The Chronic Curmudgeon

I also see this attack as yet another way for Bush and his minions to further justify his war to his mindless sheep constituents. He continues to claim that somehow Iraq is a key battleground for the war on terror, and his gun-toting, best defense is a good offense, red-staters still believe him.
We have no real defense from terror attacks. There is no real time, no real target that is not good enough for a terrorist. Free society is suceptable to sabotage, its just the way it is.
The way to truly fight terrorism is to ease tensions, and anti-American sentiment to peoples who see the way we live as imperial. This would slow down the amount of people stepping up to bat for Al-Qaida. It is an aspect that the Bush regime has worked in complete opposite for. We're right, and unless you agree, your the enemy.

You can dog the extreme liberal Canadians for their whiny make love not war attitude, but you have to agree that using a flame thrower to overpower a blowtorch is not winning this so-called war on terrorism. Killing Osama bin laden will weaken the spirit of the enemy, but at the same time will strengthen their resolve. Just like 9/11 did to the US. You think that Bin Laden's followers would not be hungry for blood upon the death of what they see the closest man to Allah? They have no time frame, they will fight and teach their children to fight for thousands of years if necessary. The only real way for us to physically protect ourselves is to strengthen our own intelligence, and our own internal security measures. Alhough seemingly justifiable, I don't see either war as an effective measure against the enemy.

The problem with this "War on Terrorism" is that it is a never ending quest. But this administration just won't admit it.

A-Q isn't a bureauocratic country. It's an "idea" that is strengthened by seeing innocent muslims being bombed, tortured, murdered followed by retaliation of innocent "infidels" being bombed and murdered. The tragic never ending circle.

It is an idea that runs on the belief that the infidel West is raping the Muslim countries of their profits and natural resources. It is an idea that the Muslim world is getting poorer while the infidels are getting wealthy, at the muslim's expense.

We have to admit to ourselves that this type of "warfare" is not like WWII or even Vietnam. This is a "religious" war and the more BushCo uses the term "crusades" and quotes the bible, the more he inflames the fires of hate toward the West...especially the US.

This is a war that will end only with the destruction of the World. Going One bomb victim; one murdered hostage at a time.

I heard a UK member of parliament on NPR this morning (didn't catch his name; western Scotland accent) who came out and said that the UK was reaping the result of Tony Blair's involvement with Bush's "blood feud" (quoting you b/c it's so accurate). Apparently one of the ministers had an editorial in the Times about that and said that the bombings were due to Al-Qaida hating the western way of life. The Scottish guy came back and said, "You're a fool if you say that and you're a fool to believe it." He added that "any sentient being" knows that the attacks on the US, Spain and the UK are about western policies and attitudes toward the Middle East. Your thoughts?

Jillian that man was George Galloway. He is very complicated character, he says some pretty common sense stuff; but then in turn in the past has mixed with some dubious people in the Middle East. He is not the only one though, several members of Bush’s cadre have all had dealings with dubious characters (eh Rummy and Cheney) I have been fortunate to meet people from countries such as Iran, Iraq; Palestine and Israel. They all just want to get on with each other and live in peace. Unfortunately they have all pointed to the minority of fundamentalists on all sides who want to build walls against this ever happening. I hope to be proved wrong though and that people will grow weary of it.

Joe - I'm not talking just about killing bin Laden (though I'd like to see his head on a stake and paraded down Broadway). I am talking about all al Qaida - destroy them. Seek and destroy not just active fighters, but their children, wives, parents and siblings. Eliminate their bloodlines from the face of this earth kind of thing.

I agree with you that they won't stop, and that this will go on for generations... and that's precisely why we should have (once we dislodged their Taliban hosts, which IMHO we had to do in order to at least deny them a safe haven in which to use intenrational diplomacy to hide) should have embarked on an intelligence war like none other in history - screw Iraq, what could $200B have done as far as hunting down every single last member of that wretched group of cowards?

