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elder999
20th June 2003, 14:50
It’s part of my job. I spend a lot of time talking with and thinking about rescue workers at the World Trade Center, Oklahoma City, Bali...

I also think about terrorists...it's also part of my job.

Kuwaitis finding their way onto a super-secure Persian Gulf island shooting up Marines, the people that blew up that nightclub in Bali, the now daily tales of atrocity in the Holy Land, and of course, the guys that flew those planes on 9-11. Did I say, "Flew?"
I meant aimed.

In spite of my varied diatribes against the USA Patriot Act, I DO realize that we're at war-I just don't think the Patriot Act is going to do very much-if anything- to prevent terror. While our government is chasing whatever it is that we're chasing in Iraq and Central America, and contemplates more action in Iran or North Korea-or both, and curtails our God-given liberties at home, the al Qaeda network still poses an imminent threat to the land and people of the United States. It's a threat no missile shield will repel, and no Patriot Act will prevent. It needs to be met with preventive police work, and the prudent use of force, but those things by themselves will not be enough. This is also, as Gene a little too frequently points out, a cultural battle, and on that front radical Islam, seems to touch a real and unmet need, at least among a certain segment of young men around the world. This has also been evident in the last year, as cells of American al Qaeda operatives (or sympathizers, or wannabes) were uncovered in Lackawanna, New York and Portland, Oregon.

It's long been orthodoxy among Third World sympathizers that terrorism has its roots in the desperation of poor and marginalized people who decide that their grievances won't be heard any other way, and as long as it was applied to situations of an oppressed, indigenous people fighting the overwhelming power of Western or Western-backed occupiers, the doctrine held up. This anti-imperialist orthodoxy didn't excuse violence against civilians, but it did help explain it.

Al Qaeda, however, is something different, and that's something you haven't really heard in the media, especially not Fox News.:rolleyes:

Its grievance is global and abstract. The deprivation that fuels its "soldiers" seems more cultural than material. This first dawned on me reading a report on the Sept. 11 terrorists. These were affluent young men-middle class or better. They were educated. They had a relatively sophisticated knowledge of Western culture. Some of them spoke multiple European languages. The Lebanese guy who was probably flying Flight 93 when it crashed in Pennsylvania was to be married later that year. His father had bought him a new car for a wedding present. None of them grew up in a refugee camp. They seem more like the Arab version of the Weathermen-the American sect of anti-Vietnam War bombers, the members of which were almost exclusively children of privilege.

Then came the string of Western-reared holy warriors. First there was John Walker-Lindh, who was acting out what could have been-without the terrorism-perfectly sensible rebellion against the moral wasteland of his liberal, New Age-ish upbringing, and a poisonous commercial youth culture. Then there's Jose Padilla, a Puerto Rican American who turned to Islam from the nihilism of gang life, and, apparently, took his attraction to violence with him. You may never know his whole story. He’s still locked up, indefinitely and without any charges, in a military stockade. Patrice Lumumba Ford, the alleged central figure among the al Qaeda support group in Portland, is the son of a respected-and secular-radical activist, a former Black Panther. He is well educated, had connections near the top in local politics, and still went to the Afghan frontier to try and join the Islamic struggle.

The one who really sets off alarm bells for me is Richard Reid, the shoe bomber. Reid is the son of an absentee Jamaican father and a white British mother. He's never had a real job. He sold incense on the streets of London, and ended up in jail for some small time robberies, where he was introduced to Islam. This story of the unemployed and alienated, half-black British street kid was painfully familiar to me. I learned a lot about people similar to him growing up, and even more about people just like him when I was an enthusiastic follower of Britain's punk scene. If Richard Reid had been around back then, he might well have ended up in a band, instead of a terrorist cell-and, make no mistake, he was no "lone nut"; he was a member of a terrorist cell-though probably the most expendable, and he reminded me of Tim McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber, and those sad young gunmen at Columbine.

Contemporary Britain still has plenty of guys like Richard Reid,and America has even more.Both present their young people with few constructive ways to fight their way out of alienation. If even a few of those drifting and alienated young men-here and abroad-can be attracted to Islamic terrorism, then this thing could go on for a long, long, loooong time.

Mike Williams
20th June 2003, 15:38
Superb. As usual.

Cheers,

Mike

CKohalyk
20th June 2003, 16:46
E999,

I TOTALLY agree with your point that terrorism can be a middle-upperclass endevour. Bin Laden was born with a silver spoon, Ireland is not the 3rd world, N17 was started by educated priests. I think it was Robert Kaplan who talked about the heads of terrorist organizations as being usually well-educated... they just feed on the bottom of the socio-economic foodchain for recruits, but as you pointed out that is not always the case.


Originally posted by elder999
It needs to be met with preventive police work, and the prudent use of force, but those things by themselves will not be enough.

Can you please expound? Would you be for expanding the powers of the federal/international investigative orgaizations (FBI, CIA, Interpol, etc)? But then won't people complain that the government is infringing on their rights? I mean that plus political pressure is the source of the CIAs lack of presence...

