn't help when letting it happen on purpose, that much has been PROVEN.)

Unfortunately, once the violence starts, it's incredibly difficult to stop.

We're all animals in the end, that much is abundantly clear.

So let's kill them all. We're better, right?

[Baltimoreboy]

27. Than al Qaeda? Yes

We are better.

[Deja Q]

30. Why are we better? Give me substance behind the jingo and I'll listen.

Look at Abu-Gharib. Those traitors in uniform have cost the US a lot of credibility and have only enraged loads of people, including those we call "terrorists" because WE ARE JUSTIFYING THEIR CAUSE.

We're better? BULL SHIT.

Corporate dominance around the world. Exploiting others (not to mention our own) for the wealth of a small handful. This is not showing the world we're better.

We're better? BULL SHIT.

* was given advice from Clinton and freely didn't bother to listen. Some of it included information on terrorists.

We're better? BULL SHIT.

* was given lots of warnings about 9/11 months before it happened. He blatantly ignored them.

We're better? BULL SHIT.

The richest country on Earth, held by a few people. More people go into poverty, have no health care, live in 3rd world conditions thanks to the psychological terror and offshoring imposed by CEOs (who in turn don't give consumers lower costs, which is supposed to be the end-result of this "trickle down" MYTH) and others who run this country toward its own citizens.

We're better? BULL SHIT.

We helped Saddam and Osama in the 1980s. We STILL don't even know what prompted the WTC attacks despite 3 years of "give 'em justice", though everything points to the secret energy meetings and other hush-hush events put on by our joke of an administration, or rather the OUTCOME of those events being the ever-typical pro-American-screw-the-world policies.

We're better? BULL SHIT.

I could go on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on, but I think you get the damn idea. We're not better. We just have better technology. We're just as much animals as those we hate.

Now I just gave you some reasoning behind my claim. It's your turn to pony up.

[Baltimoreboy]

31. Not sure whether to laugh or cry

The mere fact that DU exists for you to post your complaints is one of 1,000s of reasons why America is better than Al Qaeda.

[Deja Q]

34. Short and sweet, I stand corrected. Now when * removes those freedoms,

will you be able to maintain your statement?

[Baltimoreboy]

35. Bush lacks the power to do so

Nor will it happen.

[Deja Q]

37. Patriot I happened. Don't underestimate them one bit... Patriot II...

The "Patriot II" domestic security act easily could too.

Everybody was in typical knee-jerk mode after 9/11 that Patriot I got through with only one dissenting vote. Since then, Patriot I has arguably been used for non-terrorist related cases. (The DMCA has also been used in unrelated cases, so I wouldn't be surprised when the Patriot I act gets abused. And if it hasn't yet (hah), it undoubtedly will. http://www.aclu.org/SafeandFree/SafeandFree.cfm?ID=15903&c=206 )

The P-II bill could quietly be attached to a totally irrelevant bill and passed that route.

Don't be so confident. With * in power (and how he got there), it's quite clear that we shouldn't underestimate him at all.

Nobody can be trusted anymore, it's as simple as that.

[Tamiati]

89. Thanks for that

I could not have said it better.....

I as much as anyone question any authority by my inherent nature, but I also know that we NEED as a people to believe somehow need to learn to trust again in someone or something or where will we be???

I for one to not look forward to anarchy, the thought even scares one such as me.......

[Just Me]

143. Yup. I watched scary stuff attached to omnibus bills,...

,...parts of P-II did pass per that route.

Notwithstanding the power-mongers and brokers,...I still believe trust is possible. It's sorting out the the true patriots from the self-serving, greedy "evil-doers" that is paramount to building a common foundation towards trust.

These are such difficult times.

[shraby]

83. Bush did nothing when

the head of the Dept. of Education called teachers a terrorist group. What is going on with the Patriot Act and its applications is exactly what went on in Germany between 1936 and 1940. The government got more and more restrictive in small increments. Don't kid yourself if you think our freedoms will ever be what we had pre 9/11/2001. Brush up on your history!!

[Tamiati]

43. So true

But are we not at risk now under Patriot Act, & Patriot II that we could be in jeapordy of losing these very freedoms which we hold dear.

Yes, this is the greatest country in the world!! Our country has much to offer in many respects, but lately it seems we no longer have a voice in the big picture...are opinions are not being heard. But are we better human beings than they, unequivocably no.....we as a country just have a better "machine"......

That is what I think is the most important issue....to raise the awareness of our people to find the common grounds and work on solutions to these world wide problems......FAST, else all could really be taken from us.

[Raskolnik]

125. You are not correct.

I'll give just a few reasons why we are better than Al Queda:

1. Half the people I went to school with were women. They get to do that and have jobs and own property and vote and get divorced and have birth control.

2. My neighbors and I are of different religions, and to date the local gov't hasn't come by to kill either of us.

3. I can go to the library and check out books. Books!

4. We (the US) has created art and technology that have bettered the lives of millions and millions of people around the world.

For all our problems, we are a great society (with very real shortcomings). We have a history, and to a lesser degree a present, that hasn't always lived up to our ideals, but we have nearly always moved in the direction of increasing liberty. That is no small accomplishment.

Al Queda, on the other hand, wants to turn the knob back at least a thousand years on the civilization dial. Screw that, I don't have to tolerate that at all.

[Lestat]

13. People like them don't deserve respect.

They deserve to pay.

[Deja Q]

28. We all deserve to pay & I fear we all will. This one-sided bull must end.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=1818678&mesg_id=1819101

We all have to grow the fuck up. Until then, NOTHING will ever change for the better. Both sides will act violently and be seen AS terrorists by the other side.

Is that what you want?

Of course, how can we trust them given what's happened? And how can they trust us?

Indeed, how do we trust our own government?

We don't.

To any of the situations.

We're all going to pay in the end. We've approached armageddon as a species before. But those were the games of governments. What is happening now is being done by the actions of PEOPLE, on both sides.

[Lestat]

29. Well then...

go and try to sit down with those terrorists and negotiate peace. Let's see if they'll listen. :eyes:

[Deja Q]

32. I thought I implied that they wouldn't. Just as we obviously wouldn't.

We're rather stuck in a quagmire now. * has made the situation so much worse that a peaceful situation may be decades or centuries away, assuming humanity lives that long.

:eyes: right back at you, honey.

[Lestat]

38. So...

what do you think we should do? Sit there and take it? Let the terrorists attack us?

I don't think so.

[ContraBass Black]

14. Not respect, but wariness.

The Arab world as a whole is whom we need to start respecting.

[Jack Rabbit]

16. I doubt that

EDITED for typing and grammar

In time, you may be proved right and I wrong, but your case hardly seems plausible, even to a committed lefty like your humble servant.

As far as Osama is concerned, the only good American is a dead American. It doesn't matter to Osama if G. W. Bush is President or if Dennis Kucinich is; it doesn't matter whether the American in question is Ann Coulter or Noam Chomsky.

Negotiation would assume that Osama respects Americans as much as we should respect him. In the sense you're using the term, he doesn't. The Vietnamese Communists, on the other hand, weren't out to disrupt the American way of life outside Saigon. They wanted us out of Vietnam, not dead. The Americans and Vietnamese respected each other at least enough to let the other go its separate way after the conflict.

