ican711nm wrote:
I assume you mean a greater limitation on the ability of terrorist organizations to strike... Why do you think so?
Terrorism is essentially a law enforcement issue. And the bulk of the evidence of disruption of Al Quaeda logistics was the result of law enforcement agencies, not the US military.
The assets seized and the cells distrupted within target nations add up to a lot more than the theoretical benefits from invading Iraq.
Quote:I don't understand what you mean by "a procedural rigor." Do you think such does not apply to rational argument of any other kind--in particular, apply to the political kind of argument we are attempting to have.
Not at all, and in this political discussion you are alledging a threat from Iraq that you feel justifies invasion. I feel you have a legal, moral and logical responsibility to bear the burden of proof for this assertion.
I can argue the converse of your position, but when asserting a threat worthy of pre-emption there is a significant legal and moral responsibility and I feel it extends beyond merely requesting that the dissenting opinion prove the converse.
The main reason I am opposed is the very fact that I don't feel this case was adequately made.
Quote:I infer that when you claim that evidence is lacking, you think such claim is sufficient and does not require that you explain why you think the evidence that I have provided is lacking and/or is not evidence.
I'm not sure I follow you. As far as I know, you have not provided any evidence that meets established criteria for pre-emption. And to me it's not even a quibbling issue but one in which we aren't talking the same ball park.
Here is a discussion on the legal precedents for preemption:
http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=19514
Quote:Costs: in lives of Americans, lives of our allies, and in lives of Iraqis our military killed unintentionally; in dollars of expense; in distractions from other problems that also require attention; in a more than doubling of the world market price of oil. Why? I think the whys are self-evident here, but I will supply them if you like.
What are some negatives you see in not invading Iraq?
In theory, allowing Saddam to remain in power after his acts in the 80's and early 90's is something I find objectionable. In practice allowing him to do what he did in the 80's only to invoke said acts now as justification for war smacks of pretext and thusly mitigates the benefit.
"Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily therefore the heart of man is fully set in him to do evil" (possibly misquoted slightly).
In this case it's more than just lacking in speed, it smacks of hypocrisy given that many of the same individuals who supported the invasion rejected attempts to punish Saddam for his genocide in the past.
So in short, I think Saddam getting removed from power was long overdue, and if one ignores the hypocrisy inherent in some of the calls for regime change now, it is still a net benefit.
----
Another benefit is the attention to the mid-east confict that the lobbying for the war wrought, but this is not a benefit inherent to invading Iraq.
----
I think the strongest benefit is in the removal of a non-democratic regime, and the installation of democracy. However I think that democracies tend to be stronger when they come from within, instead of being dictated to a people by another people.
Quote:I don't understand what you mean here. Do you mean you think another attack by al Qaeda is unlikely, and/or you think that more than say 10 civilian deaths due to such attack is unlikely?
Do you think 10 deaths is statistically significant?
Quote:By "established" I mean obtained sanctuary for training with at least the acquiesence of the nation's government in which the sanctuary was obtained.
This is a bit of a stretch, the bipartisan 9/11 Commission concluded that there was no "collaborative relationship" between Al Quaeda and Saddam.
Washington Post wrote:The staff report said that bin Laden "explored possible cooperation with Iraq" while in Sudan through 1996, but that "Iraq apparently never responded" to a bin Laden request for help in 1994. The commission cited reports of contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda after bin Laden went to Afghanistan in 1996, adding, "but they do not appear to have resulted in a collaborative relationship. Two senior bin Laden associates have adamantly denied that any ties existed between al Qaeda and Iraq. We have no credible evidence that Iraq and al Qaeda cooperated on attacks against the United States."
.....
The report said that bin Laden "at one time sponsored anti-Saddam Islamists in Iraqi Kurdistan."
Al Qaeda's greatest incursions into Saddam's Iraq were in autonomous zones out of Saddam's controll. In February of 2003, when Powell was attempting to make the case for the Iraq/Al Qaeda connection he had to cede that the Ansar base was outside of Saddam's control and the territory had been since 1991.
I maintain that the complicity in Sudan/Afghanistan is not comparable to that in Iraq.