Also... if you are worried about terrorists why are you only worried about Al Qaeda? (this may not be true in your case... it just seems to me that many Americans forget that there is a plethora of groups out there that are feasibly capable of striking at US interests at home and abroad...) Is it just coz they are at the top of the list? Do people in the US worry about other groups as well? (I have only 2 American friends here and CNNj so I don't really have my finger on the pulse of the American people..)

Best regards,

Chad Kohalyk

Chuck Munyon
20th June 2003, 18:23
Nothing feels as good as belonging to something important. The football team, the freemasons, the AMA, whatever you can convince yourself matters, wherever you think you're accepted. And in today's America, it's not whether you're smart, or good-hearted, or in need of affection that count; it's whether you're cool. Cool is what fuels the consumer feeding frenzy that keeps our economy going (sort of), and the only way to keep kids buying the things that make them cool is to make the consequences of NOT COOL too much to bear. Today's parenting techniques don't help at all; many kids don't even feel like they belong in a family unit anymore, let alone a crowd. And our government isn't helping either; as Aaron "Homeland Security Self-Exam" and most of Gene's posts demonstrate, if you're not white, Christian, and relatively well to do, then you don't belong in America either.
But the Islamic fundamentalists say to these kids, "You DO belong!" They are embraced wholeheartedly, given a sense of purpose, told that their names will be sung in the streets of Palestine and known to God himself. They are IMPORTANT, they are SOMEBODY, they are HOLY WARRIORS.
Social oppression can be just as insidious as economic oppression, and just as hard to resolve. Change can start with each of us, though. How do you treat your fellow human beings?

joe yang
20th June 2003, 19:06
Sound observations, all. The more we know what we are dealing with, who they are, who we are, or want to be, the better to succeed. I'm a big believer in proof however. Everyonw has pet theories about terrorism, and how to deal with it. For one, I like to see those kinds of theories tested out, before we waste resources and risk liberties. Let's look at what works and experiment.

That said, Chuck and Aaron express the problem well. My two cents, any first year Criminal Justice major knows the difference between civilian and military police action. Maybe it is time to re-invent the US military as an effective police force? Maybe it is time to deglamorize terrorism? Maybe this is a war for public opinion, a media war?

And just a thought, but maybe this fight is just a holding action? The spread of information technology, digital communication, TV, movies, is shoving 1st world culture down everyone's throat, faster than they can stop it. Maybe we are seeing a backlash. Maybe some people aren't ready for democracy, or a free market, but they are all ready to consume. Hollywood will win in the end.

Vapour
20th June 2003, 19:42
I do agree of main thrust of what you are trying to say but you are not well informed of nature of current islamic terroism.

For example, the majority (in fact, nearly all) of radical islamic movements in the world come from a islamic sect know as Wahhabi or Salafi as they like to call themselves now a day.

Now, you repeated questioned me why I somehow symphasise with those detainee in Cuba. This seems to indicate that you suffer from ¤¤¤¤-Bunch-of-Rug-Head atitude.

More informed decision probably help.

Here is a start.

http://www.crescentlife.com/heal%20the%20world/ground_zero_and_the_saudi_connection.htm

"The first thing to do when trying to understand 'Islamic suicide bombers' is to forget the clichés about the Muslim taste for martyrdom. It does exist, of course, but the desire for paradise is not a safe guide to what motivated the appalling suicide attacks on New York and Washington last week. Throughout history, political extremists of all faiths have willingly given up their lives simply in the belief that by doing so, whether in bombings or in other forms of terror, they would change the course of history, or at least win an advantage for their cause. Tamils are not Muslims, but they blow themselves up in their war on the government of Sri Lanka; Japanese kamikaze pilots in the second world war were not Muslims, but they flew their fighters into US aircraft carriers.

The Islamofascist ideology of Osama bin Laden and those closest to him, such as the Egyptian and Algerian 'Islamic Groups', is no more intrinsically linked to Islam or Islamic civilisation than Pearl Harbor was to Buddhism, or Ulster terrorists - whatever they may profess - are to Christianity. Serious Christians don't go around killing and maiming the innocent; devout Muslims do not prepare for paradise by hanging out in strip bars and getting drunk, as one of last week's terrorist pilots was reported to have done.

The attacks of 11 September are simply not compatible with orthodox Muslim theology, which cautions soldiers 'in the way of Allah' to fight their enemies face-to-face, without harming non-combatants, women or children. Most Muslims, not only in America and Britain, but in the world, are clearly law-abiding citizens of their countries - a point stressed by President Bush and other American leaders, much to their credit. Nobody on this side of the water wants a repeat of the lamented 1941 internment of Japanese Americans.

Still, the numerical preponderance of Muslims as perpetrators of these ghastly incidents is no coincidence. So we have to ask ourselves what has made these men into the monsters they are? What has so galvanised violent tendencies in the world's second-largest religion (and, in America, the fastest growing faith)? Can it really flow from a quarrel over a bit of land in the Middle East?

