Terrorism - Q and A/Discussion

Does it occur to you that it was the US that started it all. Like the support of Isreal.

The US didn't start it, but it certanly added (and adds) fuel to the fire. The continuous support of Israel and the whole Iraqi mess contribute A LOT for Al Qaeda, specially when recruiting members.

Another factor that made Al Qaeda focus its attention (if it wasn't already) in the United States was the aftermath of the Gulf War. While it was a right decision not to go all the way to Bagdad, the US should have destroyed completly the iraqi forces (although it would look bad in the media). By not doing that, the US was forced to leave military bases in Saudi Arabia. Since SA houses the two most important sites for the muslims (Mecca and Medina), the presence of infidels in the Holy Land was outrageous.

The bottom line is: due to the nature of the USA, Al Qaeda would attack it anyway. The problem is, the US is screwing up the whole War on Terror by using military forces (only to be used in a last-case scenario). The War on Terror isn't another World War -its a Wordwide War, and the US can't do it alone - allies count. Terrorism is defeated with intelligence, police actions and, only if everything else fails, military actions (although the invasion of A-stan was a right thing to do).

 

This is a great analysis by Juan Cole of our success (or lack thereof) against Al Qaeda. I hope all of you click the link and read the whole thing, and to entice you to do so, I will provide some excerpts.

In order to evaluate the aftermath of September 11, we first must understand that event. What did al-Qaeda intend to achieve? Only if we understand that can we gauge their success or failure.

From the point of view of al-Qaeda, the Muslim world can and should be united into a single country. They believe that it once had this political unity, under the early caliphs. Even as late as the outbreak of World War I, the Ottoman state ruled much of the Middle East, and the Ottoman sultans had begun making claims to be caliphs (Muslim popes) from about 1880...

From al-Qaeda's point of view, the political unity of the Muslim world was deliberately destroyed by a one-two punch. First, Western colonial powers invaded Muslim lands and detached them from the Ottoman Empire or other Muslim states. They ruled them brutally as colonies, reducing the people to little more than slaves serving the economic and political interests of the British, French, Russians, etc. France invaded Algeria in 1830. Great Britain took Egypt in 1882 and Iraq in 1917. Russia took the Emirate of Bukhara and other Central Asian territories in the 1860s and forward. Second, they formed these colonies into Western-style nation-states, often small and weak ones, so that the divisive effects of the colonial conquests have lasted...

For al-Qaeda to succeed, it must overthrow the individual nation-states in the Middle East, most of them colonial creations, and unite them into a single, pan-Islamic state...

Bin Laden hoped the US would timidly withdraw from the Middle East. But he appears to have been aware that an aggressive US response to 9/11 was entirely possible. In that case, he had a Plan B: al-Qaeda hoped to draw the US into a debilitating guerrilla war in Afghanistan and do to the US military what they had earlier done to the Soviets. Al-Zawahiri's recent message shows that he still has faith in that strategy...

The US cleverly outfoxed al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, using air power and local Afghan allies (the Northern Alliance) to destroy the Taliban without many American boots on the ground.

Ironically, however, the Bush administration then went on to invade Iraq for no good reason, where Americans faced the kind of wearing guerrilla war they had avoided in Afghanistan...

The US is not winning the war on terror. Al-Qaeda also has by no means won. But across a whole range of objectives, al-Qaeda has accomplished more of its goals than the US has of its.

I cut a lot of good stuff out, as I didn't want to copy his whole article, so click the link and read the whole thing. Besides, there is even pretty maps to look at .

 

No discussion on what could be ETA's decapitation?? I know that ETA is a european issue, and not (directly) linked to armed islamism and islamic terrorism, but still...

IT WAS a spectacular coup. On October 3rd Mikel ?Antza? Albizu Iriarte, political leader and chief ideologue of ETA, the Basque terrorist group, was arrested in the town of Salies-de-Béarn in France, along with his girlfriend, Soledad ?Anboto? Iparragirre Genetxea. Fifteen other suspects were also nabbed. In seven separate caches, arms were found, among them over 1,200kg of explosives, two Russian-made ground-to-air missiles, 44 submachineguns and an assortment of pistols. Following leads gathered in the raid, five more suspected ETA members were later arrested on the Spanish side of the border, in Pamplona, San Sebastián and Irún. They were reportedly awaiting instructions to carry out attacks.

The French justice minister, Dominique Perben, hailed the capture of ETA's political leader as ?a great battle won in the war against terrorism...a very fine operation?. Spain's prime minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, trumpeted ?a major step towards ending the violence of the terrorist group, ETA?, adding that ?ETA's destiny can only be its demise.?