Quote: I think the scope of the first 15 months of al Qaeda growth in Afghanistan and the scope of the 15 months of al Qaeda growth in Iraq before Iraq was invaded are roughly comparable. On that basis, I project (or wouldn't dare assume otherwise) that the full 5 year growth of al Qaeda in Iraq would have been at least comparable in scope to the actual 5 year growth of al Qaeda in Afghanistan.
Al Qaeda moved it's headquarters to Afghanistan within the first months. This was never the case in Iraq. So how is it comparable? Al Qaeda has a collaborative relationship with the Taliban in the first months, and never had one with Saddam. How is it comparable?
Quote: (6) al Qaeda in Iraq murdered civilians in Iraq prior to its invasion.
Quote:
In and of itself it is no threat to the US. Rather what I think it portended for the future is what constitutes the threat to the US. In short when they mass murder there, they in future mass murdered everywhere, in particular, here in America. That's the way they went in Afghanistan. I think the evidence now is strong that Saddam's regime was becoming more than a mere acquiescor to al Qaeda; I think it was becoming an accomplice and would have arrived at that condition in earnest, had we not invaded, as soon as UN sanctions on Iraq were lifted.
I think that President Clinton if armed then with the wisdom of hindsight, would have invaded Afghanistan on his watch to prevent a 9/11.
Well, we both now have that same wisdom of hindsight too. The US did act and I think, applying the wisdom of hindsight, should have acted on it.
The neat thing about hindsight is it doesn't require proof because it is intrinsically proof. On the otherhand, application of a hindsight regarding one situation to what is perceived to be a comparable situation, requires rational judgment. Sometimes it's right; sometimes it's not. That's life! And, that's death too!
How are you differentiating the hindsight/proof you alledge from
post hoc ergo propter hoc?
See, I don't see much of a relation between the logistic benefits obtained by Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and their 9/11 attacks. Yet you claim this is intristic proof in hindsight. <shrugs>
Kara wrote:Quote:Ok then! Do as I do.
ican, I thought Whelan did a pretty good job of it.
Please excuse me.
Who is Whelan?
What job did he do?
Why do you think it pretty good?
July 16, 2005
Anger Burns on the Fringe of Britain's Muslims
By HASSAN M. FATTAH
LEEDS, England, July 15 - At Beeston's Cross Flats Park, in the center of this now embattled town, Sanjay Dutt and his friends grappled Friday with why their friend Kakey, better known to the world as Shehzad Tanweer, had decided to become a suicide bomber.
"He was sick of it all, all the injustice and the way the world is going about it," Mr. Dutt, 22, said. "Why, for example, don't they ever take a moment of silence for all the Iraqi kids who die?"
"It's a double standard, that's why," answered a friend, who called himself Shahroukh, also 22, wearing a baseball cap and basketball jersey, sitting nearby. "I don't approve of what he did, but I understand it. You get driven to something like this, it doesn't just happen."
To the boys from Cross Flats Park, Mr. Tanweer, 22, who blew himself up on a subway train in London last week, was devout, thoughtful and generous. If they understood his actions, it was because they lived in Mr. Tanweer's world, too.
They did not agree with what Mr. Tanweer had done, but made clear they shared the same sense of otherness, the same sense of siege, the same sense that their community, and Muslims in general, were in their view helpless before the whims of greater powers. Ultimately, they understood his anger.
The news that four British-born Muslim men from neighborhoods around Leeds were suspected of carrying out the bombings in London has made the shared dissatisfaction of boys like these and the creeping militancy of some young British Muslims an urgent issue in Britain.
The bombers are an exception among Britain's 1.6 million Muslims. But their actions have highlighted a lingering question: why are second-generation British Muslims who should seemingly be farther up the road of assimilation rejecting the country in which they were born and raised?
Speak to young Muslims like Mr. Dutt and his friends in Leeds, or to others like Dr. Imram Waheed, 28, and Farouq Khan, 32, two Islamic activists living in Birmingham, another Muslim population center, and the answers seem clear. Each expresses the grievance in his own way, but the root is nearly the same.