For Westerners, it seems natural to look for answers in the distant past, beginning with the Crusades. But if you ask educated, pious, traditional but forward-looking Muslims what has driven their umma, or global community, in this direction, many of them will answer you with one word: Wahhabism. This is a strain of Islam that emerged not at the time of the Crusades, nor even at the time of the anti-Turkish wars of the 17th century, but less than two centuries ago. It is violent, it is intolerant, and it is fanatical beyond measure. It originated in Arabia, and it is the official theology of the Gulf states. Wahhabism is the most extreme form of Islamic fundamentalism, and its followers are called Wahhabis.

Not all Muslims are suicide bombers, but all Muslim suicide bombers are Wahhabis - except, perhaps, for some disciples of atheist leftists posing as Muslims in the interests of personal power, such as Yasser Arafat or Saddam Hussein. Wahhabism is the Islamic equivalent of the most extreme Protestant sectarianism. It is puritan, demanding punishment for those who enjoy any form of music except the drum, and severe punishment up to death for drinking or sexual transgressions. It condemns as unbelievers those who do not pray, a view that never previously existed in mainstream Islam.

It is stripped-down Islam, calling for simple, short prayers, undecorated mosques, and the uprooting of gravestones (since decorated mosques and graveyards lend themselves to veneration, which is idolatry in the Wahhabi mind). Wahhabis do not even permit the name of the Prophet Mohammed to be inscribed in mosques, nor do they allow his birthday to be celebrated. Above all, they hate ostentatious spirituality, much as Protestants detest the veneration of miracles and saints in the Roman Church.

Ibn Abdul Wahhab (1703-92), the founder of this totalitarian Islamism, was born in Uyaynah, in the part of Arabia known as Nejd, where Riyadh is today, and which the Prophet himself notably warned would be a source of corruption and confusion. (Anti-Wahhabi Muslims refer to Wahhabism as fitna an Najdiyyah or 'the trouble out of Nejd'.) From the beginning of Wahhab's dispensation, in the late 18th century, his cult was associated with the mass murder of all who opposed it. For example, the Wahhabis fell upon the city of Qarbala in 1801 and killed 2,000 ordinary citizens in the streets and markets.

In the 19th century, Wahhabism took the form of Arab nationalism v. the Turks. The founder of the Saudi kingdom, Ibn Saud, established Wahhabism as its official creed. Much has been made of the role of the US in 'creating' Osama bin Laden through subsidies to the Afghan mujahedin, but as much or more could be said in reproach of Britain which, three generations before, supported the Wahhabi Arabs in their revolt against the Ottomans. Arab hatred of the Turks fused with Wahhabi ranting against the 'decadence' of Ottoman Islam. The truth is that the Ottoman khalifa reigned over a multinational Islamic umma in which vast differences in local culture and tradition were tolerated. No such tolerance exists in Wahhabism, which is why the concept of US troops on Saudi soil so inflames bin Laden.

Bin Laden is a Wahhabi. So are the suicide bombers in Israel. So are his Egyptian allies, who exulted as they stabbed foreign tourists to death at Luxor not many years ago, bathing in blood up to their elbows and emitting blasphemous cries of ecstasy. So are the Algerian Islamist terrorists whose contribution to the purification of the world consisted of murdering people for such sins as running a movie projector or reading secular newspapers. So are the Taleban-style guerrillas in Kashmir who murder Hindus. The Iranians are not Wahhabis, which partially explains their slow but undeniable movement towards moderation and normality after a period of utopian and puritan revivalism. But the Taleban practise a variant of Wahhabism. In the Wahhabi fashion they employ ancient punishments - such as execution for moral offences - and they have a primitive and fearful view of women. The same is true of Saudi Arabia's rulers. None of this extremism has been inspired by American fumblings in the world, and it has little to do with the tragedies that have beset Israelis and Palestinians.

But the Wahhabis have two weaknesses of which the West is largely unaware; an Achilles' heel on each foot, so to speak. The first is that the vast majority of Muslims in the world are peaceful people who would prefer the installation of Western democracy in their own countries. They loathe Wahhabism for the same reason any patriarchal culture rejects a violent break with tradition. And that is the point that must be understood: bin Laden and other Wahhabis are not defending Islamic tradition; they represent an ultra-radical break in the direction of a sectarian utopia. Thus, they are best described as Islamofascists, although they have much in common with Bolsheviks.

The Bengali Sufi writer Zeeshan Ali has described the situation touchingly: 'Muslims from Bangladesh in the US, just like any other place in the world, uphold the traditional beliefs of Islam but, due to lack of instruction, keep quiet when their beliefs are attacked by Wahhabis in the US who all of a sudden become "better" Muslims than others. These Wahhabis go even further and accuse their own fathers of heresy, sin and unbelief. And the young children of the immigrants, when they grow up in this country, get exposed only to this one-sided version of Islam and are led to think that this is the only Islam. Naturally a big gap is being created every day that silence is only widening.' The young, divided between tradition and the call of the new, opt for 'Islamic revolution' and commit themselves to their self-destruction, combined with mass murder.