Rather, I believe that what respect means in this case is an appreciation for that which the enemy is capable. Few Americans commanders had that kind of respect for guerrillas in Vietnam. This contributed to the defeat of the Americans in Vietnam. Mr. Bush and the neocons have no appreciation for Osama's strengths or the frustrations of the common people in developing nations, nor does Osama have any respect for America's (as distinct from Bush and the neocons).

As for the kind of respect of which you are speaking, that is lacking in Osama as much as it is lacking in Bush. Both Osama and Bush see the other and what the other represents in terms of a an absolute, cosmic evil. It's as if instead of pursuing the white whale, Captain Ahab is chasing his own shadow and the shadow pursues him as well.

Thus, I do not believe that replacing Bush will impress Osama or make any difference in his willingness to negotiate with Americans. He has no such willingness.

Replacing Bush with someone who can appreciate the realities of the modern world, someone who is capable of respecting what Osama can do rather than just dismiss him as the spawn of the Devil, will put us at a greater advantage in our struggle against him. As unpleasant as it is, that is a struggle we cannot afford to lose.

[ElectroPrincess]

22. Well written :-)

All that I would add to your well considered post is that we, as Americans, must be careful to not get caught-up in rhetoric within this so called "War on Terrorism."

Terrorism is a tactic carried out by humans. These people don't have an Army and Air Force, therefore, they recruit poor disenfranchised young men (and some women) who are feeling hopeless - those easily misled. Yes, these acts are horrific, but are the *only viable means* at their disposal to counter an organized military. If someone invaded our country, would we consider acts of Terrorism?

If you judge terrorism by the fact that innocent people are killed as a result of military actions, then collateral damage is "state-sponsored terrorism." These mutilated peoples' families don't give a damn, that we (the USA troops) didn't mean to kill innocents. Their loved one's are dead, and in THEIR EYES we are also terrorists.

Please consider these groups "our enemy." Because they use terrorism as a tactic, does NOT make them any less human than the rest of us. Again, how can we rich, far too complacent, Americans honestly claim with 100% certainty that we would not resort to such methods if that's the only means to drive out an occupying force from the USA?

[Jack Rabbit]

23. Thank you

I would also agree that we should not get too caught up in the rhetoric of the "War on Terrorism". Rather than a war on terrorism, we should revamp it to be a war against specific terrorists.

Bush has defined this "war" as one with undifinable goals and no clear standard of victory. That, I believe, is intentional.

Endling the Endless War by Jack Rabbit (Democratic Underground, March 20)

[SoDesuKa]

33. Al Qaeda Wants to Talk

We're told that Al Qaeda is irrational, that nothing will appease their blood lust. But this interpretation is put out by people who don't want to negotiate with them, people who are out for total victory over Al Qaeda.

I say, let's pull back from insistence on total victory over Al Qaeda. They want to change U.S. policy, and it's possible that we may be able to accommodate them.

We shouldn't wait until they do something really colossal, when we'll have to negotiate with them. The World Trade Center attack is only the beginning. It's their calling card, their statement of qualifications.

Take these people seriously. Open up a back channel with them. Ferchrissakes, talk to them.

[Jack Rabbit]

36. They do?

That's news to me. Do you have a link?

[elf]

41. They don't want to negotiate

we had that in Germany in the 70th with "Rote Armee Fraktion" (red army fraction).

They have their dogma and want to change the world the way they see it! Nothing else counts for them.

They all work at the same pattern.

The International community has to find another way. But they have to do it together. And BTW it's not possible to start a war. These groups are not a united nation of terrorists. They are groups with lots of independent splitter groups all over the world.
After 911, they all are on their own mission under one goal!

Sad but true:-(

[Deja Q]

40. Despite my previous posts, I concur with you. A thoughtful post, yours was

There will always be people so dead-set in their beliefs, religious or otherwise, that they will go to such barbaric lengths. They must be fought.

(of course, we also have to be free of impurity or else we're just as flawed - I do maintain that ascertation, however.)

[indigobusiness]

45. I believe you are wrong.

I believe Osama opposes our system and ideology, and not individuals. He doesn't seem to celebrate the destruction of innocents. He just views us as our leader views him. It seems to me he believes our ways are harming the world in general and seeks to undermine them and bring them down. The blood of people just is just an ugly part of any war.

Where are the peacemakers? The war process is failing.

[Tamiati]

95. Peacemakers??

Indigobusiness, I have been posting much on this message board to all & any of the peacemakers herein.....

WE are the peacemakers, WE ARE the peacemakers......WE shall be heard somewhere by someone who has more power than we in this board.

Love to organize, but again how???

Any & all Ideas & Comments welcome that will help us to accomplish this goal .....

LOL

[indigobusiness]

126. I posed that as a rhetorical question.

But am always happy to make people laugh...I guess it's the clown in me.

I grew up in the 60's when great people like John Lennon, Muhammed Ali, Martin Luther King, etal. stuck their necks out, individually put their life on the line for their devotion to the idea that peace is the only way.

I've been asking 'where the are the peacemakers?' since before the first bomb fell in Afghanistan. The question is an indictment of the state of the planet. While many good, conscientious souls marched, protested, and tried valiantly to stop the war machine in its tracks,
nobody with real clout spearheaded a significant effort. Not until the tide turned did so many, with so much to lose, get on-board.

Call me naive, but I am flabbergasted at the way things have unfolded, when the lies and corruption that formed the foundation of this effort were so apparent.

I am for peace via peaceful means. Gunboat diplomacy is an idiotic oxymoron.

We can gather now, and sing Kumbaya, but the damage is done.

[Tamiati]

139. I think I posted

something that was misinterpreted, I want to say sorry....the "lol" to me was for "lots of love".....

Yes, I too grew up in the 60's, but was too young to really involve myself.....then Kent State(still too young) but certainly....the message was clear to me then as it is now becoming even more apparent...with the enactment of the Patriot Act....

I too advocate peace via peaceful means......&

Certainly hope that even tho damage is done,

there must be a solution somehow to fix this mess....(optimistic in nature - drives the husband nuts sometimes :)

[indigobusiness]

142. Thanks for clearing that up.

As much as I enjoy being laughed at..."lots of love" makes me feel all fuzzy inside.

I agree an indomitable optimism is essential...and it is more likely to drive a hubby sane than otherwise.

[Protected]

46. Uhh...

Al Qaeda doesn't want to negotiate with us, they want us dead and they want our society to die with us.

[Cocoa]

48. that's not true

that's what the people say who want us to believe we have no choice but follow them.

[indigobusiness]

51. That is my personal assessment...nobody else is involved.

This is a personal opinion. You have yours, I have mine.

I think the image of Osama's motives in this country, is largely propaganda driven. We have a very heavily distorted view of the entire Islamic world.

I am not an apologist, just saying the view is skewed.


on edit---sorry, I thought your post was directed at me...my mistake.

[Jack Rabbit]

55. That's not what Osama says

Fatwah Urging Jihad Against Americans
Dated February 23, 1998

No one argues today about three facts that are known to everyone; we will list them, in order to remind everyone:
First, for over seven years the United States has been occupying the lands of Islam in the holiest of places, the Arabian Peninsula, plundering its riches, dictating to its rulers, humiliating its people, terrorizing its neighbors, and turning its bases in the Peninsula into a spearhead through which to fight the neighboring Muslim peoples . . . .
Second, despite the great devastation inflicted on the Iraqi people by the crusader-Zionist alliance, and despite the huge number of those killed, in excess of 1 million... despite all this, the Americans are once against trying to repeat the horrific massacres, as though they are not content with the protracted blockade imposed after the ferocious war or the fragmentation and devastation . . . .
Third, if the Americans' aims behind these wars are religious and economic, the aim is also to serve the Jews' petty state and divert attention from its occupation of Jerusalem and murder of Muslims there . . . .
On that basis, and in compliance with God's order, we issue the following fatwa to all Muslims:
The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies--civilians and military--is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it, in order to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque and the holy mosque from their grip, and in order for their armies to move out of all the lands of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim. This is in accordance with the words of Almighty God, "and fight the pagans all together as they fight you all together," and "fight them until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in God."