They say they are weary of liberal Muslim leaders and British politicians who promise changes. They see them backing policies against the Muslim world in general, from Iraq to the Middle East to Afghanistan, and promising relief from economic distress and discrimination. Still, Britain's Muslims have languished near the bottom of society since their influx here in the 1950's.
"I know what people don't understand - it's how terrorists could have been born in this country," Shahroukh said. "But my point is, why not?"
A recent poll commissioned by The Guardian found that 84 percent of Muslims surveyed were against the use of violence for political means, but only 33 percent of Muslims said they wanted more integration into mainstream British culture. Almost half of those surveyed said their Muslim leadership did not represent their views.
The grievances of the boys of Cross Flats Parks have not propelled them toward political action. But Dr. Waheed, a practicing psychiatrist, and Mr. Khan, a documentary filmmaker, are acting on their alienation.
Both men, eloquent, better educated and better off than most in their community, are also among the more politically motivated. They have embraced one of the more conservative, if not militant, Islamic movements in Britain today - Hizb ut-Tahrir, or Party of Liberation.
The party's stated goal is to rebuild the Caliphate - the Muslim state dissolved with the fall of the Ottoman Empire - to displace corrupt dictators in the Muslim world, and to instill Islamic mores and Islamicize almost every aspect of daily life.
The group has drawn about 10,000 members to its recent annual meetings, its members say, and includes chapters abroad in places like Uzbekistan. It is a controversial movement, even among British Muslims, and its members have become emblematic of the shift of Muslims born in Britain to more conservative and outspoken expressions of their faith.
In interviews earlier this week in Birmingham, where they were born and bred, Dr. Waheed and Mr. Khan described the group's struggle as one for the very identity of Muslims in Britain.
"For our parents, the attention was focused on getting a job and building a life here," Mr. Khan said. "My generation had to go through more of a thinking process to discover who we are, our Islamic identity."
What makes the message of conservative movements especially compelling, Dr. Waheed, Mr. Kahn and others say, is that they articulate the fundamental anger of many British Muslims that more mainstream movements seem incapable or unwilling to discuss.
That anger stems not merely from unhappiness with the situation of Muslims in Britain, but also solidarity with what they see as the aggressive and unjust treatment of Muslims abroad, and not least from Britain's part in the war in Iraq.
For instance, at a small meeting hall in Birmingham last Sunday, Dr. Waheed, who now serves as the group's spokesman, and about 100 other members, discussed the London bombings. Unlike most Muslim groups, which have been seeking to reach out to other communities and stem the fallout of the bombings, this gathering was decidedly unsympathetic.
"We know that the killing of innocents is forbidden," Dr. Waheed said. "But we don't see two classes of blood; the blood of Iraqis is just as important to us as English blood." He emphasized that they in no way condoned the bombings. "But when you understand things from that perspective, why should we condemn the bombing?"
Dr. Waheed is ethnically Pakistani, but British in everything from his clothing style to his goatee. He said he was a model student, captain of the cricket team and among the top in his class.
But like many Muslims in this part of Britain, he has felt divided from non-Muslims. He married in his mid-20's and has a child. His brother-in-law is a member of the party, and his father-in-law has joined, too.
He sees Muslim political leaders basically as sellouts, beholden to the British government, and Britain's Muslims as so cowed that they choose silence.
He recalled one day, in particular, when the chairman of Birmingham's central mosque stood up to condemn the killing of Ken Bigley, a hostage taken in Iraq last year who was murdered, apparently by a group loyal to Abu Musab al Zarqawi.
"I remember the hypocrisy of it," Dr. Waheed said, "Then several older people in white beards stood up as well and said, 'Why did you not do anything when the Iraq war began?' "
Another turning point occurred when he watched a BBC Panorama program about Britain's Muslims aired in the summer of 1993. "It was a very harsh, Islamiphobic program about Muslims in ghettos, mistreating their women and similar things," he said.