The same influences are brought to bear throughout the ten-million-strong Muslim community in America, as well as those in Europe. In the US, 80 per cent of mosques are estimated by the Sufi Hisham al-Kabbani, born in Lebanon and now living in the US, to be under the control of Wahhabi imams, who preach extremism, and this leads to the other point of vulnerability: Wahhabism is subsidised by Saudi Arabia, even though bin Laden has sworn to destroy the Saudi royal family. The Saudis have played a double game for years, more or less as Stalin did with the West during the second world war. They pretended to be allies in a common struggle against Saddam Hussein while they spread Wahhabi ideology everywhere Muslims are to be found, just as Stalin promoted an 'antifascist' coalition with the US while carrying out espionage and subversion on American territory. The motive was the same: the belief that the West was or is decadent and doomed.

One major question is never asked in American discussions of Arab terrorism: what is the role of Saudi Arabia? The question cannot be asked because American companies depend too much on the continued flow of Saudi oil, while American politicians have become too cosy with the Saudi rulers.

Another reason it is not asked is that to expose the extent of Saudi and Wahhabi influence on American Muslims would deeply compromise many Islamic clerics in the US. But it is the most significant question Americans should be asking themselves today. If we get rid of bin Laden, who do we then have to deal with? The answer was eloquently put by Seyyed Vali Reza Nasr, professor of political science at the University of California at San Diego, and author of an authoritative volume on Islamic extremism in Pakistan, when he said: 'If the US wants to do something about radical Islam, it has to deal with Saudi Arabia. The "rogue states" [Iraq, Libya, etc.] are less important in the radicalisation of Islam than Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is the single most important cause and supporter of radicalisation, ideologisation, and the general fanaticisation of Islam.'

From what we now know, it appears not a single one of the suicide pilots in New York and Washington was Palestinian. They all seem to have been Saudis, citizens of the Gulf states, Egyptian or Algerian. Two are reported to have been the sons of the former second secretary of Saudi embassy in Washington. They were planted in America long before the outbreak of the latest Palestinian intifada; in fact, they seem to have begun their conspiracy while the Middle East peace process was in full, if short, bloom. Anti-terror experts and politicians in the West must now consider the Saudi connection."

elder999
20th June 2003, 19:58
Now, you repeated questioned me why I somehow symphasise with those detainee in Cuba. This seems to indicate that you suffer from ¤¤¤¤-Bunch-of-Rug-Head atitude.

uhh...you need to read some of my other posts, dude.
You couldn't be more wrong, though you're probably cracking a few people up...:rolleyes:

Take a look at this one(sorry, Gene):

http://www.e-budo.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=18524&perpage=15&pagenumber=4


...and go lay that"rag-head attitude" bull$hit on someone else, pard.:mad:

Of course, you probably are guilty of that "all Americans are rich white bigots attitude...":p

elder999
20th June 2003, 20:02
Can you please expound? Would you be for expanding the powers of the federal/international investigative orgaizations (FBI, CIA, Interpol, etc)? But then won't people complain that the government is infringing on their rights? I mean that plus political pressure is the source of the CIAs lack of presence...

Also... if you are worried about terrorists why are you only worried about Al Qaeda? (this may not be true in your case... it just seems to me that many Americans forget that there is a plethora of groups out there that are feasibly capable of striking at US interests at home and abroad...) Is it just coz they are at the top of the list? Do people in the US worry about other groups as well? (I have only 2 American friends here and CNNj so I don't really have my finger on the pulse of the American people..)

Expound…..huh.

I’ll answer the second part of your question first, because it is easier to answer. No , I’m not only worried about al Qaeda. In fact, the thing that worries a lot of people more is the variety of home-grown lunatics that could perpetrate acts of terror, just as Timothy McVeigh did. There isn’t a lot we can do about them without curtailing civil liberties, other than monitor and control their avenues for tools of mass destruction I say “tools” because the means to create weapons of mass destruction has been, and will always be available to those members of a free society that are inclined to make them or have a legitimate use of them. Many here have quickly forgotten this, though law enforcement has not. The anthrax scare/disseminations were probably perpetrated by a “domestic” loony, though the possibility of a foreign group has not been eilminated.


As an example, while we can technologically monitor all purchases of ammonium nitrate or ammonia, and cross reference them with truck rentals, such surveillance is ultimately going to lead to a lot of farmers, as ammonium nitrate, while it makes a potent explosive when mixed with fuel oils (AMFO and a Ryder truck were used in the Oklahoma City bombing), it also is commonly used as a fertilizer. There is a loooong list of commonly available, easily obtainable substances that can be used to make a weapon of mass destruction. I’m not going to detail them here, but if you just think of the havoc and evacuations that an overturned tanker truck or railway car of chlorine gas has created-and we’ve all seen that in the news-imagine the dispersion of chlorine gas in an urban area under the right conditions. Not particularly exotic, extremely deadly, and widely available in a variety of forms in large quantities.

