The failure of Arab nationalism is critical to understanding the political environment int he Middle East. I don't have time to get too in depth at the moment, but perhaps I can put something up later.

The ideology of those we are fighting today extremely similar to the ideology that was behind the Iranian revolution. I know we will win because the ideology behind the Iranian revolution did not transfer to a new generation. Since 1988, there has been no compelling reason to call us the Great Satan. AQ and some other groups are trying to keep the same spirit going. Keepers of the flame, the vanguard, etc...these are all old concepts in revolutionary ideology.

Also, we really, really need to stop not knowing who our enemy is. Everytime someone pops up and says that we really are fighting Islam and not a bunch of idiots, we extend the war by a generation (not literally, but...).

Bringing into your lingo, NDD, not understanding this stuff is like not understanding what role Marx, Castro and the Pope played in Latin America.

And there you have it. To understand the FARC or AUC (arguably the two biggest threats in the region), you don't have to understand Marx, Castro or the Pope. You have to understand Pablo Escobar and simple supply-demand economics. Hell, to understand the AUC, I'm not even real sure you need to even understand Carlos Castano anymore.

In the case of the FARC, it is an interesting academic exercise and worth the effort inc ase they change again when the old man dies. But they are no more communist than Greenhat anymore. The FARC of today bears very little resemblance to the FARC of the 60s, 70s or even 80s.

Jimbo, I am pretty familiary with the history of the region. Anyway, no reason to throw around insults like the above. How about we stick to the argument?

I did read the article. The Arab Nationalism of the 1970's is a small and, I agree, unusual period that stands out in 13 centuries of history. But it is notable not because it is charactisic of the history of the region, but because it stands in contrast to the history of the region. You have to go back to the Abassid Dynasty to find any situation in the region where the politics of the region were not rooted inextricably in Islam (and although that was probably the most secular period in Islamic history, it was still under a Caliphate). Honestly, Islam even plays a minor role in the rise of Arab-Nationalism, as Arabs sent many of their children to Europe for educations in the 19th C. hoping to reverse the fortunes of the failing Islamic world in comparison to the West.

Facism was an unusual period in German history. It had a pretty profound effect on world history, though.

The dicotomy you said doesn't exist, did exist. It continues to exist in Turkey. This debate has been going on is Islam for a long time. Maybe they'll reach a resolution at some point. When they do, we will either get along with them or there will be total war with them. Until then, people should hold off on saying we are at war with the religion.

Up until very recently commie slogans and arguments were used for recruiting. The ideology seems to still appeal to some of the rank and file.

Article Here

http://us.news2.yimg.com/us.yimg.com...lt-384x262.jpg

Check out the above article, which is basically an interview with an imam who is in the US military stationed in Iraq. He talks about the "complexities" of being, at once, a muslim and American soldier.

I think there is some revealing content in here about whether or not we should consider the Islamic ideology, as such and not just some elements, hostile to America. After all, if there is anyone in the world who is both Muslim and who should be sympathetic to America it's gotta be this guy.

The first part of the article is, I guess, meant to be some kind of human interest story focusing on the difficulty a muslim has serving in the military, since muslims, the imam (who is a major) insists, have a hard time with killing people. I'll leave that one alone. It's the second half of the article that I find most revealing.

When asked whether or not he would label the insurgents with the presumably morally defensible title of mujahedeen, he says he wouldn't. They are not morally defensible in his eyes, but the revealing answer is his reasons for why?

"I wouldn't call them mujahedeen because they kill muslims, which is haram, forbidden in the Quran," he explains, and later, "I ask my brothers to take a look. Eight to ten million muslims live in the United States."

I think this is pretty revealing. The implication is that the primary reason their actions are not justified is because they kill some other Muslims. In other words, the reference he makes to explain the political validity/invalidity of act is not his own Constitution or the Bill of Rights he has sworn to defend, it is the Quran. And the question begged: if they did not kill any muslims, and went out of their way not to target muslims in America, what would he think of it then? After all, I'm pretty sure it is not haram to kill infidels who refuse to convert or be subjugated.

And this, from a major in the US Army. It would seem that you are going to get about as pro-American an interpretation of Islam from him as from .

I think his constant reference to the Quran as the moral authority on what most in the West would be a violation of political rights indicates the unity of religion and politics in that part of the world as well.