Read more.

[Jack Rabbit]

53. Misplaced post

!!

[Klox]

49. They have no such reasoning...

Al Qaeda doesn't want a settlement. They don't want to negotiate, they don't want peace. They want to kill because your christian, jewish, or free. The difference between the vietnamese and the AQs is that the vietnamese were fighting for their homeland. The right to do what they want and live the way we want without French and US interference. I respect that totally because we were actually trying to take away their rebellion against the government. Al Qaeda has no such goals. They bomb citizens because they can and all for a religious cause. The only reasoning these people have was back in the car they parked in a heavily populated place.

[wtmusic]

50. Ya think maybe the Iraqis

want 'the right to do what they want and live the way we want without US interference'? And why isn't bin Laden attacking the French, or the Germans?

Have you ever read any complete statements by bin Laden? Unlikely, because you'll never see them in the Western press. But in his last public pronouncment the war on Iraq and persecution of the Palestinian people are cited as the two top reasons for declaring jihad on the American people.

Attacks on America have much less to do with Islam than with American foreign policy.

[Jack Rabbit]

54. Red herring

Yes, I think that's what the Iraqis want. In case you've missed my other post and a few home page articles, I fully support the efforts of the Iraqi people to resist neoconservative colonialism.

Also, I case you've missed it, the invasion and occupation of Iraq had nothing to do with Osama or terrorism. It was (and continues to be) a waste of time and resources vis a vis the war on terror.

It's just as much a red herring for you to bring up Iraq in the context of Osama as it is for Bush and Cheney to do so.

[wtmusic]

56. I'm refuting your assertion

that religious fanatcism is the only (or even the main) cause for al Qaeda attacks on America. That's another typical Bush and Cheney line.

[Jack Rabbit]

59. Please offer evidence to support your assertion

For my evidence, I offer the link in post 55.

[wtmusic]

61. al Qaeda statement from June 17

"After dividing Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria, and Pakistan will come next.

They would leave around Israel only dismembered semi states that are subservient to the United States and Israel."

<snip>

"Do not allow the Americans, the British, the Australians, the Norwegians, and the other crusaders who killed your brothers in Iraq to live in your countries, enjoy their resources, and wreak havoc in them."

Much more...get the picture?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3047903.stm

[Jack Rabbit]

62. From the same source . . .

Protests will not do you any good, neither will demonstrations or conferences.
Nothing will do you good, but toting arms and taking revenge against your enemies, the Americans and the Jews.
Demonstrations will not... protect your jeopardised holy places or expel an occupying enemy, nor will they deter an arrogant aggressor.
The crusaders and the Jews do not understand but the language of killing and blood.
They do not become convinced unless they see coffins returning to them, their interests being destroyed, their towers being torched, and their economy collapsing.
O Muslims, take matters firmly against the embassies of America, England, Australia, and Norway and their interests, companies, and employees.
Burn the ground under their feet, as they should not enjoy your protection, safety, or security. Expel those criminals out of your countries.
Do not allow the Americans, the British, the Australians, the Norwegians, and the other crusaders who killed your brothers in Iraq to live in your countries, enjoy their resources, and wreak havoc in them.
Learn from your 19 brothers who attacked America in its planes in New York and Washington and caused it a tribulation that it never witnessed before and is still suffering from its injuries until today.

[wtmusic]

66. That's my point

They are defending their lands from foreign aggression. Muslims see unity in religion, not in geographical boundaries, which is a typically Western philosophy.

[Jack Rabbit]

70. I don't agree with your interpretation of these remarks

I read something much more sinister into them.

If slamming hijacked planes into office buildings doesn't convince you that this is something other than a heroic defender of Arab nationalism, then I don't know what will.

Read the Fatwah posted above (number 55). Osama urges all Muslims to kill Americans, any and all Americans, military and civilian.

You might also want to consider Osama's association with the Taliban regime. That is extreme form of Islam. It is something beyond the preachings of the most vile American Christian fundies.

You should also take a gander at a view of Osama from one of the few western journalists who has interviewed him, Robert Fisk. No one with a shred of credibility would accuse Mr. Fisk of being a stooge of the neoconservatives. I offer two pieces by Fisk from The Nation, Talks with Osama bin Laden (originally published in 1998) and Terror in America (October 2001). Methodically journalistic, Fisk paints a picture of a very creepy man.

In all this, Osama is way over the top. This is no freedom fighting guerrilla. This is a monster with a fascist vision.

It's naive to think he's a reasonable man who's just trying to get our attention so he can air his grievances. You and I are his grievance.

It is naive to believe this is a man of reason.

[wtmusic]

88. Did you read your own link?

A sample:

"The explosion at Khobar did not come as a direct result of American occupation but as a result of American behavior against Muslims," he said. "When sixty Jews are killed inside Palestine, all the world gathers...to criticize the action, while the deaths of 600,000 Iraqi children did not receive the same reaction."

Is this an irrational man speaking? If not, maybe you could point me to a quote that backs up your statement that "it is naive to believe this is a man of reason".

He's a fundie exactly analogous to our breed. The RW hype that he's deranged and insane is total bullshit. Don't fall for it.

[Jack Rabbit]

111. Returning to the Fisk piece

Somewhere in the Sudanese desert, bin Laden decided that if he could drive the Russians out of Afghanistan, he could drive the Americans out of the Middle East. He denied to me any involvement in the 1996 bombing of US service personnel at the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, in which nineteen Americans died, although he said he knew two of the three young men later beheaded by the Saudis for the explosion.

Does that sound like a trustworthy man? Of course, Osama has never admitted to the involvement of any of the violence for which he is responsible, not even September 11.

He's a fundie exactly analogous to our breed.

Nonsense. As contemptuous as Falwell and Robertson are, neither has ever arranged to kill thousands in one blow. Falwell and Robertson are obnoxious, but not particularly dangerous. Osama is a higher order of evil. You may put him in a class with Bush, if would like; but next to Osama, American fundies don't count.

The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies--civilians and military--is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it, in order to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque and the holy mosque from their grip, and in order for their armies to move out of all the lands of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim.
-- Fatwah urging Jihad against Americans, February 23, 1998

If you look at these statements by Osama and Ayman al-Zarahiri, you will see that what America does is a pretext for their strikes. They urge their followers to kill Americans, regardless of walk of life. "While we do this because Americans don't this or do that", nowhere do they say, "if they do this or stop doing that, we will stop killing them." On the contrary, he is saying that in order to achieve his goal, he must kill all of us.

If Osama is looking to sit down and talk it over like the reasonable human being you seem to think he is, then he would address his remarks to us. He doesn't. He addresses them to those he urges to do us harm.

He doesn't want to talk to us. He wants to kill us.