So no matter how much access to information traffic, search authority or curtailment of civil liberties we give” law-enforcement,” in the end it probably won’t be enough, and will only result in further curtailment of civil liberties.

On the other hand, the CIA has gotten a measure of assassination authority back, which could be a good thing, as far as the “prudent use of force.” Port of entry officers , metropolitan police other local authorities are being equipped with appropriate tools for detecting weapons of mass destruction ( and perhaps a few that are silly), as well as receiving other much needed equipment, training and personnel.


No, I am not exactly in favor of expanding the powers of those organizations in some ways that have already taken place, and I am in favor of others that have and have not taken place.

The problem is also ideological and strategic on our part, While we have successfully arrested several members of al Qaeda support groups, or “sleeper cells” here in the USA, they are mostly morons, bottom feeders and wannabes, with specious and ridiculous plans and very little in the way of substantive intelligence to offer. Of course, the lack of intelligence is not only attributable to their lack of, well, intelligence, but the hierarchy of cellular organizations. In Europe, and the Middle East, a much more substantial number of better trained al Qaeda members that represent a higher operational, hierarchical level have been arrested for the simple reason that those jurisdictions have used appropriate police work. In Great Britain, Germany and Pakistan, al Qaeda is viewed as a criminal organization and the tactics for fighting criminal organization are what led to arrests. Here, the problem is viewed as a “war,” with “military action” being the solution. Perhaps military action is one solution, but, with the exception of Afghanistan, it hasn’t led to any arrests ,especially Osama.

Of course, even if we catch Osama ben Laden, al Qaeda will still go on in one form or another, so the problem doesn’t really end with him, either. As I said in the beginning of this thread, disaffected, alienated youth represent a continuing recruitment base for all the organizations that could take this kind of action, not just, though especially, al Qaeda.

Vapour
20th June 2003, 20:19
I obviously don't read every thread. But in the last thread about Cuban detainee (rughead?), you came up with this quote despite your worried about Patriot Act.

"Why are you worried? Do you have relatives there?"

"Why, wherever it is that you are, Hajime do you care? How is it that it effects you?"

If you didn't see anything wrong with above quote, I'm sorry but we don't have much common ground.

elder999
20th June 2003, 20:29
Originally posted by Vapour
I obviously don't read every thread. But in the last thread about Cuban detainee (rughead?), you came up with this quote despite your worried about Patriot Act.

"Why are you worried? Do you have relatives there?"

"Why, wherever it is that you are, Hajime do you care? How is it that it effects you?"

If you didn't see anything wrong with above quote, I'm sorry but we don't have much common ground.

Well, no, I don't see sanything wrong with asking a quesion. Perhaps you read a but of hostility into it..I have never used the word "raghead" in anyway, unless I was quopting someone else, and I never shall.
As for my questioning you, they were only questions, which you only half-answered to my satisfaction...and you need to read the rest of that thread as well:


Hajime.....
Because english is your second language, you may not understand even now that I was using a kind of reverse psychology. It also troubles me deeply that my country has resorted to these tactics. The fact that they are done "legally," doesn't make them any less troubling. The fact is that the government is trying to subject a U.S citizen- Jose Padilla, aka Abdullah al-Muhajir-to the same sort of conditions, and has, in fact, succeeded so far in doing so. He has been transferred to military custody, and has not been charged with any crime, permitted to see a lawyer, or been allowed any of his rights as a U.S. citizen. I have no doubt that he's a bad guy, probably a terrorist, or that he was involved in some sort of hair-brained terrorist scheme, but the precedent is unsettling.

"Our interest is not in trying him and punishing him;our interest is in finding out what he knows." -Donald Rumsfeld, on Jose Padilla

...but I don't think we'll execute anyone in Guantanamo that hasn't been found guilty of something they actually did, versus those that have already been released......


I also doubt that there are many civilians more informed than I on the current nature of Islamic terrorism...at least, operationally.

Soulend
20th June 2003, 21:33
I came to the conclusion while most recently in the Mideast that if I spent my entire life choking on incessant sandstorms, sweating my butt off in bazillion degree heat during the day and freezing the same piece of my anatomy off at night, in a place where the fauna consists of nothing but poisonous, mean, and/or downright horrible beasties and the flora consists of lifeless, colorless scrub, the women are generally covered from heat to toe, and there is zero beer....and I found out I could leave the damn place and go to paradise to receive the tender ministrations of 72 virgins by becoming a martyr - well, just show me where to sign!

Just kidding all...no need to light me up. Hmm...what are those dudes in suits doing on my doorstep I wonder...maybe they just don't like run-on sentences or something.

CKohalyk
21st June 2003, 04:14
First of all, the article that Vapour posted was written by Stephan Schwartz, a Jewish historian (who is actually a Sufi) who has written extensively about Wahhabism and Islam in general. For interested parties check out this interview with him on Booknotes (http://www.booknotes.org/Program/?ProgramID=1713) to gain some perspective on who he is.