Yet Spain has been here before. ETA suffered a big setback in 1992, when another raid in a French village led to the arrest of its entire leadership. But the group, which has killed 817 people since its first assassination in 1968, sprang back to life. Is there anything new this time? ETA has long used southern France as a sanctuary, and a base from which to launch attacks on Spain. Indeed, many Spaniards have suspected France of turning a blind eye as long as no atrocities were committed on French soil. But though some suspicions linger, co-operation between the French and Spanish in hunting down ETA has been stepped up since the mid-1990s.

According to the Spanish newspaper El País, as many as 164 of the 709 ETA suspects who are now in detention were arrested in France. And it is the French who catch the biggest fish. In April ETA's logistics chief, Felix Ignacio Esparza Luri, and its political and military co-ordinator, Felix Alberto Lopez de la Calle, were both arrested in France. The Spanish and French police forces have set up joint squads dedicated to pursuing ETA.

Is there now a chance of greater co-operation still? Mr Zapatero's centre-right predecessor, José María Aznar, puffed up his record against ETA. But given Mr Zapatero's wish to strengthen Spain's links with France and to eschew Mr Aznar's pro-American stance, Spaniards hope for still more action against ETA. The group's last fatal attack was in May 2003, when two policemen were killed by a car bomb in Navarre. In the summer ETA managed a series of low-level bomb attacks in seaside resorts. Last month it planted some bombs beside pylons in the Basque region.

The Spanish hope that ETA will now disintegrate into an obscure and politically impotent terrorist group. But some doubts remain. ETA still has strong backing among supporters of Batasuna, the banned Basque nationalist party. And the large country house in which Antza and Anboto lived quietly, fattening their ducks, before their capture has given commentators further food for thought. Why did it take so long to arrest them?

 

Attack on Red Sea Resort

Interesting, they don't think it was a Palestinian group and are focussing more on Al Qaeda or AL Qaeda inspired groups....

 

So I was watching this documentary and some Bush supporters were saying how they admire Bush cos he's protecting them from terrorism.

Bush said he was going to war on Iraq as part of his war on terror. Except they found no WMDs and no links with Al-Quaida. And it seems like they've stirred up an awful lot of anti-American feeling in the Arab world because of this bogus war and Iraq is now a breeding ground for terrorists.

So I don't get it , why do people think that Bush is protecting them from terrorists ? It seems more likely that he's encouraged terrorism with this war on Iraq.

g

 

So I don't get it , why do people think that Bush is protecting them from terrorists ?

Because like everything else, it was drilled into their heads.

Perception is everything.

 

I've been researching terrorism since 1998.

Why do people believe this?

Two reasons.

1) They have no other source of information on the matter. Most people here hadn't heard of Osama before September 11 2001, and you gotta remember he'd already hit the US twice before 9/11 at least.

If they here that they're on the winning side, and they aren't someone like me who gets alot of the info through active research, why reason do they have to doubt it? Bush is an elected official, and to most (save the redundant "Commander in Thief" crowd) that's proof enough that he'd be straightforward with the American people.

Which leads me to point 2:

2) I agree America's not really winning the war on terror, because terrorism is undefeatable by it's nature (it's manageable and containable, certainly), but how do you think that would make people feel? Insecure? Petrified?

E_S

 

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=564&ncid=564&e=1&u=/nm/20041110/ts_nm/security_qaeda_dc_1

I guess Bush'd love to leave that as his legacy for the textbooks, but I wonder what would've happened if this advisor spoke sooner (like two-three weeks ago).

I hope this is the right thread, I didn't want to start a new one.

 

Couldn't read the story; what was it?

E_S

 

Remove the space in "security" and you should be right.

In any case:

---

[b]Al Qaeda 'To Disintegrate' in 2 Years - UK Adviser[/b]

Wed Nov 10, 9:57 AM ET
[i]By Michael Holden[/i]

LONDON (Reuters) - Al Qaeda will begin to disintegrate within two years as its various factions start to squabble and militants return to their local roots, a senior British parliamentary adviser predicted on Wednesday.

Professor Michael Clarke, a specialist adviser to lawmakers on the House of Commons defense committee, said the consequence would be that the security services would be able to win the "war on terror" as the group's structure fell apart.

"I think (cracks) are going to start to appear in the next 12 months to two years," he told Reuters at a security conference in London.

"It's going to start to fragment and split up," he said.

Clarke said he envisaged the network breaking down into smaller, disparate cells which would be more easily infiltrated and dealt with, bringing an end to the group's ability to carry out major attacks along the lines of the Sept. 11 attacks

"Terrorism will go back to being about more local issues. It will be reduced to a level which people can live with," he said.

Al Qaeda's pyramid structure -- with Osama bin Laden (news - web sites) and about 30 associates at its head spreading out to a loose franchise of affiliated networks -- would begin to prove a major weakness when it was once a strength, he said.

Groups associated with al Qaeda across the world, such as those in southeast Asia, would start to pursue their local agendas, he added.