The second they step out of their cave for their morning piss, or walk down the streets of Karachi heading to mosque, or check into a hotel in Damascus, a Western agent ought to be there with a silencer equipped Glock in one hand and a dagger coated in cyanide in the other. Maybe they could start stapling pictures of the Twin Towers or the double-decker bus or the Atocha trai station to their foreheads of their prey so that their buddies would know who was there. You and I both know people in the intelligence business; you know we could have done much better with A-Q had they been given the resources four years ago.

As far as America's imperial air/behavior, yes, we are arrogant, and our lifestyles cause reactions that range from envy to resentment to anger at the wastefulness and avarice that can sometimes define us. And having an arrogant, smug, no-less-dogmatic-than-the-Taliban frat boy criminal as our "leader" doesn't help the perception of America anywhere else in the world. But us being assholes doesn't give anyone license to kill 3000 of us for no good reason.

I'll continue this rant in a moment... but if readers are thinking that ol' Mudge isn't sounding quite as liberal as he usually does, it's because on the issue of al Qaida I am not.

Jillian -

I don't think it is a religious war, at least in the sense that I don't think Islam and Christianity cannot co-exist. This is a war on a fundamentalist sect that does not recognize the right to existence of anyone that does not share their beliefs (and the Christian right is not much better on that level, but we'll get to that another time).

You said, "It is an idea that runs on the belief that the infidel West is raping the Muslim countries of their profits and natural resources. It is an idea that the Muslim world is getting poorer while the infidels are getting wealthy, at the muslim's expense.

Perhaps; and if we look at the behavior of American/Western oil companies, perhaps there's some truth to that. But I'd suggest that any Muslim wondering where his country's natural resources and wealth have gone should look at the House of Saud's holdings, or Saddam's palace, or the pricey mosques built for the elite of Arab nations' ruling families. If the West is "raping" Muslim lands, Muslim leaders are tying them down and holding their legs open, to use a crude analogy.

This is one thing I don't get about the Left (of which I am a proud member, so this is self-analysis). We despise the rise of Christian fundamentalism here in America; we deplore the religious right's efforts to theocracize American society into their own hard-line image; we get our backs up and are instantly ready to organize and fight whenever the Christian Right gets active or overreaches. Yet for some reason, when confronted with Islamic fundamentalism (which is the other side of the same coin), we start talking about the need to understand and the possible legitimate motivations they have for their actions. I don't understand this.

Fundamentalism is fundamentalism. No matter which religion it manifests itself in, it's still predicated on the idea that only a specific, narrow-minded, strict interpretation of their specific religion are worthy of rights and even of existence. And I don't get why the Western Left opposes it with every fiber of its being from Christians, but wishes to explain, understand or tolerate it from Islam.

Is this a traditional "war?" No. But that's why I am so angered by Bush's treason in Iraq; it was an unneccesary and falsely pretensed diversion from the real battles. Once the Taliban were out of power, I agree that the war stopped being about dropping bombs. But we could have and should have been embarking on a Mossad-style effort to take the war to each individual. $200B and all those troops would have bought a lot of special forces raids on individuals.

Eden - while I agree that this isn't about a group "hating freedom" or anything that childishly simplistic, I don't think one can lump al Qaida in with other terrorist groups in the Middle East. Hamas or Hizbollah, for example, have a very defined agenda and complaint -- the desire for an independent Palestinian homeland. One can disapprove of their tactics and even disagree with their aims, but even the most strident Israeli or Western conservative has to acknowledge that these groups have a very specific goal in mind. Now, those of us on the left would argue -- correctly, IMHO -- that more flexibility on the part of Israel and the West might alleivate many of the problems... and that a Palestinian homeland, as challenging as it might be to get one set up while maintaining Israel's security, would go a long way toward eliminating Hamas' motivations for sending suicide bombers into Tel Aviv pizza parlors.