Two other points/questions:

1. Don't they already monitor those types of potential WMD materiel(Cl,Pu,etc)? Also, is it okay to build up a national database of farmers so we don't have to follow up every single purchase of fertilizer? (I hear the ACLU knocking...)

2. Deciding on the jurisdiction of terrorist acts lies in the definition of terrorism itself. Terrorism is extremely hard to define since it can be utilized during peacetime (hence the jurisdiction of civilian LEOs) and during wartime (the jurisdiction of the military). The US seems to have decided to make all terrorism the jurisdiction of the military. The widest jurisdiction that allows for both of these is the intelligence community, which should work closely with both law enforcement and the military depending on the case. I don't think it can be one or the other. But to achieve this level of cooperation what can we do...?

That's enough from me, gotta go!!

CK

PS. Sorry I am not really contributing the the "cultural" part of this battle... maybe next time...

Shitoryu Dude
21st June 2003, 05:10
There are other easy methods of creating explosives - fertilizer is just the easiest. Trying to regulate everything and everybody that could possibly be used to make a bomb would be overwhelming.

:beer:

heatMiser
21st June 2003, 16:45
As I've posted before, the various terrorist campaigns around the world have ben going on for a very long time, and many show no signs of stopping. For every Baader- Meinhof whose leaders are imprisoned and whose danger has been eliminated, there are many, like the PLO who continue to exist and probably to operate.

Here in Ireland, there might just be an end in sight, maybe. At least ceasefires have been declared, and more or less honoured. This has come of an understanding of the shades of grey in hte seeming black and white opposites, coupled with a carrot and stick approach to progress.

America is getting the stick part of the system, to a very scary extent. But only when the carrot is added, and when the public realises the shades of grey will any progress be made.

Vapour
21st June 2003, 16:50
Originally posted by elder999

Well, no, I don't see sanything wrong with asking a quesion. Perhaps you read a but of hostility into it..I have never used the word "raghead" in anyway, unless I was quopting someone else, and I never shall.
As for my questioning you, they were only questions, which you only half-answered to my satisfaction...and you need to read the rest of that thread as well:

I also doubt that there are many civilians more informed than I on the current nature of Islamic terrorism...at least, operationally.

There is nothing wrong with asking question as far as the right to free speech goes but my problem was with your intent of asking that type of question. It's rather extreme analogy but N-lover is a favourite accusation of white supremacist. So as communist sympathiser, or someone being anti-American or whatever. Yes, I didn't aswer you question. No I don't have relative over there. Given my Japanese name it was obvious, don't you think. So why did you have to ask whether I have relative over there. And my use of the word "rughead" was deliverate because "do you have relative over there" question did imply this kind of attitude.

As of your operational background in dealing with Islamic terrorism, you can certainly enlighten me. Just that I assume someone with more knowledge in this field would have come up with the word like Wahhabi more often.

As of your first comment, there is nothing new in afuluent middle class kids going the way of terrorism. We had plenty of kids becoming communist terrorist back then. "Its grievance is global and abstract. The deprivation that fuels its "soldiers" seems more cultural than material." Ring a bell?

Joseph Svinth
21st June 2003, 18:50
Wahabis vs. Shi'ites is almost Manichaean in its simplicity, but is still a bit too complex for the president to say, let alone understand.

If you want some understanding of Islamic politics of the modern era, then you need to look at the Islamic world, not just at one tiny corner of it. Thus, you need to include Uthman dan Fodio, the Sanussiyah, the Mahdists, the Muslim rebellions of mid-19th century China, and so on, and then move forward into the Moros, the Central Asian reactions to Joe Stalin's pogroms, Ataturk, etc. It's not a simple process, and there are innumerable local variants.

FWIW, European and American equivalents developed during the same time-frame, often with similar goals, inspirations,and motivations, include Christian Science, Jehovah's Witnesses, Seventh Day Adventists, Fundamentalists, Salavation Army, and Latter Day Saints.

Vapour
21st June 2003, 19:14
Yes, if your concern is "Islamic politics of the modern era", your point is probably valid. However, if the focus is "current islamic terrorism threat against western targets" you can pretty much zoom in on Wahhabism.

I must admit the link I provided was a bit too partisan but i thought it was a good start.

joe yang
21st June 2003, 19:42
Vapour, maybe you should stop saying "rughead". :D

Vapour
22nd June 2003, 21:42
Originally posted by joe yang
Vapour, maybe you should stop saying "rughead". :D

True. :nw:

Shitoryu Dude
23rd June 2003, 00:19
I don't know, "rughead" sounds better than "camelf***er", whis is what I usually hear.

:beer:

Gene Williams
23rd June 2003, 00:37
Maybe when Chuck becomes Dr. Munyon, he can dedicate all his time and energy to treating Muslims, radicals, and various outcasts and social trash for free in order to enhance his feelings of moral superiority. By the way Chuck, whatever are you gonna' do when you are making all that money and have become a rich, white, American? Maybe you could wear a hair shirt under your lab coat:D Gene

Jock Armstrong
23rd June 2003, 05:42
If it has to be a cultural war ie West vs Islam, lets make sure we win it. If all the terrorists understand is violence, then lets give it to them in spades.