Dutch Filmmaker Theo Van Gogh Murdered
 

Write book or make a movie criticizing muslims/islam, prepare to meet your maker! Gunning down an unarmed film maker, that's what islam teaches, what a wonderful way of life.

TS





Nov 2, 7:30 AM (ET)

By TOBY STERLING

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) - A Dutch filmmaker who had received death threats after releasing a movie criticizing the treatment of women under Islam was slain in Amsterdam on Tuesday, police said.

A suspect, a 26-year-old man with dual Dutch-Moroccan nationality, was arrested after a shootout with officers that left him wounded, police said.

Filmmaker Theo van Gogh had been threatened after the August airing of the movie "Submission," which he made with a right-wing Dutch politician who had renounced the Islamic faith of her birth. Van Gogh had received police protection after its release.

Dutch national broadcaster NOS and other media reported that Van Gogh's killer shot and stabbed his victim and left a note on his body. NOS said witnesses described the attacker as having an "Arab appearance."

A witness who lives in the neighborhood heard six shots, and saw the man concealing a gun. She said he walked away slowly, spoke to someone at the edge of the park, and then ran.

"He was walking slowly, like he was trying to be cool," she said, describing him as wearing a long beard and Islamic garb. "He was either an Arabic man or someone disguised as a Muslim," she said.

Another witness told Dutch Radio 1 the killer arrived by bicycle and shot Van Gogh as he got out of a car. "He fell backward on the bicycle path and just laid there. The shooter stayed next to him and waited. Waited to make sure he was dead."

The slain filmmaker was the great grandson of the brother of famous Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh, who was also named Theo. In a recent radio interview, Van Gogh dismissed the threats and called the movie "the best protection I could have. It's not something I worry about."

Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende called on the Dutch people to remain calm.

"Nothing is known about the motive," he said in a written statement. "I want to call on everyone not to jump to far-reaching conclusions. The facts must first be carefully weighed so let's allow the investigators to do their jobs."

Balkenende praised Van Gogh as a proponent of free speech who had "outspoken opinions."

"It would be unacceptable if a difference of opinion led to this brutal murder," he said.

Police spokesman Eric Vermeulen said the attacker fled to the nearby East Park, and was arrested after exchanging gunfire with police. Both the suspect and a policeman suffered minor injuries.

"They were conscious" when taken to hospital, Vermeulen said.

Van Gogh's killing immediately rekindled memories of the 2002 assassination of Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn who polarized the nation with his anti-immigration views and was shot to death days before national elections.

In addition to his film, van Gogh also wrote columns about Islam that were published on his Web site, www.theovangogh.nl, and Dutch newspaper Metro.

The short television film "Submission" aired on Dutch television in August, enraged the Muslim community in the Netherlands.

It told the fictional story of a Muslim woman forced into a violent marriage, raped by a relative and brutally punished for adultery.

The English-language film was scripted by a right-wing politician who years ago renounced the Islamic faith of her birth and now refers to herself as an "ex-Muslim."

Somali-born Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a member of the Dutch parliament, has repeatedly outraged fellow Muslims by criticizing Islamic customs and the failure of Muslim families to adopt Dutch ways.

The place of Muslim immigrants in Dutch society has long been a contentious issue in the Netherlands, where many right-wing politicians have pushed for tougher immigration laws and say Muslims already settled in the country must make a greater effort to assimilate.

Theo van Gogh, 47, has often come under criticism for his controversial movies. In December, his next movie "06-05," about the May 6, 2002 assassination of Pim Fortuyn, is scheduled to debut on the Internet.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20041102/D863NRS80.html

This is a bit long, but provides an interesting perspective:

> The essay below is an extremely well formulated address which was
> given at the Weizmann Institute of Israel, by one of the foremost
> physicists in Israel. Professor Chaim Harari brings great insight and
> wisdom to his analysis of how the Third World War came about, and which
> countries are vulnerable.
>
> The essay is drawn from an address delivered by Professor Harari at
> a meeting of the International Advisory Board of a large multi-national
> corporation, April, 2004
>
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
> HAIM HARARI, a theoretical physicist, is the Chair, Davidson
> Institute of Science Education, and Former President, from 1988 to 2001,
> of the Weizmann Institute of Science. During his years as President of
> the Institute, it entered numerous new scientific fields and projects,
> built 47 new buildings, raised one Billion Dollars in philanthropic
> money, hired more than half of its current tenured Professors and became
> one of the highest royalty-earning academic organizations in the world.
>
> Throughout all his adult life, he has made major contributions to
> three different fields: Particle Physics Research on the international
> scene, Science Education in the Israeli school system and Science
> Administration and Policy Making.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> A View from the Eye of the Storm
>
> As you know, I usually provide the scientific and technological
> "entertainment" in our meetings, but, on this occasion, our Chairman
> suggested that I present my own personal view on events in the part of
> the world from which I come. I have never been and I will never be a
> Government official and I have no privileged information. My perspective
> is entirely based on what I see, on what I read and on the fact that my
> family has lived in this region for almost 200 years. You may regard my
> views as those of the proverbial taxi driver, whom you are supposed to
> question when you visit a country.
>
> I could have shared with you some fascinating facts and some
> personal thoughts about the Israeli-Arab conflict. However, I will touch
> upon it only in passing. I prefer to devote most of my remarks to the
> broader picture of the region and its place in world events. I refer to
> the entire area between Pakistan and Morocco, which is predominantly
> Arab, predominantly Moslem, but includes many non-Arab and also
> significant non-Moslem minorities.
>
> Why do I put aside Israel and its own immediate neighborhood?
> Because Israel and any problems related to it, in spite of what you
> might read or hear in the world media, is not the central issue, and has
> never been the central issue in the upheaval in the region. Yes, there
> is a 100 year-old Israeli-Arab conflict, but it is not where the main
> show is. The millions who died in the Iran-Iraq war had nothing to do
> with Israel. The mass murder happening right now in Sudan, where the
> Arab Moslem regime is massacring its black Christian citizens, has
> nothing to do with Israel. The frequent reports from Algeria about the
> murders of hundreds of civilians in one village or another by other
> Algerians have nothing to do with Israel. Saddam Hussein did not invade
> Kuwait, endanger Saudi Arabia and butcher his own people because of
> Israel. Egypt did not use poison gas against Yemen in the 60's because
> of Israel. Assad the Father did not kill tens of thousands of his own
> citizens in one week in El Hamma in Syria because of Israel. The Taliban
> control of Afghanistan and the civil war there had nothing to do with
> Israel. The Libyan blowing up of the Pan-Am flight had nothing to do
> with Israel, and I could go on and on and on.
>
> The root of the trouble is that this entire Moslem region is totally
> dysfunctional by any standard of the word, and would have been so even
> if Israel would have joined the Arab League and an independent Palestine
> would have existed for 100 years. The 22 member countries of the Arab
> League, from Mauritania to the Gulf States, have a total population of
> 300 millions, larger than the US and almost as large as the EU before
> its expansion. They have a land area larger than either the US or all of
> Europe. These 22 countries, with all their oil and natural resources,
> have a combined GDP smaller than that of Netherlands plus Belgium and
> equal to half of the GDP of California alone. Within this meager GDP,
> the gaps between rich and poor are beyond belief and too many of the
> rich made their money not by succeeding in business, but by being
> corrupt rulers. The social status of women is far below what it was in
> the Western World 150 years ago. Human rights are below any reasonable
> standard, in spite of the grotesque fact that Libya was elected Chair of
> the UN Human Rights commission. According to a report prepared by a
> committee of Arab intellectuals and published under the auspices of the
> U.N., the number of books translated by the entire Arab world is much
> smaller than what little Greece alone translates. The total number of
> scientific publications of 300 million Arabs is less than that of 6
> million Israelis. Birth rates in the region are very high, increasing
> the poverty, the social gaps, and the cultural decline. And all of this
> is happening in a region that only 30 years ago was believed to be the
> next wealthy part of the world, and in a Moslem area, which developed,
> at some point in history, one of the most advanced cultures in the world.
>
> It is fair to say that this creates an unprecedented breeding ground
> for cruel dictators, terror networks, fanaticism, incitement, suicide
> murders, and general decline. It is also a fact that almost everybody in
> the region blames this situation on the United States, on Israel, on
> Western Civilization, on Judaism and Christianity, on anyone and
> anything, except themselves.
>
> Do I say all of this with the satisfaction of someone discussing the
> failings of his enemies? On the contrary, I firmly believe that the
> world would have been a much better place and my own neighborhood would
> have been much more pleasant and peaceful if things were different.
>
> I should also say a word about the millions of decent, honest, good
> people who are either devout Moslems or are not very religious but grew
> up in Moslem families. They are double victims, of an outside world
> which now develops Islamophobia, and of their own environment which
> breaks their hearts by being totally dysfunctional. The problem is that
> the vast silent majority of these Moslems are not part of the terror and
> of the incitement but they also do not stand up against it. They become
> accomplices by omission, and this applies to political leaders,
> intellectuals, business people and many others. Many of them can
> certainly tell right from wrong, but are afraid to express their views.
>