His nerves rattled, he chanced upon a leaflet from Hizb ut-Tahrir discussing media propaganda against Islam. "I met with members of the group and became convinced on an intellectual level of what the party was doing," he said. "Most others wanted us to stay in mosque - change ourselves as individuals, they said, but don't stand up as a community. Some asked us to stay out of politics."
That prescription was exactly the wrong one, Dr. Waheed felt.
Mr. Khan's path was different. Unlike Dr. Waheed, who grew up religious, Mr. Khan was not particularly observant, the son of an upper-middle-class doctor who had come to Britain from Pakistan to study medicine and then stayed on. The spark for his activism was the war in Bosnia and the Persian Gulf war.
"Watching the news every day and watching people being killed every day got me to think," he said. "It made me start to think of my own identity and who I was, and it became especially important during the first gulf war, when Britain sent troops to Iraq and they were all very jingoistic and xenophobic."
Then he happened upon a Hizb ut-Tahrir member canvassing for the party, and everything clicked, he said.
"I could see the logic," he said. "It was the situation in the Muslim world in terms of killings, massacres and the realities of what our governments are doing to them."
Like the militant socialist movements of the 1960's, the group promises action, change and a well-packaged set of ideals. It provides a team and a sense of belonging. It publishes books with recommendations on how to live a better Muslim life. It actively proselytizes within the Muslim community.
Officially, the party is against the use of violence. It calls on members to use their minds to argue their stands, Dr. Waheed says. But its talk often comes perilously close to incitement, say mainstream Muslim leaders, who say they ultimately bear the brunt of the group's attacks.
In previous years, the members have taken to crashing other Muslim community meetings and drowning out speakers. They have taken imams to task and debated politicians in the media. Some Muslims accuse them of harassment, death threats and instilling fear of retribution in their communities.
In recent days, politicians have called for curbs on the movement's activities. Such efforts, Dr. Waheed said, are a "clear attempt to blur the margins between political Islam and violence."
"They want to say that Hizb ut-Tahrir is violent," he said. "We are not underground and we're not looking to recruit people. We're just looking for awareness."
He acknowledged the group's ways were more "controversial" a decade ago, but added that much has changed since. "Maybe some of the means and styles at those times could have turned people away, but we have moved on significantly," he said.
Even in Leeds, where Muslims have struggled to co-exist with white Britons, Hizb ut-Tahrir's activists have vied for control of some mosques, community leaders say. They are not always welcome, and the group has not enjoyed much success here, despite the grievances of young men like Mr. Dutt and his friends.
"They're too far over the top," Mr. Dutt said. "They talk about the Caliphate, when we have our own problems here."
Jonathan Allen contributed reporting for this article.
oh i really hope this gets some people going
there was a young man called mohammed
who thought gabriel gave him a sonnet
but it wasnt at all
it was just bugger all
a bad dream for those of the dammn-ed
[emphasis added by ican]
cicerone imposter wrote:July 16, 2005
Anger Burns on the Fringe of Britain's Muslims
By HASSAN M. FATTAH
LEEDS, England, July 15 -
...
"He was sick of it all, all the injustice and the way the world is going about it," Mr. Dutt, 22, said. "Why, for example, don't they ever take a moment of silence for all the Iraqi kids who die?"
"It's a double standard, that's why," answered a friend, who called himself Shahroukh, also 22, wearing a baseball cap and basketball jersey, sitting nearby. "I don't approve of what he did, but I understand it. You get driven to something like this, it doesn't just happen."
...
That anger stems not merely from unhappiness with the situation of Muslims in Britain, but also solidarity with what they see as the aggressive and unjust treatment of Muslims abroad, and not least from Britain's part in the war in Iraq.
...
"We know that the killing of innocents is forbidden," Dr. Waheed said. "But we don't see two classes of blood; the blood of Iraqis is just as important to us as English blood." He emphasized that they in no way condoned the bombings. "But when you understand things from that perspective, why should we condemn the bombing?"
...
"Watching the news every day and watching people being killed every day got me to think," he said. "It made me start to think of my own identity and who I was, and it became especially important during the first gulf war, when Britain sent troops to Iraq and they were all very jingoistic and xenophobic."
...