[wtmusic]

115. Right JR, he wants to kill us

but why? You're flat-out wrong when you say that what America does is a "pretext" for their strikes. OBL:

"The explosion at Khobar did not come as a direct result of American occupation but as a result of American behavior against Muslims," he said. "When sixty Jews are killed inside Palestine, all the world gathers...to criticize the action, while the deaths of 600,000 Iraqi children did not receive the same reaction."

It's revenge, pure and simple. He's not crazy any more than Pat Robertson. But Pat Robertson has not had 600,000 of his own starved by sanctions, or watched as his sovereign nation was attacked without provocation (in the case of the Russian invasion of Afghanistan). You can bet Robertson would do exactly the same thing if he were not in a position to defend his people militarily.

Terrorism is war for people without cruise missiles. That's all. It's their only option.

[Jack Rabbit]

116. I did not say Osama has no reason to hate the US

I am saying he wants to kill us and that he is not reasonable.

It's really no different than street crime. You can tell us all about the reasons why someone turns to crime and you're right about a lot of them. But in the end you're going to lock him up because you don't want to be his next victim.

You can talk all day long about how a man like Osama became a monster, but the fact is that he became a monster. We still need to be kept safe from him.

[wtmusic]

117. Well...

if you examine the difference in motive it's very different from a street crime. He feels he's been attacked, that he's defending his people, and that we're the "monsters". You feel he's the monster.

We both can keep ourselves safe from monsters by not creating them in the first place.

[Jack Rabbit]

134. That's not a realistic point of view

(I)f you examine the difference in motive it's very different from a street crime. He feels he's been attacked, that he's defending his people, and that we're the "monsters". You feel he's the monster.

A street criminal, whether he thinks about it or not, is as much shaped by the world as he shapes the world. That is what you're trying to tell me Osama is. The motivation of both is preservation of something held dear.

We both can keep ourselves safe from monsters by not creating them in the first place.

In a perfect world, perhaps that's possible, but not this one. In this one, that kind of sentimental compassion will get you nowhere.

Let's try to think through this problem. There are two monsters here, both of which threaten us. One is Osama and al Qaida, the other is Bush and the neoconservatives. If you haven't noticed, Bush isn't interested in talking to anybody, either. His idea of "consulting" with allies is telling them what to do and calling them names when they don't get in line. He, too, is an unreasonable man. Like Osama, he divides the world into friends and enemies (You're either with us or with them). And frankly, I'm not particularly interested in his excuse, either, except at an academic level. On the practical plane, the most important thing to do with Bush and the neocons is the same thing we need do with Osama and al Qaida: Lock them up and throw away the key. They need to be put some place where they can do no more harm.

This is one of the reasons I support international law. The concept has become more urgent since Bush seized power. If one can seize power in the world's last remaining superpower without the consent of the governed and turn that nation into a rogue state, then what apparatus is in place to hold a tyrant with nuclear weapons accountable?

Osama's solution is no solution. While you're trying to paint Osama as some poor, misunderstood freedom fighter for Islam, you're probably also thanking your lucky stars that you weren't in the WTC on September 11. Most of the people there and on those passenger jets had a lot more in common with working class stiffs like you and me than with G. W. Bush. That's fine with Osama. He even says that's fine in his Fatwah. For my part, I have a serious problem with attacking innocent civilians and with somebody who says that's fine.

Would you extend this attempt at understanding that give Osama to Bush? Would you attempt to justify or even explain Bush's actions in terms of "He feels he's been attacked (and) he's defending his people"? Maybe we could go outside of DU and find people who think we just don't understand what this poor, misunderstood defender of western civilization is really trying to accomplish. It wouldn't be hard to find one; like me, you probably know more than few.

However, it's nonsense. I refuse to participate in Bush's crimes; and I refuse to allow some megalomaniac with a messiah complex to hold me hostage to those crimes. I will not be told that I am either with one or the other of these (dare I say it?) monsters. I am opposed to both.

I'm not interested in their excuses. I'm not interested in their ideas of an Islamist or global capitalist utopia, neither of which appeals to me as a vision of a democratic society. You and I are the ones being attacked by both of these (dare I say it?) deranged, unhealthy men. Our interest should be in putting them where they can do no harm. Let them explain themselves before an international tribunal, not over the corpses of their victims in the rubble of bombed out buildings.

[wtmusic]

136. You're ignoring the chronology

When has the West been oppressed by Muslims? When have Muslims been oppressed by the West? If you answer these questions truthfully, the attacks on 9/11 were every bit as justified as our invasion of Afghanistan.

And now Bush has taken things a step further and broken international law in a wholly unjustified invasion of Iraq. Do you expect the 'Muslim Nation' to not hold him accountable?

'Not creating monsters' has nothing to do with sentimentality, or a perfect world. It has to do with defending your sovereignty and the right to not be oppressed.

Of course I thank my lucky starts I wasn't in the WTC. But 50 times that many people have died of starvation, of malnutrition, of dehydration in Iraq over the last 10 years, many as a direct result of sanctions. You need to use your imagination a little bit. Their deaths were no less horrible than ours.

[Klox]

58. I disagree...

Because we support Israel, the only democracy in the middle east. The French and the Germans don't have the same ideologies as we do, which terrorists hate. I also don't follow western press. It is completely bias beyond control, but how do you correct something like this? The internet is the only chance of reliable information, for any country.

[Cocoa]

52. lol

they hate me for my freedom. Boy have you been sold a bill of goods.

Thankfully some normal people are going to be back in power soon, and we can begin ending this nonsense.

[wtmusic]

60. Cocoa For President 2004

(I'm available for the v.p. slot);-)

[Tamiati]

100. Why do they hate us then??

This is no arbitary decision to just start militant activity on an "uninvolved" America. We need to examine their motives further, people do not HATE for no reason, there are usually repressed emotions that pack behind that hate.

WHY?? What could they possibly hate about us as Americans??

I would like you to explain your position also......CAREFULLY, honestly look at & examine what they could possibly resent about our nation, our people, our leaders, our "machine"??

Take your time, you will need it.

[JHBowden]

57. As long as we don't treat our women like crap

and support Israel, there really is no compromise with such medievalists.

[Raskolnik]

63. I'm not so sure about that.

Although W's methods are clearly not the way to deal with them, I'm not convinced that there is room the the world for Al Queda to exist with civilized nations.

They aren't looking for a negotiated settlement, or to have their own country, they are literally trying to turn the clock back about a thousand years in the Middle East.

[mmonk]

65. Terrorists aren't honorable.

Combatants in war are, maybe. But anyone who sends people off to kill people (in many cases, the innocent) and themselves aren't on the same side of rational. They are religious radicals and I doubt could be appeased.

[kiahzero]

74. Right

It's a mistake to call them irrational or fanatical.

I'm sure killing 3000 innocent civilians was rational and not at all fanatical. Or blowing up embassies, or torturing and beheading contractors.

It's not a mistake to call them rational or fanatical; it's a mistake to be an apologist of al Qaeda.

Decapitating him was no more "barbaric" than what our surrogates are doing on our behalf.

I'd forgotten the great moral lesson: "Two wrongs do in fact make a right."

Two facts:
1) We didn't go out of our way to kill innocents on the battlefield... we probably did less than we should have to protect them, but neglience is not the same, morally, as willful action. That's why there are different types of criminal charges for killing another person.

2) I condemned US torture in Abu Ghraib, because I condemn all torture. You, on the other hand, seem to condemn US torture, but not condemn al Qaeda torture.