Continued . . . (told you it was long) . . .

> The events of the last few years have amplified four issues, which
> have always existed, but have never been as rampant as in the present
> upheaval in the region. These are the four main pillars of the current
> World Conflict, or perhaps we should already refer to it as "the
> undeclared World War III". I have no better name for the present
> situation. A few more years may pass before everybody acknowledges that
> it is a World War, but we are already well into it.
>
> The first element is the suicide murder. Suicide murders are not a
> new invention but they have been made popular, if I may use this
> expression, only lately. Even after September 11, it seems that most of
> the Western World does not yet understand this weapon. It is a very
> potent psychological weapon. Its real direct impact is relatively minor.
> The total number of casualties from hundreds of suicide murders within
> Israel in the last three years is much smaller than those due to car
> accidents. September 11 was quantitatively much less lethal than many
> earthquakes. More people die from AIDS in one day in Africa than all the
> Russians who died in the hands of Chechnya-based Moslem suicide
> murderers since that conflict started. Saddam killed more people every
> month than all those who died from suicide murders since the Coalition
> occupied Iraq.
>
> So what is all the fuss about suicide killings? It creates
> headlines. It is spectacular. It is frightening. It is a very cruel
> death with bodies dismembered and horrible severe lifelong injuries to
> many of the wounded. It is always shown on television in great detail.
> One such murder, with the help of hysterical media coverage, can destroy
> the tourism industry of a country for quite a while, as it did in Bali
> and in Turkey.
>
> But the real fear comes from the undisputed fact that no defense and
> no preventive measures can succeed against a determined suicide
> murderer. This has not yet penetrated the thinking of the Western World.
> The U.S. and Europe are constantly improving their defense against the
> last murder, not the next one. We may arrange for the best airport
> security in the world. But if you want to murder by suicide, you do not
> have to board a plane in order to explode yourself and kill many people.
> Who could stop a suicide murder in the midst of the crowded line waiting
> to be checked by the airport metal detector? How about the lines to the
> check-in counters in a busy travel period? Put a metal detector in front
> of every train station in Spain and the terrorists will get the buses.
> Protect the buses and they will explode in movie theaters, concert
> halls, supermarkets, shopping malls, schools, and hospitals. Put guards
> in front of every concert hall and there will always be a line of people
> to be checked by the guards and this line will be the target, not to
> speak of killing the guards themselves. You can somewhat reduce your
> vulnerability by preventive and defensive measures and by strict border
> controls but not eliminate it and definitely not win the war in a
> defensive way. And it is a war!
>
> What is behind the suicide murders? Money, power and cold-blooded
> murderous incitement, nothing else. It has nothing to do with true
> fanatical religious beliefs. No Moslem preacher has ever blown himself
> up. No son of an Arab politician or religious leader has ever blown
> himself up. No relative of anyone influential has done it. Wouldn't you
> expect some of the religious leaders to do it themselves, or to talk
> their sons into doing it, if this is truly a supreme act of religious
> fervor? Aren't they interested in the benefits of going to Heaven?
> Instead, they send outcast women, naive children, retarded people and
> young incited hotheads. They promise them the delights, mostly sexual,
> of the next world, and pay their families handsomely after the supreme
> act is performed and enough innocent people are dead.
>
> Suicide murders also have nothing to do with poverty and despair.
> The poorest region in the world, by far, is Africa. It never happens
> there There are numerous desperate people in the world, in different
> cultures, countries and continents. Desperation does not provide anyone
> with explosives, reconnaissance and transportation. There was certainly
> more despair in Saddam's Iraq than in Paul Bremmer's Iraq, and no one
> exploded himself. A suicide murder is simply a horrible, vicious weapon
> of cruel, inhuman, cynical, well-funded terrorists, with no regard for
> human life, including the lives of their fellow countrymen, but with
> very high regard for their own affluent well-being and their hunger for