"I could see the logic," he said. "It was the situation in the Muslim world in terms of killings, massacres and the realities of what our governments are doing to them."
...
The mass murder of Iraqi civilians is not being done by the British or the American militaries. It is being done by those I call the
malignancy: by those opposed to the current Iraqi government, by those opposed to the British in Iraq, and by those opposed to the Americans in Iraq. But to get the British and American militaries to leave Iraq is easy. Stop the
malignancy from mass murdering Iraqi civilians. To get the Iraqi government to change, vote them out.
British civilians are not mass murdering Iraqi civilians. Why murder them?
American civilians are not mass murdering Iraqi civilians. Why murder them?
Iraqi civilians are not mass murdering Iraqi civilians. Why murder them?
When the
malignancy in Iraq is exterminated, the mass murders of Iraqi civilians will stop.
Those who try to convince Muslims otherwise are accomplices of the
malignancy and are therefore part of it.
There are obviously some secret meeting being hold about the Iraquian constitution:
While some representatives of the ethnic groups in the Iraqi parliament and experts met in Abant/ (as reported in the Turkish daily Radikal,
translation here), more than 70 members of the constitutional committee are holding a meeting this weekend in Bonn/Germany.
I couldn't find anything about this online, but heard a reprot with several interviews this morning on our public (state) radio.
It was said that only smaller details are in discussions, but to get a compromise on these could take longer.
While some said, it was clear for everyone, there would be religious freedom and Islam would be "the guide law", others pointed at Basra, where - according to them - a kind of "religious police" is trying to keep all and everyone under the rule of the Koran. (See:
British keep out of Basra's lethal Islamic take-over)
I passed Bonn and "might-be place of this meeting" three days ago: you weren't allowed to go to
this hotel by police and security.
Quote:Richard Whelan's book, Al-Qaedaism, the Threat to Islam, the Threat to the World will be published in September
ican, I was referring to your dismissive comment about the article I posted from the Irish Times by Richard Whelan.
Rebuilding of Baghdad library speaks volumes on tenacity Fri Jul 15, 7:09 AM ET
They're trickling back.
Driven away by bombs, dispirited by shelves emptied by looters, visitors to the public library in Baghdad's Khadamiya district are now starting to return.
There's still work to be done. Stolen books and looted furniture must be replaced. But seeing the return of readers is inspiring enough for Alya Abdul Hussein, a librarian here for 20 years.
"This library, like any public facility in Iraq, suffered," Hussein says.
The Khadamiya Library is one of eight public libraries open in Baghdad, down from 19 operating before the start of the war more than two years ago. Fighting, looters and neglect closed most of the others.
Muhammed Qassim, a Ministry of Municipalities and Public Works official, says the government is trying to reopen more libraries with grant money from the United States and other countries.
Baghdad books by the numbers
Number of libraries:
Prewar: 19
Current: 8
Librarians' monthly salary range:
Prewar: $1 to $4
Current: $126 to $284
Average yearly visits to Baghdad's Khadamiya Library:
Prewar: 1,500 to 2,000
Current: 300 to 500
Volumes at Khadamiya Library:
Prewar: 15,000
Current: 5,000 to 8,000
Sources: Iraqi Ministry of Municipalities and Public Works; Khadamiya Library
Some libraries, such as the one in Khadamiya, fend for themselves. Opened in 1947, it's one of the oldest operating libraries in the city. It's a plain, two-story structure, small and dusty, with books resting on bare metal shelves. The ground floor is used by women and children; men visit the second floor. The ground floor opens onto a garden, with a view of the nearby Al-Ama bridge, that is often used by students.
In April 2003, in the chaotic days following the fall of Baghdad, looters broke into the library, Hussein says.
Her husband brought his gun from home and the two stood sentinel over the building, but not before looters made away with about 10,000 books and magazines, leaving about 5,000 volumes behind.
One day around that time, a U.S. tank pushed into the property and punched a hole in the wall, Hussein says. Military interpreters told her they were looking for Iraq's former leader, she says. Hussein says she used her first paycheck from the city to patch up the hole and mend the fence outside.
Soon after, she visited area mosques and posted signs asking residents to return her books.
