What are we going to do about terrorism? - Page 2 - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

Ustwo · 03-08-2006, 04:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tecoyah

Note....Sarcasm

Well I'd be interesting and hearing what you think should be done then.

Willravel · 03-08-2006, 05:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mojo_PeiPei

Will that is an very ideal approach to the situation, one that however ideal, lacks any comprehension of power politics, foreign geo-political relations, or future vision for a nation that is at the current moment the sole hyper power.

One can be an idealist without being naive. Power politics are the reason there is global terrorism, so while I understand the natuer of power politics, I also recognise that it's absense would be a benifit in the "war on terrorism". As far as foriegn relations....well how are we doing in that department? On a scale of 1-10, 10 being Canada, and 1 being Nazi Germany, where do we fall? I suspect there is room for improvement, at the very least. How can we improve out global relations? It could be a simple matter of showing the rest of the world that we don't consider ourselves an empire, and then to prove it by renewing and trying to repair international relations. There is no hyper power in the world anymore. To state otherwise is to deny the last 7 years of US economics.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mojo_PeiPei

Again it has several over stated comments, or even fallicies in regards to civil liberties, the reality that nations, especially highly industrialized are run on oil, further that point to geo-political capital as other nations emerge (such as China which in 15 years time will account for 75% of the worlds consumption of oil), and how all of that effects the economy.

I think we all know that if things continue the way they are, we will not be able to compete with China economically, militarily, or diplomatically 15 years from now if we stay our current course...so it's irrelevenat to try and control middle east oil. Our military runs on money, money that our federal government doesn't have. Eventually, we will have to stop spending, or someone will ask to be paid back. Now, I'll admit that economics is not my strong suit (nor is spelling), but by my understainding, China is replacing the US as the economic hyperpower. If that's the case, and also taking into account how large their military is, we would have to back down if sometimes down the line they made a power play for the Iraqi, Irani, or Saudi oil. Technology can only help us so much.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mojo_PeiPei

On top of that it is greatly ignorant of the past reasons for military bases, as well as vision for the future. Having strategic military bases is like a condom, where you would rather have them and not need them, then need them and not have them.

Using your anaology: The only reason to have a condom is if you fuck people. Is it a good idea for us to be prepared to fuck people, espically our allies?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mojo_PeiPei

As far as those people determined terrorists as not being evil? I find it absurd that you find it absurd. I call on your bet, and will side bet you that if your vision went down America would be a crippled shade of the nation it is now and has been in the past; although from reading your post here and other places, I don't doubt that you wouldn't want that.

"Evil" is a subjective term. To call anyone or anything evil is to have an opinion. I'm sure one could argue that it's their opinion that terrorists are evil, but proving it is impossible. If my evil ytou mean morally wrong, then that's a matter of perspective. Fighting for one's home and religion is considered very moral for some people. I suspect that many terrorists see themselves as agents of God or their people. Every time a smart bomb misses a palace and hits a slum, killing 100 civilians, a terrorist gets his wings. They say we're evil, and we say they're evil, and neither side takes the time to find common ground or search for a REAL solution. It's absurd that both sides can't act like adults. Shame on them and shame on us.

Mojo_PeiPei · 03-08-2006, 06:06 PM

I don't get why everyone is always yapping about repairing global relations, especially in how it relates to Iraq. It is just so naive to assume that every other country was taking some moral high road in being against the invasion, when the reality is plain and simple, they would enhance their own power at the expensive of our own.

I agree the current state of economics might not be as favorable as it has been in recent years, but China is no where near our equal economically, and they are still not close militarily. If Taiwan declared it's independence tomorrow and China made a move we would lay them to shreds as they have no lift capabilities and the 7th fleet would bury them. Our presence in Iraq curtails their growth or at the very least regulates, as such it is an asset to us; at the same time it does the same for Western Europe/and other Asian countries, therefore it's beneficial.

How are we fucking our allies? By doing something in our own interests? In that sense helping our allies hurts ourselves, that is a big nono, never lend to anothers power at your own expense. The analogy isn't about fucking people, it's just noting the reality that sometime, some place down the line, military action will be required. It is a necessity, and as a basis of government one of its sole purposes.

Evil is not a subjective term, I know some hear might like to think so. Decapitating civilians is evil, Flying civilians planes into civilian targets is evil, lynching christians in response to cartoons is evil, inciting civil war to forward a facist agenda is evil; again Seditious doctrine.

Also I have to ask, how in the hell do you figure OBL is not responsible for 9/11? Either as the predominant and widely accepted fact that he was the mastermind, at the very least he facilitated it. Please indulge me.