The mistake I think many American/Western lefties make is in too closely aligning or equating all Middle Eastern terror groups with al Qaida, or projecting Hamas' motives onto al Qaida. Bin Laden never mentioned the Palestinians until after he'd carried out 9/11 -- in fact, it might even ave been after Bali. Bin Laden's only goal his whole "career" has been to kill as many non-Muslims as possible. The motivation to oppose the Soviets in the 1980s wasn't political; it was simply to get the "infidels" off Muslim lands. bin Laden's crusade against the West began in 1990 because, in helping Muslim nations (Saudi Arabia and Kuwait) defend themselves, the US put troops in the same land as Islam's holiest sites -- again, bin Laden just was about getting "infidels" off Muslim land.

It's all about "infidels" with him - and I firmly, honestly, truly believe with every fiber of my being that even if all Western troops left every Muslim nation tomorrow... even if we woke up tomorrow morning to the news that the Palenstinian state had been recognized by Israel, the US, and the UN, and Ramallah announced as its new capital... even if every American oil company left Arab lands and their resources were nationalized by Muslim nations, bin Laden and his fundamentalists would find new justification and new rationales for violent attacks on Western "infidels."

When you're dealing with fundamentalism, one of the core tenets of that group - be they Islamic, Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Sikh, or any other religion -- is that anyone not holding those beliefs is lesser, and that God's mission for the fundamentalist is to either convert or destroy the non-believers. So I really don't think that addressing every Arab/Muslim/Middle Eastern grievance ever heard would stop these guys. They read the Qu'ran as giving them a mission... and to deny their fundamentalism and to try and project some sort of rationality on them is to deny the reality of who they are.

It's not about "hating freedom." (Hell, ask anyone who opposes Bush if the United States is as free as it used to be.) But IMHO, al Qaida IS about hating anyone who does not adhere to a twisted,fundamentalist version of Islam, and carrying out "God's mission" to destroy the infidel. Freedom has nothing to do with it. Religion has everything to do with it.

If "Bin Laden's only goal his whole 'career' has been to kill as many non-Muslims as possible", as you say, then describe Al-Qaeda's lack of action in non-developed, non-Western countries. Outside of the global north, targets are easier to hit with less chance of repercussions. There are billions upon billions of non-Muslims across the globe. Why does Al-Qaeda only target major world powers?

Is it to make a political point?

I stand by the belief that Al-Qaeda is not a religions organization. They may claim religious points of view, but thier interpretations of religious texts are beyond radical and into the realm of ridiculous. Religion is just one of the tools that Al-Qaeda uses. The following are the attacks attributed to Al-Qaeda (according to the BBC):
26 Feb 1993 - World Trade Center Bombings;
25 Jun 1996 - 16 US soldiers killed in Saudi Arabia;
7 Aug 1998 - East African Embassy Bombings;
12 Oct 2000 - Attack on the USS Cole;
11 Sept 2001 - Attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon;
28 Nov 2002 - Attack on Israeli Tourists;
12 May 2003 - Attack on Western civilians in Riyadh.

These attacks are solely against three countries: The United States, The United Kingdom, and Israel. Other Western civilans have been killed in these attacks as well. Why have Al-Qaeda's victims been only white judeo-christians of European decent if they are out to "kill as many non-muslims as possible"?

Al-Qaeda is a political group with political goals. They cannot be dealt with as religious zealots as most of their reasoning is not based in the Qu'ran.

I disagree completely with your method of dealing with Al-Qaeda. Granted, sometimes the sword is a necessary tool and war is merely an extention of diplomacy, but here, and with terrorism in general, the battle must be fought with butter, not guns, humanitarian aid, not cluster bombs. We can remove their religious backing and their faulty reasoning with some clever diplomacy. From there, they crumble on their own.

I may be too much of a peace-nik sometimes, but trends have been showing that this is not a fight that we can win with fire. Remove the fuel, and Al-Qaeda will burn itself out.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/071405O.shtml