> power.
>
> The only way to fight this new "popular" weapon is identical to the
> only way in which you fight organized crime or pirates on the high seas:
> the offensive way.As in the case of organized crime, it is crucial that
> the forces on the offensive be united and it is crucial to reach the top
> of the crime pyramid. You cannot eliminate organized crime by arresting
> the little drug dealer on the street corner. You must go after the head of
> the "Family".
>
> If part of the public supports it, others tolerate it, many are
> afraid of it and some try to explain it away by poverty or by a
> miserable childhood, organized crime will thrive and so will terrorism.
> The United States understands this now, after September 11 Russia is
> beginning to understand it. Turkey understands it well. I am very much
> afraid that most of Europe still does not understand it. Unfortunately,
>
> it seems that Europe will understand it only after suicide murderers
> arrive in Europe in a big way. In my humble opinion, this will
> definitely happen. The Spanish trains and the Istanbul bombings are only
> the beginning. The unity of the Civilized World in fighting this horror
> is absolutely indispensable. Until Europe wakes up, this unity will not be
> achieved.
>
> The second ingredient is words, more precisely lies. Words can be
> lethal. They kill people. It is often said that politicians, diplomats
> and perhaps also lawyers and business people must sometimes lie as part
> of their professional life. But the norms of politics and diplomacy are
> childish in comparison with the level of incitement and total, absolute,
> deliberate fabrications which have reached new heights in the region we
> are talking about. An incredible number of people in the Arab world
> believe that September 11 never happened, or was an American provocation
> or, even better, a Jewish plot.
>
> You all remember the Iraqi Minister of Information, Mr. Muhammad
> Said al-Sahaf and his press conferences when the US forces were already
> inside Baghdad. Disinformation at time of war is an accepted tactic. But
> to stand, day after day, and make such preposterous statements, known to
> everybody to be lies, without even being ridiculed in your own milieu,
> can only happen in this region. Mr. Sahaf eventually became a popular
> icon as a court jester, but this did not stop some allegedly respectable
> newspapers from giving him equal time. It also does not prevent the
> Western press from giving credence every day, even now, to similar
> liars. After all, if you want to be an anti-Semite, there are subtle
> ways of doing it. You do not have to claim that the Holocaust never
> happened and that the Jewish temple in Jerusalem never existed. But
> millions of Moslems are told by their leaders that this is the case.
> When these same leaders make other statements, the Western media report
> them as if they could be true.
>
> It is a daily occurrence that the same people who finance, arm and
> dispatch suicide murderers, condemn the act in English in front of
> western TV cameras talking to a world audience, which even partly
> believes them. It is a daily routine to hear the same leader making
> opposite statements in Arabic to his people and in English to the rest
> of the world. Incitement by Arab TV, accompanied by horror pictures of
> mutilated bodies, has become a powerful weapon of those who lie, distort
> and want to destroy everything. Little children are raised on deep
> hatred and on admiration of so-called martyrs, and the Western World
> does not notice it because its own TV sets are mostly tuned to soap
> operas and game shows. I recommend to you, even though most of you do
> not understand Arabic, to watch Al Jazeera from time to time. You will
> not believe your own eyes.
>
> But words also work in other ways, more subtle. A demonstration in
> Berlin, carrying banners supporting Saddam's regime and featuring
> three-year old babies dressed as suicide murderers is defined by the
> press and by political leaders as a "peace demonstration". You may
> support or oppose the Iraq war, but to refer to fans of Saddam, Arafat
> or Bin Laden as peace activists is a bit too much. A woman walks into an
> Israeli restaurant at mid-day, eats, observes families with old people
> and children eating their lunch at the adjacent tables, and pays the
> bill. She then blows herself up, killing 20 people, including many
> children, with heads and arms rolling around in the restaurant. She is
> called "martyr" by several Arab leaders and "activist" by the European
> press. Dignitaries condemn the act but visit her bereaved family and the
> money flows.
>

Continued . . . (I bet you thought I was kidding) . . .