Willravel · 03-08-2006, 07:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mojo_PeiPei

I don't get why everyone is always yapping about repairing global relations, especially in how it relates to Iraq. It is just so naive to assume that every other country was taking some moral high road in being against the invasion, when the reality is plain and simple, they would enhance their own power at the expensive of our own.

Working only for more power is ultimately self defeating. Globalization brings with it a price of what I call natioanl maturity. There has to be a general realization that we are now truely and completly interdependent. What happens to one country effects all countries. Invading Iraq didn't just muck up the Middle East. It has shown other countries that vast unilateral military action is the new tool of the "global free market econemy". This is going to show China, voted most likely to succede in their yearbook, that they can throw around their military in order to seize natural resources. THIS HURTS THE US. We obviously will not always be the top dog in the world, and since we kno that eventually we will need to bow to other superpowers, it's best to set an example that would benifit us in the long run. WHat if, 15 years down the line, China invades the Middle East and takes all the oil we're now spending hundreds of billions on. We will not get our monitary or military investment back in 15 years. So in this situation we've lost the money, the troops, and the resource. Why? Because we were greedy and let our reach excede our grasp. So even if you believe in US interests only this is a bad idea.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mojo_PeiPei

I agree the current state of economics might not be as favorable as it has been in recent years, but China is no where near our equal economically, and they are still not close militarily. If Taiwan declared it's independence tomorrow and China made a move we would lay them to shreds as they have no lift capabilities and the 7th fleet would bury them. Our presence in Iraq curtails their growth or at the very least regulates, as such it is an asset to us; at the same time it does the same for Western Europe/and other Asian countries, therefore it's beneficial.

Ah but we're not talking about right this second. Foresight is always lacking in militarism. China has multiple agreements with Russia (or whatever it's called this week), which supplies them plenty of oil. China's expectation of growing future dependence on oil imports has brought it to acquire interests in exploration and production in places like Kazakhstan, Venezuela, Sudan, West Africa, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Canada. Despite its efforts to diversify its sources, China has become increasingly dependent on Middle East oil. Today, 58% of China's oil imports come from the region. We don';t have ANY contol over that percentage. We invade Iraq, and China gets MORE oil from the Middle East. By 2015, the share of Middle East oil will stand on 70%. Oh, BTW, did you know that China is a massive arms dealer? All they need to do isto continue providing weapons of mass destruction to Iran and the Sudan. They recently sold anti-ship cruise missles to Iran. Where we (the US) invade and conqour, China arms and makes deals. To ignore the obvious implications of that to international relations is to ignore the reason why China is such a threat to the US, particularly in the Middle East. Also, don't asssume that China is so militarily inferior to the US.
1) Nukes:

Quote:

China currently maintains a minimal intercontinental nuclear deterrent using land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). The Dong Feng-5 (DF-5) liquid-fueled missile, first deployed in 1981, has a range of 13,000 km and carries a single multi-megaton warhead. Twenty are believed to be deployed in central China, southwest of Beijing. Unlike China's earlier ballistic missiles, which were stored in caves and moved out for launch, the DF-5 can be launched directly from vertical silos—but only after a two-hour fueling process. In order to increase the survivability of the DF-5s, dummy silos are placed near the real silos. The DF-5's range gives it coverage of all of Asia and Europe, and most of the United States. The south-eastern US states are at the edge of the missile's range.

Two additional long-range ballistic missiles are in the development stage, the 8,000 km DF-31 and the 12,000 km DF-41. Both missiles are expected to be solid-fueled and based on mobile launchers. It is not known how many missiles China plans to deploy nor how many warheads the missiles may carry, but it is believed that China is hoping to deploy multiple nuclear warheads and penetration aids. These may be either multiple re-entry vehicles (MRVs) or the more capable, but technically difficult multiple independently-targetable re-entry vehicles (MIRVs). First deployment for the DF-31 could occur before 2005; the DF-41 is likely to follow, possibly around 2010.2

China's nuclear-armed naval forces are currently limited to one Xia Type 092 nuclear-powered and nuclear ballistic missile-equipped submarine (SSBN), which has a history of reactor and acoustic problems. The Xia can carry 12 Ju Lang-1 (JL-1) SLBMs with a single 200-300 kt warhead and a range of 1,700 km. Due to its technical limits, the Type 092 is never deployed outside regional waters.