[nolabels]

79. It take two to Tango and three to play the Shell Game

Bush told he is playing into Bin Laden's hands

Al-Qaida may 'reward' American president with strike aimed at keeping him in office, senior intelligence man says

Julian Borger in Washington
Saturday June 19, 2004
The Guardian

A senior US intelligence official is about to publish a bitter condemnation of America's counter-terrorism policy, arguing that the west is losing the war against al-Qaida and that an "avaricious, premeditated, unprovoked" war in Iraq has played into Osama bin Laden's hands.

Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror, due out next month, dismisses two of the most frequent boasts of the Bush administration: that Bin Laden and al-Qaida are "on the run" and that the Iraq invasion has made America safer.
(snip)
Anonymous believes Mr Bush is taking the US in exactly the direction Bin Laden wants, towards all-out confrontation with Islam under the banner of spreading democracy.

He said: "It's going to take 10,000-15,000 dead Americans before we say to ourselves: 'What is going on'?"
(snip)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1242639,00.html





Three Shell Game - By Vernet
The three shell game is a classics, and definitely one of the greatest close-up tricks in the world.

If you don't already know the effect, you show three shells, and a pea. The pea is placed underneath a shell, and the spectator is asked to follow the pea.

Of course he is pretty much always wrong. Often used as a gambling game, but of course here at MagicWorld we would not condone such an activity !

COMES COMPLETE WILL ROUTINES AND FULL INSTRUCTIONS.
(snip)
http://www.magicworld.co.uk/acatalog/MagicWorld_Bar_Magic___Close_Up_7.html

[kiahzero]

81. What does any of that have to do with al Qaeda negotiations?

Please explain.

[nolabels]

85. We deal with our side, they deal with theirs

You never negotiate with a terrorist no matter what ever quarter they come from.

This post is from seemslikeadream
(snip)
BUSH'S PLAN FOR PEACE IS THE PEACE OF THE COMMON GRAVE

EVERY DEATH CREATES NEW ENEMIES
MORE TERRORISTS
MORE DANGER
MORE DEATH
AND REMEMBER...

HE IS JUST GETTING STARTED...

BUSH'S PLAN FOR PEACE
IS THE PEACE OF THE COMMON GRAVE


http://www.bushflash.com/pax.html


sie ahnten nichts von mir
von meiner wilden gier
doch als du kamst zu mir
da wurde ich ein tier
kein gedanke an danach
als ich dir die knochen brach

tot tot tot ich mache dich tot
tot tot tot von blut alles rot

tot

fuer mein naechstes leben
schoepfe ich neue kraft
ich bin dem toeten ergeben
in der einzelhaft

tot tot tot ich mache dich tot
tot tot tot von blut alles rot
tot tot tot ich mache dich tot
tot tot tot von blut alles rot

ein dahinsichen
von gottes hand
ich kann dich riechen
und das denken verschwand

tot tot tot tot tot tot tot ich mache dich tot
tot tot tot von blut alles rot tot tot tot tot

ich mache dich tot ich mache dich tot
ich mache dich tot ich mache dich tot

sag mir was du willst
dass du meine sehnsucht stillst
ich mache dich tot fuer immerdar
von blut alles rot auf gottes altar

tot tot tot ich mache dich tot
tot tot tot von blut alles rot

ich mache dich tot fuer immerdar
ich mache dich tot glaub mir es ist wahr
ich mache dich tot fuer immerdar
ich mache dich tot auf gottes altar


they suspected nothing of me
of my wild greed
yet as you became me
I became an animal
no thought after that
as I broke your bones

dead dead dead I make you dead
dead dead dead of blood of all red

dead
(snip)

From this thread
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=612916

[Name removed]

75. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[maggrwaggr]

76. they don't want a "settlement". They don't want to "talk"

What they want is to convert us all to Muslims, and turn all the governments into muslims states.

That is all.

[Swamp Rat]

104. "The Base"?

Hi maggrwaggr! I've enjoyed reading your posts for a long time. I've been lurking for 3 years, but mopaul's thread about rebels called me out of the shadows today and now I've joined DU. It's a shame that the thread was locked right after I posted because someone critiqued my first post and I didn't have a chance to reply to defend myself (though I assume the poster was just joking).

I agree that there are fundamentalist Muslim groups that will NEVER want peace, just like the American Taliban AKA Christian Coalition, but it is possible to make peace with a majority of Muslims (I hope). BUT, I don't understand how we can "make peace" with a group called "The Base" (Al Qaeda) since the name is oxymoronic. What "base"? I mean, where and who are these people? Wasn't it a CIA invention (I think I remember you talking about this a while back, forgive me if I'm wrong). This CIA brainchild has become a Frankenstein's monster with lots of tentacles.

[LTR]

78. Fuck al Qaeda!

Terrorists are scum. It is not like negotiating a peace treaty with another nation, like Germany and Japan following WWII. These scumbags are criminals and murderers.

Should we have negotiated with Timothy McVeigh? Compromised with him? Same thing with AQ and bin Laden. He's a piece of shit terrorist murderer. They deserve no coddling on our part, war or no war. Osama and his gang must answer for 9/11.

Sorry if I sound a little freeperish, but if one commits the crime, one must do the time.

Perhaps if Dubya would have devoted resources toward squashing them instead of pursuing his pet projects (Iraq), then maybe al Qaeda would be crippled beyond repair. Then again, we are talking about Dubya.

[Tamiati]

87. Terrorists ARE SCUM

But include American foreign policy in this definition....

As for negotiating a peace treaty with another nation,like Germany & Japan in WWII, did you not study history?? We annihilated them, there was no choice in the matter from their perspective.....I spose you few this as a successful endeavor?? They may trade with us, but do you really feel that they hold no grudges yet that someday we may have to reckon with??

Please make no mistakes, I agree that SOMETHING needed to be done to stop Hitler.......(who ALSO had his eye also on world wide domination)....but yet you do not see the lesson or any correlation to our current administration's actions.....that just possibly we need to learn now??

Study up more man! Truly, you view the world in a narrowly defined term.....

[LTR]

92. After the murder of thousands of innocent Americans, they can go to hell.

Do they really deserve us kissing their asses? I say no. They are criminals, and should be dealt with as such.

And yes, I do know my history. I used Germany and Japan as examples of nations signing a treaty.

And if we had a president with at least half a brain in his ass, say a President Gore (which is the way it should have been), then perhaps bin Laden and countless other AQ members would be part of said history.

Timothy McVeigh is a better example. Should we have negotiated with him? Or another politically-motivated killer, Charles Manson?

AQ is not a foreign country. They are a terrorist organization. They hate America and always will. They deserve no coddling.

[wtmusic]

106. Do you believe

that perhaps we need to examine our own actions and find out just why al Qaeda is targeting the US, and not Mexico, Nigeria, or Greenland? Why people donate years of effort and their own lives to try to kill us?

[LTR]

107. You make a good point there

The US has a history of shitting all over the world.

But nothing the US has done to the Middle East merits crashing planes into two skyscrapers and the Pentagon. That is pure evil.

AQ probably would have targeted the US no matter what we did. They despise our culture, and likely would have targeted us anyway. Their take on their religion is similar in respects to the Falwells and Robertsons of the US. Only those two buffoons haven't slaughtered anyone. Yet.