> There is a new game in town: The actual murderer is called "the
> military wing", the one who pays him, equips him and sends him is now
> called "the political wing" and the head of the operation is called the
> "spiritual leader". There are numerous other examples of such Orwellian
> nomenclature, used every day not only by terror chiefs but also by
> Western media. These words are much more dangerous than many people
> realize. They provide an emotional infrastructure for atrocities. It was
> Joseph Goebbels who said that if you repeat a lie often enough, people
> will believe it. He is now being outperformed by his successors.
>
> The third aspect is money. Huge amounts of money, which could have
> solved many social problems in this dysfunctional part of the world, are
> channeled into three concentric spheres supporting death and murder. In
> the inner circle are the terrorists themselves. The money funds their
> travel, explosives, hideouts and permanent search for soft vulnerable
> targets. They are surrounded by a second wider circle of direct
> supporters, planners, commanders, preachers, all of whom make a living,
> usually a very comfortable living, by serving as terror infrastructure.
>
> Finally, we find the third circle of so-called religious, educational
> and welfare organizations, which actually do some good, feed the hungry
> and provide some schooling, but brainwash a new generation with hatred,
> lies and ignorance. This circle operates mostly through mosques,
> madrasas and other religious establishments but also through inciting
> electronic and printed media. It is this circle that makes sure that
> women remain inferior, that democracy is unthinkable and that exposure
> to the outside world is minimal. It is also that circle that leads the
> way in blaming everybody outside the Moslem world, for the miseries of the
> region.
>
> Figuratively speaking, this outer circle is the guardian, which
> makes sure that the people look and listen inwards to the inner circle
> of terror and incitement, rather than to the world outside. Some parts
> of this same outer circle actually operate as a result of fear from, or
> blackmail by, the inner circles. The horrifying added factor is the high
> birth rate. Half of the population of the Arab world is under the age of
> 20, the most receptive age to incitement, guaranteeing two more
> generations of blind hatred.
>
> Of the three circles described above, the inner circles are
> primarily financed by terrorist states like Iran and Syria, until
> recently also by Iraq and Libya and earlier also by some of the
> Communist regimes. These states, as well as the Palestinian Authority,
> are the safe havens of the wholesale murder vendors. The outer circle is
> largely financed by Saudi Arabia, but also by donations from certain
> Moslem communities in the United States and Europe and, to a smaller
> extent, by donations of European Governments to various NGO's and by
> certain United Nations organizations, whose goals may be noble, but they
> are infested and exploited by agents of the outer circle. The Saudi
> regime, of course, will be the next victim of major terror, when the
> inner circle will explode into the outer circle. The Saudis are
> beginning to understand it, but they fight the inner circles, while
> still financing the infrastructure at the outer circle.
>
> Some of the leaders of these various circles live very comfortably
> on their loot. You meet their children in the best private schools in
> Europe, not in the training camps of suicide murderers. The Jihad
> "soldiers" join packaged death tours to Iraq and other hot spots, while
> some of their leaders ski in Switzerland. Mrs. Arafat, who lives in
> Paris with her daughter, receives tens of thousands of dollars per month
> from the allegedly bankrupt Palestinian Authority while a typical local
> ringleader of the Al-Aksa brigade, reporting to Arafat, receives only a
> cash payment of a couple of hundred dollars for performing murders at
> the retail level.
>
> The fourth element of the current world conflict is the total
> breaking of all laws. The civilized world believes in democracy, the
> rule of law, including international law, human rights, free speech and
> free press, among other liberties. There are naive old-fashioned habits
> such as respecting religious sites and symbols, not using ambulances and
> hospitals for acts of war, avoiding the mutilation of dead bodies and