China is reported to be planning to build four-to-six new Type 094 SSBNs. The Type 094 will introduce a safer, quieter reactor and better overall performance. It is expected to have 16 JL-2 missiles, capable of carrying up to six warheads per missile (probably MRVs that are not independently targetable). The initial launch date is supposed to be scheduled for 2002; but development of the JL-2 missile may take considerably longer because to date the land-based missile on which it based, the DF-31, has been test launched only once. If China were to employ a deployment rotation similar to that for US Navy SSBNs (three submarines for each one in target range, with one on station, one in transit, and one in refit), then six SSBNs would give China the ability to keep two submarines on station in the Pacific at all times, able to strike all of Asia, Europe, and North America.3 If the planned 6 submarines are built with the maximum number of warheads per missile, the number of total deployable submarine-based nuclear warheads will rise to 576. Even if the warheads were not independently targetable, the minimum number likely to be on station and capable of striking the United States would be 192—that is, enough to saturate the proposed light US national missile defense, which is now driving the Chinese strategic nuclear modernization and expansion program.

China also deploys three weapons in the intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) and medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM) categories. These missiles are capable of posing strategic threats to countries in Asia, such as India or Japan, but represent a lesser threat to Russia, and are only a threat to the United States through the vulnerability of US military bases in Japan and South Korea.

The oldest nuclear missile deployed by China is the semi-mobile 2,800 km-range DF-3A. The estimated 40 liquid-fueled DF-3s still in service today are being phased out in favor of the DF-15 (see below) and DF-21. They were followed by the liquid-fueled DF-4, which has a maximum range of 4,750 km. About 20 DF-4s remain in service in fixed launch sights. Chinese regional ballistic missile capabilities advanced greatly with the introduction of the DF-21, the first solid-fueled medium-range missile. The solid-fuel design provides China with a faster launch time, because the lengthy and potentially dangerous fueling procedure of the earlier Dong Feng models has been eliminated. First deployed in 1986, the 48 operational DF-21s have a range of 1,800 km and are carried on mobile launchers. The DF-21 is the basis for the JL-1 submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM).

The older liquid-fuel missiles carry single warheads with yields estimated at 3.3 MT. The newer solid-fuel missiles have single warheads with maximum yields of a few hundred kilotons each.

The Chinese bomber force is based on locally produced versions of Soviet aircraft first deployed in the 1950s. With the retirement of the H-5/Il-28 from the nuclear role, the H-6/Tu-16 remains the only nuclear-capable bomber in the Chinese inventory. First entering service with the Soviet Air Force in 1955, the Tu-16 was produced in China in the 1960s. The H-6/Tu-16 is capable of carrying one-to-three nuclear bombs over a combat radius of 1,800 km to 3,100 km. About 120 People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) H-6/Tu-16s are believed to be capable of nuclear missions. Another 20 H-6/Tu-16s are under the control of the People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) and do not perform nuclear missions. There is no indication of a replacement for the H-6/Tu-16 in the near future. The J-7/MiG-21 and the newer Chinese-designed JH-7s and Russian-exported Su-27s are capable of performing nuclear missions, but they are not believed to be deployed in that role.

The PLAAF has 20-40 Q-5 Fantan attack aircraft that it uses in the nuclear role. Initially deployed in China in 1970, the Q-5 is a substantially upgraded version of the MiG-19, which was initially deployed in the Soviet Union in 1954 and later produced by China under the designation J-6. The Q-5 can carry a single free-fall nuclear bomb over a combat radius of 400 km. The very short range of the Q-5 limits its battlefield effectiveness, even with conventional armament.

Two types of short-range ballistic missile (SRBM) entered service with China’s Second Artillery forces around 1995: the DF-11/M-11, with a range of 300 km, and the DF-15/M-9, with a range of 600 km. (The ‘DF’ designation is used by missiles in service with China, while the ‘M’ designation is used for export versions.). In theory both missiles but could be fitted with small nuclear devices. As of 2000, a few hundred DF-15s and DF-11s may be deployed; but most if not all are believe to be equipped with conventional warheads.

2)Conventional Forces:

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The People's Liberation Army Air Force, PLAAF, currently possesses about 4,350 aircraft, of which the majority are combat aircraft. IDDS estimates that the inventory of Chinese combat aircraft on 1 January 2000 includes the following: 1900 J-6/MiG-19 (all roles and models: fighter, reconnaissance, trainer); 720 J-7/MiG-21 (all roles and models: fighter, reconnaissance, trainer); 222 J-8I/II/III; 55 J-11/Su-27SK; 440 Q-5 (modified MiG-19); 307 H-5/Il-28; and 142 H-6/Tu-16. 8 Small numbers of JH-7s (fewer than 12) and K-8s (10-15) may also be in service. Of these aircraft, the great majority (J-6 and J-7) are of types which began to be deployed before 1972 (See Chart 2.) With the exception of 10 Il-76s, the airlift capabilities of the Chinese Airforce are limited to old Soviet tactical airlift planes built under license or reversed-engineered in China, such as the Y-5/An-2, Y-7/An-24, and Y-8/An-12.