"Some people came by themselves and brought them back. Others started to leave them behind the wall of the library (because) they didn't want to be known," she says. "Other people began volunteering their own books."
Hussein says the library was to receive a boost last year from A Bridge to Baghdad, an Italian humanitarian group operating in Baghdad. But when two of the group's workers, Simona Pari and Simona Torretta, were kidnapped from their Baghdad offices in September, the group moved out of Iraq and the deal dissolved, she says. The women were later released.
Today, two librarians and a gardener watch over the library. Hussein says she's happy to receive the few visitors she gets each day. One day, she might get a computer to keep a record of her books.
For now, just having books is enough.
Kara wrote:Quote:Richard Whelan's book, Al-Qaedaism, the Threat to Islam, the Threat to the World will be published in September
ican, I was referring to your dismissive comment about the article I posted from the Irish Times by Richard Whelan.
I guess I also dismissed Whelan's name from my memory. Sorry about that.
My response to the article about Whelan's forthcoming book is based on my belief that the we are too confused about the nature and magnitude of the real danger to our civilian population presented by the
malignancy. If that confusion persists it will lead to conflicts among us that will do more to cripple us than any misconceptions about the Muslim religion.
That real danger is neither increased or decreased by our individual misconceptions about the Muslim religion. The real danger is most definitely increased or decreased by our ability to understand that the conflict is a conflict
between value systems: between a value system based on a reverence for
life and a value system based on a reverence for
death. These two value systems are mutually exclusive and irreconcilable. Such differences are non-negotiable. Such differences are not diminished by mutual understanding. Failure to really understand this will lead us to aid and abett the destruction of our civilization all by ourselves.
Should more than half of us continue to blame those of us defending us from the mass murderers of civilians, for the mass murders of civilians, we are doomed. Unless we soon come to understand that it is not each other, and not this or that religion, and not this or that national leader, that must be blamed to stop the mass murder of civilians, the more likely we are to understand that to survive we must succeed in exterminating the
malignancy.
Breeding Stupidity
Hugh Hewitt
Thu Jul 14,10:54 AM ET
Washington (The Daily Standard) -
THERE IS A STRANGE PAIRING of positions on the left.
The first is that Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda were not connected. The work of Stephen F. Hayes and Thomas Joscelyn in THE WEEKLY STANDARD, which is supported by other serious investigative reporters such as Claudia Rosett has already established beyond any reasonable doubt that there was a web of connections, but the combination of the left's indifference to inconvenient facts and the international version of the soft bigotry of low expectations--an Arab dictator couldn't have had a sophisticated intelligence service capable of hiding such matters--make it an article of faith among Bush haters that there was no connection.
Exactly the opposite approach to facts and evidence is emerging on the left's claim that Iraq is a breeding ground for terrorists. "Breeding ground" means something quite different from "killing ground." The term conveys the belief that had the United States and its allies not invaded Iraq, there would be fewer jihadists in the world today--that the transition of Iraq from brutal dictatorship to struggling democracy has somehow unleashed a terrorist-breeding virus.
The fact that foreign fighters are streaming across Syria into Iraq in the hopes of killing America is not evidence supporting the "breeding ground" theory. "Opportunity" to act is not the same thing as "motive" for acting. There is zero evidence for the proposition that Iraq is motive rather than opportunity, but the "motive" theory is nevertheless put forward again and again. As recently as Wednesday the Washington Post account of the aftermath of the London bombings included the incredible--and unsubstantiated in the article--claim that the "the profile of the suspects suggested by investigators fit long-standing warnings by security experts that the greatest potential threat to Britain could come from second-generation Muslims, born here but alienated from British society and perhaps from their own families, and inflamed by Britain's participation in the Iraq war."[emphasis added]
In an interview with the London Times, Prime Minister Tony Blair disputed the idea "that the London terrorist attacks were a direct result of British involvement in the Iraq war. He said Russia had suffered terrorism with the Beslan school massacre, despite its opposition to the war, and that terrorists were planning further attacks on Spain even after the pro-war government was voted out. "September 11 happened before Iraq, before Afghanistan, before any of these issues and that was the worst terrorist atrocity of all," he said.