> not using children as human shields or human bombs. Never in history,
> not even in the Nazi period, was there such total disregard of all of
> the above as we observe now. Every student of political science debates
> how you prevent an anti-democratic force from winning a democratic
> election and abolishing democracy. Other aspects of a civilized society
> must also have limitations. Can a policeman open fire on someone trying
> to kill him? Can a government listen to phone conversations of
> terrorists and drug dealers? Does free speech protect you when you shout
> "fire" in a crowded theater? Should there be the death penalty for
> deliberate multiple murders? These are the old-fashioned dilemmas. But
> now we have an entirely new set.
>
> Do you raid a mosque that serves as a terrorist ammunition storage?
> Do you return fire if you are attacked from a hospital? Do you storm a
> church taken over by terrorists who took the priests hostage? Do you
> search every ambulance after a few suicide murderers use ambulances to
> reach their targets? Do you strip every woman because one pretended to
> be pregnant and carried a suicide bomb on her belly? Do you shoot back
> at someone trying to kill you while standing deliberately behind a group
> of children? Do you raid terrorist headquarters hidden in a mental
> hospital? Do you shoot an arch-murderer who deliberately moves from one
> location to another, always surrounded by children? All of these happen
> daily in Iraq and in the Palestinian areas. What do you do? Well, you do
> not want to face the dilemma. But it cannot be avoided.
>
> Suppose, for the sake of discussion, that someone would openly stay
> at a well-known address in Teheran, hosted by the Iranian Government and
> financed by it, executing one atrocity after another in Spain or in
> France, killing hundreds of innocent people, accepting responsibility
> for the crimes, promising in public TV interviews to do more of the
> same, while the Government of Iran issues public condemnations of his
> acts but continues to host him, to invite him to official functions, and
> to treat him as a great dignitary I leave it to you as homework to
> figure out what Spain or France would have done in such a situation.
>
> The problem is that the civilized world is still having illusions
> about the rule of law in a totally lawless environment. It is trying to
> play ice hockey by sending a ballerina ice-skater into the rink or to
> knock out a heavyweight boxer by a chess player. In the same way that no
> country has a law against cannibals eating its prime minister because
> such an act is unthinkable, international law does not address killers
> shooting from hospitals, mosques and ambulances, while being protected
> by their Government or society. International law does not know how to
> handle someone who sends children to throw stones, stands behind them
> and shoots with immunity and cannot be arrested because he is sheltered
> by a Government. International law does not know how to deal with a
> leader of murderers who is royally and comfortably hosted by a country
> that pretends to condemn his acts or just claims to be too weak to
> arrest him. The amazing thing is that all of these crooks demand
> protection under international law and define all those who attack them
> as war criminals, with some Western media repeating the allegations. The
> good news is that all of this is temporary, because the evolution of
> international law has always adapted itself to reality. The punishment
> for suicide murder should be death or arrest before the murder, not
> during and not after. After every world war, the rules of international
> law have changed and the same will happen after the present one But
> during the twilight zone, a lot of harm can be done.
>
> The picture I described here is not pretty. What can we do about it?
> In the short run, only fight and win. In the long run? Only educate the
> next generation and open it to the world. The inner circles can and must
> be destroyed by force. The outer circle cannot be eliminated by force.
> Here we need financial starvation of the organizing elite, more power to
> women, more education, counter propaganda, boycott whenever feasible,
> and access to Western media, the Internet, and the international scene.
> Above all, we need a total, absolute unity and determination of the
> civilized world against all three circles of evil.
>

