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| Are we winning the "war on Terror?" |
| Yep |
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32% |
[ 9 ] |
| Nope |
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67% |
[ 19 ] |
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| Total Votes : 28 |
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The_Conservative
Joined: 15 Mar 2007
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 Posted: Tue Jul 17, 2007 11:37 pm Post subject: |
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| igotthisguitar wrote: |
The "war" on "terror" (has a nice ring to it doesn't it?) is key to the global elites' attempt at increased Orwellian mind control, & destruction of the nation-state.
A complete & utter criminal crusading fraud. How do you like it so far?
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Doing pretty darn good I would say. I give it an A for effort but only a C- for planning. |
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contrarian
Joined: 20 Jan 2007
Location: Nearly in NK
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| Posted: Wed Jul 18, 2007 4:20 am Post subject: |
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darkhorse:
It is actually simpler jurst to back th Kurds, the deserve it, and let the Sunni and the Shi'a kill wach other off. |
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ddeubel
Joined: 20 Jul 2005
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| Posted: Wed Jul 18, 2007 4:54 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
About the Saudi government stopping terrorist attacks within Saudi:
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200706/saudi-jihad/2
"But Jeddah�s problems have not always been so quotidian. Until recently, the city was an epicenter of the jihadist violence that racked Saudi Arabia for much of the past decade. Terrorists connected to al-Qaeda started attacking foreigners in the kingdom in 1995, but by 2003, the attacks had become more indiscriminate, sometimes targeting the Al Saud regime directly, and often killing Saudis. In Jeddah, militants battled police in the streets, bombed two banks, stormed the United States consulate, and shot Westerners in broad daylight. During 2003 and 2004 throughout Saudi Arabia, 22 terrorist attacks killed 90 civilians and wounded many more.
Yet today, this insurgency has virtually disappeared. The kingdom saw no comparable attacks in 2005 and only one in 2006, a failed car-bomb attempt. The only other attack since 2004 occurred this February, when four Frenchmen were killed while touring outside Medina. It is not known yet whether those killings were connected to al-Qaeda.
Why the change? Revulsion against the killing of civilians, especially Muslims and children, is part of the answer: As the attacks multiplied, popular support for al-Qaeda plummeted, and Saudi citizens became more cooperative in rooting out militants. But the Saudi government deserves a large share of the credit; it took full advantage of that shift in sentiment� and even reinforced it�with an innovative counter�terror strategy.
During the peak of the insurgency, the Saudi authorities mixed an aggressive crackdown�involving numerous raids�with an offer, in 2004, of amnesty to members of al-Qaeda who would turn themselves in and renounce the group. The government presented the amnesty as a way for apostates to �return to God,� and one of its leading public proponents was Safar al-Hawali, a prominent Wahhabist cleric. The raids cleared the streets of hundreds of al-Qaeda members and active sympathizers, including several leaders. About 60 more jihadists, including two on the kingdom�s most-wanted list, took the amnesty.
What�s most interesting is what the Saudi government did with many of its new prisoners. It put them through an intensive religious, psychological, and familial counseling regimen, known as the �advisory committee� program, aimed at rehabilitating them. The experience of one prisoner (according to an English-speaking relative) demonstrates the process.
In 2004, this prisoner (whom I�ll call Ali) was a 22-year-old student in Riyadh. Ali had grown up in the Sahwa (or �Awakening�) movement, a political offshoot of Wahhabism. Like many Saudis, he had encountered al-Qaeda online, through its biweekly Web magazine Sawt Al-Jihad. Ali had become enthralled, seeing for the first time the tenets of Sahwa put into action. He read all of the articles, forwarding them in e-mails and posting them on other sites. In essence, he had become a blogger for al-Qaeda. One afternoon while at his computer, Ali heard police approaching. They had come for him.
When Ali arrived at the Al-Hayir prison just south of Riyadh, he was interrogated, and he confessed his actions. He was then offered the opportunity to renounce the movement and go through the advisory-committee program. This would allow him to return to his family and finish his education; the alternative was an indefinite prison term. Ali told his interrogator he was interested.
Ali was housed with a large group of prisoners; some were fellow al-Qaeda sympathizers he had come to know online. Many of these men had never been officially recruited into al-Qaeda in Saudi Arabia (which carefully vets prospective members for fear of infiltration), and hadn�t attempted any acts of terrorism. The prisoners would meet in groups with respected clerics like Hawali, debating the tenets of al-Qaeda and whether these beliefs were true to Islam. As prisoners brought up rationales for terrorism, the clerics would use Islam to refute them. The group discussions were interspersed with one-on-one meetings with clerics and psychologists. (The latter provide therapy, but are employed primarily to ferret out prisoners who are insincere in their disavowal of al-Qaeda.)