Clarke pointed to Iraq (news - web sites), where Baathist supporters of deposed president Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) were fighting alongside foreign Jihadists linked to al Qaeda although the groups had nothing in common.

Ultimately the Baathists would go their own way and pyramid would be weakened.

Clarke noted that even association with bin Laden's network had proved damaging to the cause of other militants such as Chechen separatists.

Clarke, director of the International Policy Institute at London's King's College, said this would be fueled further as the "glamour" surrounding bin Laden started to wear off and political in-fighting took hold.

"Whenever you get a general movement, people will vie for prominence and that's what I think is the next stage," he said.

He said a major failing of al Qaeda was its complete misunderstanding of western society and the belief it could terrorize governments into achieving their aims.

"They are not going to frighten Western society out of policies, they are not going to bring down the House of Saud, their first real objective, by terrorism," he said.

"They can cause great inconvenience but they can't damage them in the way they think they can." [hr][/blockquote]

 

Brilliant!

We get the story and a visit from Sil! Brilliant!

E_S

 

Gosh, I hope that is the case.

I worry about Iran, though.

 

No need DM Irans have decided to listern than rather than go against the US

 

For now. The recent agreement merely means that they will keep talking...it's far from resolution, though.

 

Havent they stop Building their Nuclear reactors ?

 

Iran agreed to suspend its nuclear enrichment operation. What is still under discussion is the status of Iran's long term nuclear program.

However, the US's role this time was similiar to "friend of the court" status. The actual negoations were conducted by France, Germany, and Britian taking the lead.

The US wanted to refer the matter to the full UNSC if an agreement was not reached, but purposefully stayed out of direct negoiation.

Remember, under IAEA guidelines, Iran was always allowed to have "legitimate nuclear technology" that was to be used for peaceful results.

The problem, of course, was that Iran was suspected of having a parallel underground program that used the fuel to make weapons.

It was the secret program that the IAEA and the Western powers were concerned about.

 

so they are still not sure about Iran then ?

 

What do you mean "not sure?"

If Iran follows the terms of this recent agreement, then the IAEA will go in, verify that all enrichment operations are halted, and report back to the countries that are at the opposite end of the treaty.

People seem to forget that Iran is allowed to have nuclear power. This has always been the case. Under that framework though, the international community has to distinguish between Iran's "good" nuclear program, and its "bad" nuclear program.

The problem comes into play because in reality, it is a lot like giving a junkie the key to the narcotics locker, but telling him to only remove non-harmful amounts of marijuana.

Chances are you won't notice that the junkie didn't follow those instructions until he has been on a 3 day cocaine/heroin binge.

The point is that it falls to Iran to obey the terms of the agreement it just signed. If not, the matter gets sent to the UNSC, and we can look forward to 12 years of bickering.

 

People seem to forget that Iran is allowed to have nuclear power. This has always been the case.

i blame that on the media Mr44

thats why many of us assume that Iran was making nuclear bomb. I never knew that Iran is allowed to make a nuclear reactor for civillian means.

 

Of course, that's only a tiny part of the story. Why would Iran need to build large enrichment facilities for a nuclear reactor that is powered by uranium they are set to purchase from russia?

There are numerous activities that they are involved in that currently fall under the NPT, but serve absolutely no commercial or scientific purpose. Only military ones.

 

Are you also saying that Iran making weapons as deterrent against Israel ?

 

i blame that on the media Mr44

thats why many of us assume that Iran was making nuclear bomb. I never knew that Iran is allowed to make a nuclear reactor for civillian means.

Perhaps that is because you don't choose to access a wide range of high quality media sources. The information is out there but you have to look in the right places.

Anyway, in very simple terms. The US doesn't trust Iran to stick to it's agreements and with good reason suspects that Iran is just playing for time, trying to distract the west while it continues a clandestine nuclear weapons programme.

 

could you name some DK ?

 

Posted at Veryantipeta.

Questions, comments?


I was looking at your LJ community because i am an animal rights activist, or shall i say animal liberationist? well, anyway, i dont believe your claim that the ALF and ELF are domestic terrorists is very educated. in all the thirty some odd years the ALF and ELF have been in existance, they have never harmed a human or non-human. ever.
if it is domestic terrorism, why is there a lack of life-taking on their part? people go around blindly labeling ALF and ELF as terrorists, when we use the same word to describe extremist Muslim groups like Al-Queda. ALF and ELF are terrorists to the capitalist system because they believe in property damage, and people should not worry about property damage more than life; human or non-human. your community confuses me because in its interests it lists a bunch of animal liberationist organizations and such. i would be really interested in hearing more about your philosophy on why these organizations are domestic terrorists.

 

I would say that people who break into labs and cause damage, free animals, etc are simply criminals but those who use physical violence and intimidation against other people, in an attempt to further their goals, can be described as terrorists.

However the word terrorist has such emotional baggage and is now used so frequently that it has become devoid of meaning.