PS If there is any doubt as to which side I'm on, there aren't many moslems on the east coast of Scotland.

PPS The esteemed gentleman who pointed out that Al-Qaeda and the like[Hammas, PLO et al, et al] represent Islam about as much as Tammy baker represents christianity is absolutely right. However these sh*ts have the backing of unscrupulous people in high places in the Arab world. They persist in the medieval thinking that refuses to see the world in anything but a religious struggle between us [islam] and the rest. they are the single greatest threat to the survival of this planet and should be eradicated.

Had me rant.... wheres me pills.....:cool:

elder999
24th June 2003, 22:42
War is hell to figure out, and so its usual effect is to simplify thinking. It’s either hit’em harder, they deserve it(mainstream thought) or it’s this is wrong and stupid(leftist variant).

These last few months have felt different, though. People weren’t acting quite as reflexively as usual. We seemed to be struggling toward reality. A mild convergence of the National Rifle Association and National Public Radio crowds has been one result.


On the one hand, we’re fighting against people who fly airplanes into office buildings, so it’s hard to pretend we don’t need to do something. On the other hand, our assailants fight for an idea, not a nation, and how the hell do you battle an idea without making it worse?

It is clear that our security cannot be guaranteed entirely by our own efforts-fact is, it never was guaranteed. If you think you were secure before 9-11, sorry, you weren’t, and no matter how many planes we build, no matter how many missile defenses we squander our resources on, a few men operating in secret can cause chaos.

It’s equally clear that stopping them depends largely upon building an international coalition of governments that will try to track their movements, impede their finances, and so forth. It took George Bush about 20 minutes on Sept. 11 to turn into an internationalist.

That internationalism didn’t last very long-it’s been entirely one-sided: just the rest of the world helping us on our vital national project. Last year the United States, alone among the nations of the world, rejected the Kyoto global warming accords, a plan for an international criminal court of justice and a treaty strengthening protections against bio-warfare.

We don’t have the luxury of such arrogance. Our enormous economic might gives us great leverage in the world, but it doesn’t give us immunity. At some level we now understand that we are like Spain or Brazil or Ghana or any other nation that depends on a functioning, cooperative international community. Other countries have vital international projects too-if global warming goes the way some scientists forecast, Bangladesh (one of the most populous Muslim nations) will be underwater in 50 years.

Gene Williams
24th June 2003, 23:09
That would be fine, except that when rich American sportsmen went fishing in the new fishing grounds they might catch their lures in the mosques, which will make great structure fishing:D Gene

elder999
24th June 2003, 23:38
Originally posted by Gene Williams
That would be fine, except that when rich American sportsmen went fishing in the new fishing grounds they might catch their lures in the mosques, which will make great structure fishing:D Gene

If there are any fish....:rolleyes:



International accords needed to halt depletion of ocean's fish

New England, like any coastal corner of the world, has tended to view the problem of declining fish stocks through the lens of the fluctuating hauls brought back by boats working out of the region's harbors. Just how limited this perspective can be is demonstrated by the galvanizing study published in the journal Nature this month reporting that stocks of big ocean fish like tuna and swordfish have declined by 90 percent since World War II. ....

The decline -- in all oceans -- of large predator species does not just bode ill for an important source of protein for humankind. It is also a warning signal that industrialized fishing is radically changing the ecology of the seas, which make up 70 percent of Earth's surface and contain 97 percent of its water. This decapitation of the ecosystem's largest species (including sharks, which are prized by Asians for their fins) will have unpredictable effects on the planet, just as global warming and the pollution of rivers, estuaries, and wetlands will.


http://keysnews.com/277879338853215.bsp.htm

Chuck Munyon
25th June 2003, 18:07
Gene,
I'm already a quasi-rich white American, and I already bust my ass to the tune of 12-14 hours of school and studying a day while PAYING for the privilege to do it. If you think I'm in medicine for the money, take a look at Doctor's salaries vs. average debt load these days. Still, I find time to work in two different clinics that serve the Philly homeless community because it's part of my life's goal to leave whatever parts of the Earth I can touch better off for my having been there, even if it's only in a tiny way. That's the same thing that keeps me wanting to heal people, the same thing that keeps me speaking out on the issues that are important, and the same thing that keeps me trying to help vile, black little minds like yours purge some of their venom. These may all be ultimately futile endeavors, but then again, what isn't?
As for the hairshirt, I feel no need to suffer for others; I just feel the need to try and understand them so that dialogue can be initiated. What you and the rest of the "kill 'em all" types fail to understand is that the potential supply of "them" is essentially unlimited, and the more we kill, the more will spring up to take their place with the additional grievence off mass murder to fuel their cries of revenge. Nor, by the way, do I advocate the "cave in and appease them all" strategy; the problem will require a much more complex solution. I simply happen to think that the road to that solution should be informed by humanity and compassion, and that killing (while it might be sometimes necessary) should be kept to a minimum.