While it is theoretically possible that some jihadists were forged as a result of the invasion of Iraq, no specific instance of such a terrorist has yet been produced. Reports in the aftermath of the London bombings indicated that the British intelligence service estimates more than 3,000 residents of Great Britain had trained in the Afghanistan terrorist camps prior to the invasion of Afghanistan--which suggests that the probability is very high that most of the jihadists in England date their hatred of the West to some point prior to the invasion of Iraq. And though two of the London bombers appear to have traveled to Pakistan for religious instruction post-March 2003, there is not the slightest bit of evidence that it was Iraq which "turned" the cricket-loving young men into killers. In fact, it is transparently absurd for anyone to claim such a thing.
So why is the claim being made, and not just post-London, but in all of the contexts where the "breeding ground" rhetoric surfaces?
Of course it's a convenient stick with which to beat the Bush administration. But it has a far more powerful lure than that.
As the bloody toll of the Islamist movement grows and its record of horrors lengthens from Bali to Beslan to Madrid to London, the incredible cost that can only be attributed to the Afghanistan metastasis that went unchecked from the time of bin Laden's return there in 1996 until the American-led invasion of 2001 becomes ever more clear. That was the true "breeding ground" of the world's menace, not the Sunni triangle, where jihadists are continually under pressure and increasingly desperate. The long years ahead in the global war on terrorism will be spent trying to undo the damage done by allowing the Islamist radicals a safe haven from which to export their ideology and to train and deploy their converts.
The realization of the price of inaction through the '90s has a huge political cost attached to it, one that the Democrats will bear if a full accounting is ever compiled. Thus the "breeding ground" rhetoric--empty and absurd as it is--is a convenient and even necessary bit of smoke. There's no fire underneath that smoke. Just a desperate hope that noise will drown out voices pointing to the real history of the rise of the Islamist threat.
In an exchange with Ron Reagan on MSNBC this week, Christopher Hitchens sharply rebuked the "motive" school of terrorist psychologists: "I thought I heard you making just before we came on the air, of attributing rationality or a motive to this, and to say that it's about anything but itself, you make a great mistake, and you end up where you ended up, saying that the cause of terrorism is fighting against it, the root cause, I mean." [emphasis added]
Hitchens's point, which must be made again and again, is Blair's point: The killers are killers because they want to kill, not because the coalition invaded Iraq, or Afghanistan, or because there are bases in Saudi Arabia, or because Israel will not retreat to the 1967 borders.
Until and unless the left gets this point, and abandons the idea that "breeding" of terrorists is something the West triggers, they cannot be trusted with the conduct of the war.
Hugh Hewitt is the host of a nationally syndicated radio show, and author most recently of Blog: Understanding the Information Reformation That is Changing Your World. His daily blog can be found at HughHewitt.com.
Another article to only aggravate the tensions of otherwise moderate Muslims.
Since the start of all the right's solutions to terrorism, there has been a rise in militant Muslims. Therefore the right cannot be trusted with fighting terrorism.
Moderate Islam isn't in a position to be aggravated.
revel wrote:Another article to only aggravate the tensions of otherwise moderate Muslims.
Since the start of all the right's solutions to terrorism, there has been a rise in militant Muslims. Therefore the right cannot be trusted with fighting terrorism.
FALSE! The truth is, it was since the left's solutions to terrorism circa 1992, that there has been a rise in so-called "militant Muslims."
But I do not believe the left is anymore to blame than the right for the rise in terrorism. The fact that the rise occurred and is occurring on both watches does not identify the cause of the rise. Or as Einstein is reported to have said many years ago: "correlation is not cause."
The cause of the growth of terrorism is the promotion of a
reverence for death instead of reverence for life. That promotion has been well documented by the promoters of death and themselves. Read the 1992, 1996, 1998, and the 2004 fatwahs of bin Laden et al for a true insight into the cause: the promise of a ticket into an alleged paradise and its alleged benefits.