China just increaset military spending by 14%...and they are not spending it on Iraq.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mojo_PeiPei

How are we fucking our allies? By doing something in our own interests? In that sense helping our allies hurts ourselves, that is a big nono, never lend to anothers power at your own expense. The analogy isn't about fucking people, it's just noting the reality that sometime, some place down the line, military action will be required. It is a necessity, and as a basis of government one of its sole purposes.

Military bases in the US = defensive. Military bases around the world = offensive. Militaries are NEVER supposed to be used offinsively. We have the technology to launch a military strike on anywhere in the world from US shores in under 12 hours (I don't have a link for this one, I asked my uncle who works in intelligence). The only reason to have military spread around the globe is a show of power and intimidation. Do you really want to be the school yard bully?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mojo_PeiPei

Evil is not a subjective term, I know some hear might like to think so. Decapitating civilians is evil, Flying civilians planes into civilian targets is evil, lynching christians in response to cartoons is evil, inciting civil war to forward a facist agenda is evil; again Seditious doctrine.

Hahahahahah!!! Awesome. Do you really want to get in an evil-off? Do you really want me to list all the evil things the US has done in the past 50 years?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mojo_PeiPei

Also I have to ask, how in the hell do you figure OBL is not responsible for 9/11? Either as the predominant and widely accepted fact that he was the mastermind, at the very least he facilitated it. Please indulge me.

You're more than welcome to join the ongoing discussion in Paranoia about 9/11. I would appreciate your input on my math in post #166, or my chemistry and physics in post #171.

powerclown · 03-08-2006, 08:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by willravel

Now we need to figure out what would make them stop.

Is this really the answer? Is this really the way to stop the Islamofacists from doing what they do?
Regardless of their words? Regardless of their deeds?

Because,
If we figure out why people rape, will it stop rape?
If we figure out why people steal, will it stop robbery?
If we figure out why people murder, will it stop murder?
If we figure out why people like fried foods, will it stop obesity?
If we figure out why people smoke, will it stop cancer?
If we figure out why people burn stuff, will it stop arson?
If we figure out why people do drugs, will it stop traffickers?
If we figure out why people cheat on their spouses, will it stop divorce?
If we figure out why people beat their kids, will it stop child abuse?
If we figure out why people idolize celebrities, will we stop Hollywood?
If we figure out why people join gangs, will there be less street crime?
If we figure out why people cook the books, will there be fewer Enrons?
If we figure out why people call in sick to work, will we improve economic efficiency?
If we figure out why people commit suicide, will we stop suicide?
If we figure out why people get depressed, will it stop depression?
If we figure out why people terrorize, will it stop terrorism?

Have you ever wondered why banks have locked vaults?
Have you ever wondered why man discovered how to use tools?
Have you ever wondered why people are so fascinated with space?
Have you ever wondered why the history of mankind is one of continuous strife, warfare, misery and suffering?
Have you ever wondered why organized governments, even peaceful ones, have armed militaries?
Have you ever wondered why people mutilate their own bodies?
Have you ever wondered why Hitler is a cult hero?
Have you ever wondered why people post pictures of their sexual organs in public? (I might do this too, but it wouldn't be pretty.)
Have you ever wondered why the porn/gambling/videogame industry worldwide is valued at over $450 billion?

I have to say, I am skeptical.
Is the answer, then, to be immersed in trying to decipher the myriad behaviors and motivations of people?
By deciphering the motivation of subjectivity?
Is there rationality to be found in the innately irrational?
Is it worth the time to figure out? Would an answer be good enough?
Would one have the fortitude to sustain that understanding?

Did the Romans have Psychiatrists?

Willravel · 03-08-2006, 10:40 PM

Powerclown, please reread the quote you chose from my above post. I wrote: "Now we need to figure out what would make them stop." That quote goes beyond simply asking wehy someone does something. It moves onto the next tsep: learning how to control that behavior.
If we could figure out how to make people stop rape, then we could make people stop raping. If we could figure out how to make people stop comitting murder, then we could make people stop comitting murder. Do you understand?

I agree that it's not enough to learn why people do the bad things they do. You need to figure out what it would take to make them stop.