[wtmusic]

108. Don't agree that AQ would have targeted America regardless

This is an OBL quote regarding the bombing of the Khobar Towers:

"The explosion at Khobar did not come as a direct result of American occupation but as a result of American behavior against Muslims," he said. "When sixty Jews are killed inside Palestine, all the world gathers...to criticize the action, while the deaths of 600,000 Iraqi children did not receive the same reaction."

AQ attacks are direct retribution for what he sees as attacks on the Muslim world (Muslims, unlike most Western cultures, see religious boundaries as more valid than geographical ones).

Are 3,000 deaths commensurate revenge for 600,000 deaths in sanctioned Iraq?

[Tamiati]

112. Religious War??

So really this is the basis from your perspective for their attacks?? Nothing more than another religious war??

You said that nothing we have done to the ME merits crashing planes....perhaps it has nothing to do with what we have done TO them specifically..(So Hiroshima, Nakisaki were not evil?? The end justified the means)??

....perhaps they see the US as a threat to all of humanity, our practice of domination over ancient cultures & religions??

Our history includes this....look at our own books, recall what we have done to the "heathens" as they were typically called, AKA native americans....Perhaps, they are not prepared to be encompassed within our "christian" beliefs....

I disagree that they would have targeted the US no matter what we did, but certainly we need to examine what we are doing globally, to examine our ethics and moral character.....that WOULD have helped to avoid this great tragedy....

[wtmusic]

90. And while we're in the positive frame of mind

maybe we could devote a little time trying to learn why men would devote years of their lives in order to be able to kill themselves while destroying Americans lives...

Hint: it has nothing to do with being insane or religious, contrary to popular belief. It has to do with being desperate.

[LTR]

94. It has to do with ego

Trust me, the hijackers were far from being devout Muslims.

[Tamiati]

98. Show Me Prove It

How do you from where you are judge the state of being devout?? How do you protend to know it's has to do with ego??

Explain your position RAT

[LTR]

102. Read this

All you could really care to know about Mohammed Atta.

http://www.madcowprod.com/index60bb.html

NUMBER 8. Mohamed Atta, Islamic Party Animal

"Atta and his crew were always flush with lots and lots of money," said Stephanie Frederickson, a 50-year old housewife and foster mother who with her husband lived right next door to Atta’s apartment. “Those guys were all really party animals."

During their brief time together, Amanda and Atta went out almost every night, she said, and were part of a social scene at clubs like Margarita Maggie’s in Sarasota. “When we went out we would meet pilots from Africa, Germany, and there were always lots of Arabs.”

In fact, Atta was a heavy drinker, snorted coke, was a stylish dresser and wore enough expensive gold jewelry that a waitress in Venice thought he might be in the Mob.


NUMBER 7. Mohamed Atta liked pork chops.

“Islamic fundamentalist” Mohamed Atta loved pork chops, according to former girlfriend Amanda Keller. In fact, she said this was 'fanatical Islamo-fascist' Atta's one endearing trait.

Devout Muslims don’t eat pork, do they?


http://www.rotten.com/library/bio/crime/terrorists/mohammed-atta/


And the Koran does not approve of suicide killings, whether it be flying planes into buildings or strapping a bomb to your chest.

I'm sorry I don't feel we should kiss Osama bin Laden's ass, but he is a worthless piece of shit thug and nothing will ever change that.

[Tamiati]

110. Devout or Ego driven??

One article, tough one.....?? source....

I will agree with the aspects of Muslim religion, that indeed the attacks of 9-11 were performed by extreme fundamentalist muslims groups......

As far as a generalized statement of being driven by ego, I still do not see the connection, nor do the links satisfy the question,

However, really this is minimal in this discussion....(ego)

Yes, obviously they would have to be desperate to go to such extreme measures.....but I am not sure that ego would play into it....from what the link suggests he had more problems than simply ego...(naturally)

RAT, I am about understanding the what, & the why of the events of 9-11. Can we find any common ground to work from?? To work towards any compromise for peace??

[Jack Rabbit]

114. There's a better explanation than ego, Mr. Terrier

Here is the al Qaida training manual (PDF reader required).

You will see that al Qaida operatives are expected to blend in and draw suspicion away from themselves by acting like anything but the devout Muslims their ulema expect them be. That is why Mohammed Atta behaved like a party animal.

[Dirk39]

82. Peace with the vietcong: yes, but Al Qaeda is nothing...

but a kind of outsourced office of the CIA.
Al Qaeda doesn't exist. It's just a name for criminal drug dealers and pseudo-religious organised criminals. Financed, founded and schooled by the CIA.
And with criminal terrorist drugdealers like the CIA, peace isn't possible. Nuke them down, shut down their offices, if you want any peace at all.
They financed and saved the careers of the worst nazi-criminals on earth , here in Germany. They've imported some of the most criminal massmurders in the history of humanity into the USA.
And if you don't believe this, o.k., but do a little research on Al Qaeda, please: who invented the taliban: The CIA, who financed Bin Laden: The CIA, who labelled Bin Laden as a freedom fighter? - Reagan, when they still did fight in Afghanistan, and Clinton, when they destroyed Yugoslavia.


Hello from Germany,
Dirk

[nolabels]

97. Thanks Dirk39

Being subjected 24/7 propaganda is just a regular thing here in the USA.

Some people don't get how to peel off the layers that have been heaped on each other. I took 4 billion or so years to get this far, hope we can wait for the rest of it :donut:

[Dirk39]

118. I give it a try:

Start reading inverviews with Brzezinski, the Security Advisor of Carter.

Zbigniew Brzezinski:
How Jimmy Carter and I Started the Mujahideen

"Q: The former director of the CIA, Robert Gates, stated in his memoirs <"From the Shadows">, that American intelligence services began to aid the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan 6 months before the Soviet intervention. In this period you were the national security adviser to President Carter. You therefore played a role in this affair. Is that correct?

Brzezinski: Yes. According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahadeen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, 24 Dec 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise: Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.

Q: Despite this risk, you were an advocate of this covert action. But perhaps you yourself desired this Soviet entry into war and looked to provoke it?

Brzezinski: It isn't quite that. We didn't push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would.

Q: When the Soviets justified their intervention by asserting that they intended to fight against a secret involvement of the United States in Afghanistan, people didn't believe them. However, there was a basis of truth. You don't regret anything today?

Brzezinski: Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter: We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war. Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire.

Q: And neither do you regret having supported the Islamic , having given arms and advice to future terrorists?

Brzezinski: What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?

Q: Some stirred-up Moslems? But it has been said and repeated: Islamic fundamentalism represents a world menace today.

Brzezinski: Nonsense! It is said that the West had a global policy in regard to Islam. That is stupid. There isn't a global Islam. Look at Islam in a rational manner and without demagoguery or emotion. It is the leading religion of the world with 1.5 billion followers. But what is there in common among Saudi Arabian fundamentalism, moderate Morocco, Pakistan militarism, Egyptian pro-Western or Central Asian secularism? Nothing more than what unites the Christian countries."
http://www.counterpunch.org/brzezinski.html


The taliban, the schools for islamists: all of them were founded and financed by the USA. And they didn't use ordinary citizens, religious or not, they used criminals and poor people, who had no other chance. And till that very day, whenever you hear this talking about "radical islamistic fundamentalists": you just have to ask a question or two and you don't find yourself in an exotic environment, you find yourself in the center of the USA.

Fundamenentalis might exist somehow: religious idiots, christians, catholics, jews, islamists.
But the fairytale of dangerous islamists, who are a threat to the west or democrazy or civilisation is as true as Hitler's antisemitic fairytales and the red scare fairytales of the past.