Gene Williams
25th June 2003, 19:27
There is nothing wrong with your noble aspirations and efforts, and I admire you for that. We just disagree politically over means. By the way, I manage about a dozen physicians accounts, so don't sing me that sad song about doctor's debt loads vs. salary:D Won't fly. Now, I'm going to ease my black, vile little mind with some highly refined ethanol. Gene

Chuck Munyon
25th June 2003, 19:32
What's your poison? Me, I'm a scotch man when I can get it.

Shitoryu Dude
25th June 2003, 20:20
My wife's cousin manages the retirement accounts of doctors at Salomon Smith Barney. What he says was most surprising to him is how little money so many of them had saved up by the time they were 55. Big houses, expensive cars, long vacations, no retirement cash.

Doctors don't seem to manage money worth a hoot. Oh yes, a very large percentage of them had defaulted on their student loans.

:beer:

joe yang
25th June 2003, 21:06
If, and it is a big if, doctors want to establish an independent practice, there is a huge investment in technology. And the technology keeps growing, and it can't all be farmed out. I know I expect instant test results on throat cultures, for example, from our pedeatrician, unthinkable just a few years ago. Independant eye doctors are almost a thing of the past, because of the cost of the technology. For that matter, independent, full service auto mechanics are disappearing too. Not that you can't take issue with this observation, but it bears consideration. And Chuck is seeing things from a Philly perspective. PA is loosing doctors at an alarming rate, driven out by the cost of insurance.

Shitoryu Dude
25th June 2003, 21:15
Washington is getting into some serious trouble due to insurance premiums for doctors. Just a few short weeks ago a rather alarming percentage of the state's neurosurgeons all lost their coverage for no apparent reason. I think the Seattle area may be down to about 4 or 5 who are practicing. Ob/Gyn types are shutting their doors and leaving town in a hurry - they spend several times in insurance fees than what they are left with. What is the motivation when every time something goes "wrong" you get sued into oblivion?

Until we reform the laws and hang a few very specific lawyers who make their living off of hyped up "malpractice" lawsuits I think we will continue to see more of this.

:beer:

Gene Williams
25th June 2003, 22:41
Hi Chuck, I like single malt scotch, but I'll drink bourbon. Insurance premiums for physicians are outrageous, also insurance regulations regarding what is to be covered. You young docs don't even remember what medicine and doctors were like a couple of decades ago. I hope you all will one day get enough and take medicine back from the insurance companies, corporations, and lawyers. Gene

Shitoryu Dude
25th June 2003, 23:00
Which single malt scotch and which bourbon? They are not all equal as you know. Hell, Glenlivet isn't even that good any more compared to what it was before the damned French bought the company.

For good bourbon I start with Maker's Mark and work up the ladder of boutique whisky from there. I have yet to try that new brand made by the guy who's dad was a famous moonshiner.

You should also try out the high-end tequila that is made any more. One sip of a $90+ bottle reposado, patron, or anejo grade tequila will make you realize what rotgut Jose Cuervo has been selling us for all these years.

:beer:

Gene Williams
25th June 2003, 23:03
Lagavulin and Macallan are my favorites. I also like Maker's Mark, and several of the single barrel bourbons. J W Dant isn't half bad, and for getting drunk, Old Grandad Special Edtion (114 proof) is good. I do not like Tequila. Gene

elder999
25th June 2003, 23:14
Originally posted by Shitoryu Dude
Which single malt scotch and which bourbon? They are not all equal as you know. Hell, Glenlivet isn't even that good any more compared to what it was before the damned French bought the company.

For good bourbon I start with Maker's Mark and work up the ladder of boutique whisky from there. I have yet to try that new brand made by the guy who's dad was a famous moonshiner.

You should also try out the high-end tequila that is made any more. One sip of a $90+ bottle reposado, patron, or anejo grade tequila will make you realize what rotgut Jose Cuervo has been selling us for all these years.

:beer:

Now yer talkin....I bemoan the "discovery" of proper sippin' tequilas, and the subsequent price increases.....we also like mezcal..alot:p

...also, try the Jose Cuervo Reserva de la Familia....they kept the good $hit for themselves.......hell, their 1800 isn't half bad if you don't wanna spend a lot of money.

Chuck Munyon
26th June 2003, 16:57
For anyone who can find it, I recommend Rip Van Winkle Bourbon.
My favorite scotch (in my price range) is The Dalmore.

And Joe is right, the PA situation is ridiculous. We had a talk from the man who runs Medicaid for the entire state, a real big shot and also a hell of a nice guy, and one of the things that he mentioned in his speech was that he used to split his time 90/10 between running medicaid and clinical practice, but as of a few days before the talk that had changed because his practice could no longer afford to keep him insured.

Southern Nevada currently has something like 76 obstetricians for the ENTIRE REGION!