Hi ican, I've been gone for a few days camping on some of the most remote areas I remember from my fishing days with my grandfather. We were camped up on Slumgullian Pass in southern colorado and down the ways was another camper and he had a satellite dish and a generator beside his tent so he could catch Fox News O'reilley, I thought of you as I sat around the fire. Weird don't you think?
dyslexia wrote:...Weird don't you think?
Weirder yet, I was thinking of you earlier while comtemplating some holes in the clouds.
I wonder how O'Reilly stacks up against holes in the clouds. That is, which provides the greater perspective? :wink:
In a new development on the Iraq war, it emerged last night that Downing Street has blocked one of Britain's most senior former diplomats from revealing his controversial fly-on-the-wall account of the conflict.
In an extract from the book, Greenstock describes the American decision to go to war as "politically illegitimate" and says that UN negotiations "never rose over the level of awkward diversion for the US administration".
Quote:No 10 blocks envoy's book on Iraq
Martin Bright and Peter Beaumont
Sunday July 17, 2005
The Observer
A controversial fly-on-the wall account of the Iraq war by one of Britain's most senior former diplomats has been blocked by Downing Street and the Foreign Office.
Publication of The Costs of War by Sir Jeremy Greenstock, UK ambassador to the UN during the build-up to the 2003 war and the Prime Minister's special envoy to Iraq in its aftermath, has been halted. In an extract seen by The Observer, Greenstock describes the American decision to go to war as 'politically illegitimate' and says that UN negotiations 'never rose over the level of awkward diversion for the US administration'. Although he admits that 'honourable decisions' were made to remove the threat of Saddam, the opportunities of the post-conflict period were 'dissipated in poor policy analysis and narrow-minded execution'.
Regarded as a career diplomat of impeccable integrity, during his time in post-invasion Iraq, Greenstock became disillusioned with the Coalition Provisional Authority, led by Paul Bremer. Their relationship had deteriorated by the time Greenstock returned to Britain.
The decision to block the book until Greenstock removes substantial passages will be interpreted as an attempt by ministers to avoid further embarrassing disclosures over the conduct of the war and its aftermath from a highly credible source.
Officials who have seen the book are understood to have been 'deeply shocked' over the way in which Greenstock has quoted widely from 'privileged' private conversations with Tony Blair, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw and from the private deliberations of the UN Security Council.
Greenstock has been asked to remove all these sections before the book can be cleared for publication. 'I think some people are really quite surprised that someone like Sir Jeremy has done this,' said one source. 'In particular the way he has quoted private conversations with the Prime Minister.' Greenstock is also thought to be scathing about Bremer and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
Greenstock's British publishers, Random House, were remaining tight-lipped but it is thought that the book is almost certain not to be published in the autumn as planned. It was also to be serialised in a British newspaper.
Greenstock, now director of the foreign policy think tank, the Ditchley Foundation, was set to give a series of public appearances, including one at next month's Edinburgh Book Festival. The Foreign Office last night issued a statement: 'Civil Service regulations which apply to all members of the diplomatic service require that any retired official must obtain clearance in respect of any publication relating to their service. Sir Jeremy Greenstock's proposed book is being dealt with under this procedure.'
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Iran, Iraq Herald 'New Chapter' in Shiite-Led Alliance
Former Enemies to Forge Closer Ties On Security, Economy, Leaders Say
By Andy Mosher and Robin Wright
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, July 17, 2005; Page A21
Quote:BAGHDAD, July 16 -- A quarter-century after Iraq's invasion of Iran launched the Middle East's bloodiest modern war, Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Jafari arrived in Tehran on Saturday for a three-day visit that officials on both sides said signals a new alliance that could change the religious and political balance of power in the region.
Jafari and more than 10 other Iraqi cabinet ministers are scheduled to work with their Iranian counterparts on closer security and economic cooperation, particularly on counterterrorism, control of their porous 900-mile frontier, and oil, gas and manufacturing deals. Jafari, a Shiite Muslim who spent almost a decade of exile in Iran while President Saddam Hussein ruled Iraq, is the first Iraqi head of government to visit Shiite-ruled Iran in more than a dozen years.
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