After two months, Ali was allowed to see his family. (For detainees not viewed as threats, family members are encouraged to visit, and they often express disappointment in the prisoner. The role of families in fighting the insurgency is not limited to the reform program; during the initial amnesty period, families of those on Saudi Arabia�s most-wanted list appeared in local media asking their loved ones to surrender.) After two more months of family visits, counseling, and religious discourse, Ali was paroled. (The duration of confinement for prisoners varies.) Weekly visits followed with an officer of the Saudi secret police, who asked where he�d been and whom he�d seen. The secret police monitor the real and the virtual neighborhoods of the kingdom where militant Islamists congregate, and they make use of informers to track the parolees. After several months of parole with a spotless record, Ali �graduated� and was free. Today he has returned to his studies and is trading stocks in his spare time." |
I don't mean to belittle the process, i think the approach is effective. But doesn't it speak towards the fact that for once, these guys felt that someone "cared" and had invested in their humanity?
Meaning to me, that most of terrorism is really a psycological estrangement of the individual to society. The only solution is not terror in return or fear or wrath but rather, policies that allow those individuals a way out, a way into some kind of community that embraces universal "positive" ideals and which reall cares.
DD |
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freethought
Joined: 13 Mar 2005
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| Posted: Wed Jul 18, 2007 6:18 pm Post subject: |
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| "Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will." --- Mahatma Gandhi |
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ddeubel
Joined: 20 Jul 2005
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| Posted: Wed Jul 18, 2007 8:52 pm Post subject: |
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freethought,
Good quote and I'd agree for most cases EXCEPT those where someone has unimaginable fire/blow up power. Then, it doesn't matter about the will, annihilation is a certainty and what is needed is less will and more compassion.
But to get this back on topic. Posted today's editorial. One more of thousands showing through the years, Bush wears no clothes and has made America less secure through fear, bullying and war/killing.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/07/18/opinion/edfear.php
| Quote: |
The politics of fear
Published: July 18, 2007
On Tuesday, the director of national intelligence released a report with the politically helpful title of "The Terrorist Threat to the U.S. Homeland." Fran Townsend, the president's homeland security adviser, held a news conference to trumpet its findings. The message, as always: Be very afraid. And don't question the president.
Certainly, the report's conclusions are disturbing. Nearly six years after 9/11, terrorism remains a huge threat. Al Qaeda has replaced leaders killed or captured by the United States, regrouped in its former home base in the tribal lands on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border and is trying to use affiliated terrorists in Iraq "to raise resources and to recruit and indoctrinate operatives."
If the report is given an honest reading, it is a powerful rebuke to President George W. Bush's approach to the war on terror. It vindicates those who say that the Iraq war is a distraction from the real fight against terrorism.
The administration, however, seized on the report and, through bald political timing, tried to use it to dampen calls for an end to Bush's catastrophic war. That required some particularly twisted logic.
Townsend, for example, dismissed a reporter who asked whether the fact that al Qaeda has regrouped in the area from which it planned the 9/11 attacks suggested that it was a mistake to divert American forces to Iraq. She said al Qaeda headed by Osama bin Laden and the terrorists in Iraq that use the name al Qaeda are the same.
In fact, we've seen no evidence of that, and none was in the intelligence report, at least the page and a half of conclusions released to the public.
Was there a link before the war between Osama bin Laden and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the terrorist leader in Iraq? Townsend refused to answer. "This is ground long covered," she snapped.
Indeed it is. The answer is, "No." In fact, Bush's bungled invasion spawned a new terrorist army and gave it a home base. Now, the report said, those terrorists are the only ones affiliated with al Qaeda that are "known to have expressed a desire to attack the" United States.
The White House denied that the report was timed to the Senate debate. But the administration controls the timing of such releases and the truth is that fear of terrorism is the only shard remaining of Bush's justification for invading Iraq.
This administration has never hesitated to play on fear for political gain. It is a cynical ploy, but in the past it has worked to cow Democrats into silence, if not always submission, and herd Republicans back onto the party line. That must not happen this time. |
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Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee
Joined: 25 May 2003
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| Posted: Wed Jul 18, 2007 11:40 pm Post subject: |
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70,000 trained in Al Qaeda camps during the 1990s. This was while the US was protecting muslims in Kosovo from Slobidan and muslims in Kurdistan from Saddam.
This was also while the US was trying to bring the Israeli and Palestinian sides together.
What was the problem then?
| Quote: |
Al-Qaeda camps 'trained 70,000'
Thousands are said to have joined al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan
Some 70,000 people received weapons training and religious instruction in al-Qaeda camps, German police say.
The claim came at the retrial of Mounir al-Motassadek, a Moroccan man accused of involvement in the 9/11 attacks, which were partly planned in Germany.
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4146969.stm |
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contrarian
Joined: 20 Jan 2007
Location: Nearly in NK
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| Posted: Thu Jul 19, 2007 12:45 am Post subject: |
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A major al Qaesa hit inside the US might be interesting. It would guarantee a Republican win next November and perhaps even recapture of the Senate and House.
In the meantime any deal between Israel and Palestine would be dead meat.
Who knows, Iran might even get nuked. As a general rule the US usually responds to that kind of thing with rage. |
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