The CIA and the the Pentagon including the American government have become inseperable from terrorism, organized crime, drug-dealing, women-trafficking and arms-dealing.

The very same people, who were celebrated as freedom fighters by Clinton, when they slaughered serbs in Yugoslavia and turned Yugoslavia into the biggest paradise for organised crime, the world has seen so far - were made responsible for September 11 by Bush.

Hitler told the Germans and the world that there is a jewish-communist conspiracy to take over the world (if only this would NOT have been a fairytale!)

And now, there are violent brutal fundamentalistic muslims around every corner. Creating new jobs for the CIA, the Pentagon and the military-industrial complex, after Redscare doesn't work anymore. And whenever you do a little research, whenever you desperately try to find some of those dangerous religious muslims, you find some ordinary criminals, hired by the CIA.

Dirk

[nolabels]

127. "Ordinary criminals, hired by the CIA"

To tell that to them people over here that is like talking to a brick wall. When we have students or others protest are (so called) governments involvement in war and other ungodly involvements they beat them up, jail them or even shoot at them. They don't listen to the grievance or anything to do with the dispute, they do anything but that. This acronym CIA that is actually a large front of various thugs saying they represent the US. Truth be known most of them can't even see the trees from the forest. They no more represent the will of the US people than the man in the moon.

The provocateurs who see gain by having people fighting among each other, this small fraction of people who gain at the death of other people. They find each other like they are members of their own separate tribe of people. They cling on the levers and to each other like magnets.

I see them as a smaller piece of this subset people who believe they must make others believe this dangerous world teaming with enemies from every place. If you get them to know them well you find that fear in them, the fear that someone is going to take away something they cherish or love. It's an irrational type of fear. It assumes many elements this so called "left" has but in backward sense. This thing named "left" that is used as a dumping ground for people who disagree with them. It's a war set on ideas that has to even ignore reality because it's so far afield persuing this need to have this idea proved correct.

The other day I spent a few minutes listening to one right wing air-bags trying to rationalize (in it's normal self-righteous zeal) on the radio. The Radio announcer (air-bag) picked up on this one little fact spun it to hell and gone, ignoring several self evident facts along the way to get there. This to get the point of saying the candy coated half truths the mass media is now giving away in their sorted mea culpa on previous lies are also lies. These lies they fester about all what Bush has said and done to get all conflicts going, these wars with the world. These zealots live in a very different world, these people, this front pushing for these things. How much they really believe any of the bilge they produce is anybodies guess, but the net effect on an ignorant, uninformed or mis-informed population is very evident.

There seems to me no one correct answer but the two most prevalent are power and money, though vengeance does also seem to rear its head once in while. Your above example of Zbigniew Brzezinski seem one more of power than money. I submit mine of the money aspect of it.

http://www.ex.ac.uk/~RDavies/arian/war.html

Warfare and Financial History

Warfare, with its appalling humanitarian consequences and vast economic costs, has stimulated financial innovations from the spread of coinage to the creation of the national debt. Conversely, economic weakness and the inability to properly utilize financial resources have been causes of military defeats.

The relationship between economics and warfare is one of the themes treated in some detail in a 700 page book on the history of money. For the historical context of the conflicts listed below see also the annotated chronology which includes references to the page numbers of the book.

The source of the information is:

Davies, Glyn. A history of money from ancient times to the present day, 3rd ed. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2002. 720 pages. Paperback: ISBN 0 7083 1717 0. Hardback: ISBN 0 7083 1773 1.

During the Second World War Glyn Davies served in the British 8th Army in North Africa, Sicily and Italy, and the British 2nd Army in northern Europe, before resuming his studies of economics, and consequently he experienced the reality of war at first hand.

See also Money in Fiction
Violence and the Origin of Money

Many societies had laws requiring compensation in some form for crimes of violence, instead of the Old Testament approach of "an eye for an eye". The author notes that the word to "pay" is derived from the Latin "pacare" meaning originally to pacify, appease, or make peace with - through the appropriate unit of value customarily acceptable to both sides. Objects originally accepted for one purpose were often found to be useful for others and, because of their growing acceptability began to be used for general trading also. Thus the practice of paying compensation for certain crimes was one of the factors that played a role in the origins of money.
(snip)

[Tamiati]

132. :)

Dirk, I thank you so much for the link & article. I now have a little better understanding.......

Have you checked this??? Long, but rather enlightening....
http://www.larouchepub.com/lar/2002/2901zbig_sept11.html

If you have, or do please let me know what you think of his take on basically a life perspective.

Thanks again, I am a Truthseeker!!

[Tamiati]

103. Direct Me

Thanks Dirk, I appreciate your input from outside of the US another perspective.....

Please help me on this, I really am interested in your statements...I would love to see what you have done in the researching of your position & statement.....

Please help me here to understand this.....I am sincere in this endeavor.....

[Kimber Scott]

84. Maybe, you'd like to be the one to sit down with them?

Explain to them we're nice people. How it's our government that's messed up. You could convert to radical Islam, if you'd like, or at least explain to them how you understand their fundamentalist ideas, before they CUT YOUR HEAD OFF!

It's like D.L. Hughley's routine about how white people act when they see a bear. "Oh... nice bear... Don't be scared, Bear. I won't hurt you." Then the bear eats their ass.

There should be no negotiations, but we need to stop handing them propaganda material on a silver platter. And we should stop playing into their hands with our outrage and our horror. This war should be fought more quietly, more stealthily. This is not politics. This has to do with a miniscule number of people, in relation to the total numbers of all the people in the world, making all the rest of us dance.

Quietly. Stealthily. And by the rules. That's how we're going overcome this.

[fujiyama]

93. I have no interest

in either respecting them, their goals, their ideaology or negotiating with them. While I'm not buying the administration's story on anything, I do think this network of terrorist should be destroyed and dismantled. These terrorists go against EVERYTHING a liberal stands for. They are intolerant, theocratic, fundamentalist, mysogenistic, homophobic, EXTREMELY violent ass holes. That's all they are.

Not only that, but the right wing in general doesn't understand that defeating such fanatacs requires cannot rely on military action alone. It requires COOPERATION from the world at large.

Of course, defeating them is is a long process, and this administration has proven that religious extremism isn't really something that particularly concerns them, as this president, himself, has his own messiahnic complex.

He's more interested in personal family vendettas and the profit of those that brought him to power in the first place -- big oil and military defense contractors -- than protecting Americans from real threats in the world. That's the greatest failure of Iraq -- drawing resources away from fighting terrorists.

I also believe that while we need not repect their methods or beliefs, we should try to understand them...I agree to some extent with those that say that AL Qaeda was created by the CIA. The US, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan created Al Qaeda and this creation has come back to bite all three countries in the ass. The Pakistanis and Saudis have used these terrorists when it served their goals, but ultimately it has come to be a threat to the ruling regimes in both countries. Of course, these regimes are also US backed and are great beneficiaries of US military and financial aid.

It's also important to understand the hatred in the Arab world against us. That's where the Israeli/Palestinian conflict comes in. As long as the US is backing Israel with the arms it uses, little progress will be made with those in the Arab world. This doesn't mean we must give up our long standing friendship with Israel (and such a thing is unlikely to happen anyways), but it means applying pressure on them. Only then will the US have the moral authority to speak of a peace between the two people, and a US role in the peace process.