And finally . . . (yep, probably TOO long) . . .

> Allow me, for a moment, to depart from my alleged role as a taxi
> driver and return to science. When you have a malignant tumor, you may
> remove the tumor itself surgically. You may also starve it by preventing
> new blood from reaching it from other parts of the body, thereby
> preventing new "supplies" from expanding the tumor. If you want to be
> sure, it is best to do both.
>
> But before you fight and win, by force or otherwise, you have to
> realize that you are in a war, and this may take Europe a few more
> years. In order to win, it is necessary first to eliminate the terrorist
> regimes so that no Government in the world will serve as a safe haven
> for these people. I do not want to comment here on whether the
> American-led attack on Iraq was justified from the point of view of
> weapons of mass destruction or any other pre-war argument, but I can
> look at the post-war map of Western Asia. Now that Afghanistan, Iraq,
> and Libya are out, two and a half terrorist states remain: Iran, Syria,
> and Lebanon, the latter being a Syrian colony. Perhaps Sudan should be
> added to the list. As a result of the conquest of Afghanistan and Iraq,
> both Iran and Syria are now totally surrounded by territories unfriendly
> to them. Iran is encircled by Afghanistan, by the Gulf States, Iraq and
> the Moslem republics of the former Soviet Union. Syria is surrounded by
> Turkey, Iraq, Jordan, and Israel. This is a significant strategic change
> and it applies strong pressure on the terrorist countries. It is not
> surprising that Iran is so active in trying to incite a Shiite uprising
> in Iraq. I do not know if the American plan was actually to encircle
> both Iran and Syria, but that is the resulting situation.
>
> In my humble opinion, the number one danger to the world today is
> Iran and its regime. It definitely has ambitions to rule vast areas and
> to expand in all directions. It has an ideology that claims supremacy
> over Western culture. It is ruthless. It has proven that it can execute
> elaborate terrorist acts without leaving too many traces, using Iranian
> embassies It is clearly trying to develop nuclear weapons. Its
> so-called moderates and conservatives play their own virtuoso version of
> the "good-cop versus bad-cop" game. Iran sponsors Syrian terrorism, it
> is certainly behind much of the action in Iraq, it is fully funding the
> Hezbollah and, through it, the Palestinian Hamas and Islamic Jihad. It
> performed acts of terror at least in Europe and in South America and
> probably also in Uzbekistan and Saudi Arabia and it truly leads a
> multi-national terror consortium, which includes, as minor players,
> Syria, Lebanon, and certain Shiite elements in Iraq. Nevertheless, most
> European countries still trade with Iran, try to appease it, and refuse
> to read the clear signals.
>
> In order to win the war it is also necessary to dry up the financial
> resources of the terror conglomerate. It is pointless to try to
> understand the subtle differences between the Sunni terror of Al Qaida
> and Hamas and the Shiite terror of Hezbollah, Sadr and other
> Iranian-inspired enterprises. When it serves their business needs, all
> of them collaborate beautifully
>
> It is crucial to stop Saudi and other financial support of the outer
> circle, which is the fertile breeding ground of terror. It is important
> to monitor all donations from the Western World to Islamic
> organizations, to monitor the finances of international relief
> organizations, and to react with forceful economic measures to any small
> sign of financial aid to any of the three circles of terrorism. It is
> also important to act decisively against the campaign of lies and
> fabrications and to monitor those Western media that collaborate with it
> out of naivety, financial interests, or ignorance.
>
> Above all, never surrender to terror. No one will ever know whether
> the recent elections in Spain would have yielded a different result if
> not for the train bombings a few days earlier. But it really does not
> matter. What matters is that the terrorists believe that they caused the
> result and that they won by driving Spain out of Iraq. The Spanish story
> will surely end up being extremely costly to other European countries,
> including France, which is now expelling inciting preachers and
> forbidding veils and including others who sent troops to Iraq. In the
> long run, Spain itself will pay even more.
>
> Is the solution a democratic Arab world? If by democracy we mean
> free elections but also free press, free speech, a functioning judicial
> system, civil liberties, equality to women, free international travel,
> exposure to international media and ideas, laws against racial
> incitement and defamation, and avoidance of lawless behavior regarding
> hospitals, places of worship and children, then yes, democracy is the
> solution. If democracy is just free elections, it is likely that the
> most fanatical regime will be elected, the one whose incitement and
> fabrications are the most inflammatory. We have seen it already in
> Algeria and, to a certain extent, in Turkey. It will happen again, if
> the ground is not prepared very carefully. On the other hand, a certain
> transitional democracy, as in Jordan, may be a better temporary
> solution, paving the way for the real thing, perhaps in the same way
> that an immediate sudden democracy did not work in Russia and would not
> have worked in China.
>
> I have no doubt that the civilized world will prevail. But the
> longer it takes us to understand the new landscape of this war, the more
> costly and painful the victory will be. Europe, more than any other
> region, is the key. Its understandable recoil from wars, following the
> horrors of World War II, may cost thousands of additional innocent
> lives, before the tide will turn.

Saudi Scholars Urge Iraqis to Back Militants
 

I'm growing tired of this islamic jihad...


BEIRUT, Lebanon — Prominent Saudi religious scholars urged Iraqis to support militants waging holy war against the U.S.-led coalition forces as American troops prepared Saturday for a major assault on the insurgent hotbed of Fallujah (


http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,137835,00.html

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,137817,00.html

Iraq Inspiring Copycat Beheadings
Saturday, November 06, 2004

ANKARA, Turkey — It was called "Operation Baghdad" (search) and, to be sure, the headless bodies of the three police officers recalled the violence in that city. But these attacks happened in Haiti, not in Iraq....