Another misconception by the US is that Al Qaeda has a formal structure, as though it's some sort of multinational corporation. It's not. There is no "CEO" or master command. Al Qaeda itself is more of a movement than a group -- a concept that espouses death to all those that don't believe in a fanatical version of Islam. The scary part is, that the people in power here at home, have been playing right into their tactics, attacking Iraq (which wasn't really part of the international terrorism scene), which has allowed great recruiting for Al Qaeda.

[Elidor]

96. That's a pretty bold statement

And yes, we'll probably negotiate.

[Name removed]

99. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Norquist Nemesis]

105. So long, farewell, bye bye!

[wtmusic]

109. Agent Orange has affected the poor soul's brain

Kum-Ba-Ya, my Lord, Kum-Ba-Ya...:D

[Norquist Nemesis]

101. You can't make peace with fundamentalist extreme ideology

which is what AQ is. If you listened to the 9/11 commission hearings from this past week, the descriptions could have just as easily been our very own right-wing Christians on their rise.

The conclusion that they came to in stopping AQ though is that you can't change those that have adopted the ideology which, form them, is to kill Americans. We could give OBL and AQ everything they want and they'ld still be plotting to kill us. Unfortunately, we can't go back and erase things we've done that have brought them to this point and we'll always be a target no matter what we do.

We have always had terrorists...Domestic and foreign. Yes, the WTC was horrible. So was the OK bombing. We've had the SLA and the KKK. We were infiltrated by Nazis wanting to sabatoge us (who were caught within about two weeks or so of being in the country, then tried and executed).

The best we can hope for is to do the right things which would keep people from being attracted through that ideology...such as improving their lives and giving them hope.

[nayt]

113. wasn't tet a disaster for the viet cong?

their defeat effectively destroyed their offensive ability, and they didn't launch any other attacks of significance until the US withdrew.

also, do you know how we made North Vietnam want to negotiate?

Operation Linebacker II

On 14 December 1972, President Nixon sent Hanoi an ultimatum giving Hanoi 72-hours to come back to serious negotiations.
Operation Linebacker II was finally ordered by President Nixon, directed by the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), and initiated on 18 December.

Linebacker II’s military objectives included: (a) destroy war making industry and support infrastructure in North Vietnam, (b) choke the external supplies shipped to the port of Haiphong or arrived by rail from China, and (c) destroy North Vietnam’s internal transportation system (35). The operation employed strategic and tactical air power to the fullest to destroy important targets such as radio stations, railroads, POL and power plants, and airfields located in the Hanoi/Haiphong areas and to mine Haiphong port.

B-52s dropped 15,000 tons of bombs(30 million lbs! - losing 15 of their own planes.
Over 1,600 military structures were hit and 10 airfields put out of operation.
About three million gallons of oil and fuel were torched.
The North Vietnam railroad network had been severed in more than 500 places.

At one time during the operation, Andersen Air Force Base in Guam housed more than 15,000 operational support crews and 150 B-52s. Anderson launched 729 bomber sorties in 11 days of the operation

On a single day, the 26th of December, 1972, the air war over North Vietnam was decided. 120 B-52’s and an additional 100 other bombers hit a variety of other targets in Hanoi, all within the span of 15 minutes. Two B-52’s went down that day, but the North Vietnamese air defense system was totally shattered.

On January 1, 1973 North Vietnam indicated that it was ready to resume high level talks, 22 days later a cease-fire agreement went into affect effectively ending the long war for the Uniited States.

we made north vietnam negotiate.

[stavka]

141. Yes- the North wanted it that way....

Not only did the VC score huge political victories, they wiped themselves out - insuring that the North was needed more than ever for both victory and post war leadership.

The VC actually were not all North Vietnamese oriented communists.

[Dirk39]

119. Let's have a party!

I guess Bin Ladden and his sixteen thieves are still a bit annoyed about the USA, holding them responsible for killing about 3000 people on September 11, 2001. But on the other hand, it's such a honour that people still believe, Osama and his 16 comrades did prepare such a great event in the cave of a mountain in a desert...

There never was any kind of war between the USA and Al Qaeda, why should there be peace?

They were business partners and they will remain business partners.

Dirk

[hel]

121. You cannot negotiate with Al Qaeda.

This is completely nonsense. AQ is set on a jihad, and United States is just part and a symbol of the enemy for them. You cannot settle things with jihadists, they want all the world and they are sworn not to stop until then.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

124. Hmmm

Unlike the Viet Cong Al Qaeda's demands are non-negotiable. They include

1) All westerners must leave the Middle East

2) That homosexuals and adulterers (females only) in their midst be subject to the death penalty

3) That the entire Middle East be judenrein and christianrein...


Better to take our chances opposing them...

[troublemaker]

128. This has to be conscious disruption, right?

C'mon people... Nobody is dumb enough to equate North Vietnam and al Qeada. This poster's ostensible opinion is right out of a paranoid Charles Krauthammer column.

This has to be somebody having a few laughs trolling for examples of "Democratic appeasement."

[gulliver]

138. Yep. I think so too. n/t

[many a good man]

129. Terrorism is just politics

AQ's goals are political. The religious aspect is used to whip up popular support, just like religion and patriotism are used here. Just like Hitler used worldwide Zionism to create the popular support for his political ambitions.

There will always be religious zealots just like there will always be ambitious political agendas. Political ambitions go nowhere without popular support. The current Islamist movement represented by AQ was started by an educated middle and upper class who realized that deeply held religious beliefs could be hardened and harnessed to effect political change in a system that is totally corrupt and empowered by outsiders.

The cultural changes undergone by the west in the past century were not without its own struggles and religious zealots. AQ has taken this tension to a new extreme using modern technology. The response from their enemies has only strengthened the legitimacy of their criticisms.

The only way to combat terrorism is to confront the political roots of the individual issues that give it popular support. There will always be terrorists, just like there will always be politics. Over the long term, the only way to diminish its impact is to relieve the political problems that draw people to support it.

Any other strategy will be ineffective and foolish.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

We Need A Weed And Seed Approach...

We need to destroy the terrorists while trying to ameliorate the conditions that give rise to them... The Simian in Chief is failing on both fronts...

[nolabels]

131. An idea, belief or tactic cannot be destroyed or eliminated

But can be rendered useless with education. Why do you think these zealots spend so much time and money on trying to keep the truth hidden?

"Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws.' - Plato (427-347 B.C.)"

"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.' - Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931)"

"Honest disagreement is often a good sign of progress.' -Mahatma Ghandi"

http://www.miniluv.com/mt/mt-comments.cgi?entry_id=471

[DemocratSinceBirth]

130. We Need A Weed And Seed Approach...

We need to destroy the terrorists while trying to ameliorate the conditions that give rise to them... The Simian in Chief is failing on both fronts...

[Columbia]

140. All Al Qaeda needs is a big hug

Poor, poor, misunderstood terrorists...

[Dardi]

144. Exactly.

Wouldn't there be peace if we just gave them everything they want?

[TXlib]

145. Hammer out what kind of settlement, exactly?

"We, the West, all agree to convert to Islam or die"?

For the terrorists, this is a total cultural war. There can be no peaceful coexistance.

There will be no settlement with them.

Now, I do think it would be wise not to underestimate them, and to do what we can peacefully to avoid radicallising (sp?) a larger percentage of the population.

But for those who have already made hatred of us a way of life, there is no negotiating.