The romans had philosophy, but not formal psychology. Let me say this: I believe that no human behavior is completly irrational. War, which gave birth to terrorism, is not the solution to terrorism. I have found that in any situation in which two parties are posturing, mutuality is the first step towards a solution. Neither one of us, terrorists or imperial militaries, wants to be fighting. We should start from there.

Mojo_PeiPei · 03-08-2006, 10:43 PM

If I recall, the terrorists do want to fight, is that not the premise of their Jihad?

Willravel · 03-08-2006, 10:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mojo_PeiPei

If I recall, the terrorists do want to fight, is that not the premise of their Jihad?

Ah but as I said we have to find the reason why. The Jihad didn't come from nowhere and for no reason. The terrorists fight to an end. There is a goal. There is a reason for them to fight (whether you agree with them or not). It's just like our war on terror. We didn't just one day decide to go kill members of the al Qaeda. They have been linked to dozens (hundreds?) of terrorist attacks and attempted attacks all over the world. They threatened us, so we went after them - and ended up in Iraq...oh well.

Did you ever wonder why the al Qaeda does what it does?

Mojo_PeiPei · 03-08-2006, 10:53 PM

I know why they fight...

Something to do with some tired old Caliphate reestablishment...

There is the fighting for honor because of the great embarresment of the Turkish Empire and all subsequent colonial bullshit...

Something about Eradicating the jews...

American presence in Saudi Arabia...

SOme pretty stupid bullshit if you ask me, and by and large that is some of their more legitimate claims.

Willravel · 03-08-2006, 11:04 PM

I've heard a lot of people ask, "Why do the terrorists hate us?" I've considered a ton of political, economic, military, and even religious problems that occoured or are occouring between the US and the countries of the Middle East. There are plenty of reasons for them to hate us, but one thing should be made clear: Arabs are asking "Why do Americans hate us?". Please read the whole article linked and posted below, as it communicates exactly what I'm thinking.
The following article is from http://www.globalissues.org/Geopolit...MuslimsAsk.asp

Quote:

Muslims Ask: Why Do They Hate Us?
Chris Toensing, AlterNet
September 25, 2001

In December 1998, I met a waiter in the quiet Egyptian port of Suez. As I sipped tea in his cafe, he pulled up a chair to chat, as Egyptians often do to welcome strangers. Not long into our amiable repartee, he looked me in the eye.

"Now I want to ask you a blunt question," he said. "Why do you Americans hate us?" I raised my eyebrows, so he explained what he meant and, in doing so, provided some insights into why others hate us.

Numerous United Nations resolutions clearly define Israel's occupation of the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem as illegal. Yet Israel receives 40 percent of all US foreign aid, more than $3.5 billion annually in recent years, roughly $500 per Israeli citizen. (The average Egyptian will earn $656 this year.)

Israel uses all of this aid to build new settlements on Palestinian land and to buy US-made warplanes and helicopter gunships. "Why do Americans support Israel when Israel represses Arabs?" the waiter asked.

He went on: Evidence clearly shows that the US-led economic sanctions on Iraq punish Iraqi civilians while hardly touching Saddam Hussein's regime. A UNICEF study in 1999 backed him up, saying that 500,000 children under five would be alive today if sanctions did not exist. Surely Iraqi children are not enemies of international peace and security, the waiter expostulated, even if their ruler is a brutal dictator.

The United States presses for continued sanctions because Hussein is flouting United Nations resolutions, but stands by Israel when it has flouted UN Resolution 242 (which urges Israel to withdraw from land occupied in the 1967 War) for over 30 years. Arabs and Muslims suffer from these and other US policies.

The only logic this young Egyptian could see was that America was pursuing a worldwide war against Islam, in which the victims were overwhelmingly Muslim. America is a democracy, he concluded, so Americans must hate Muslims to endorse this war.

I groaned inwardly. Here, I thought, was a person as woefully misinformed about America as most Americans are about the Middle East. Painstakingly, in my rusty Arabic, I explained that although the United States is a democracy, we Americans do not choose our government's allies, nor do we select its adversaries. We do not vote on the annual foreign aid budget. There are no referenda on the ballot asking whether the United States should send abundant aid to Israel, or whether the United States should pressure the UN Security Council into maintaining sanctions against Iraq, or whether the Fifth Fleet should prowl the Persian Gulf to protect our oil supply.

Americans do have the ability to vote out of office politicians who embrace various foreign policies, but Americans rarely have accurate information about the effect of those policies, in the Middle East or elsewhere. If they knew, I argued, they would speak up in opposition, because Americans have a fundamental sense of fairness. I concurred that it was imperative to debunk Hollywood stereotypes of Arabs and Muslims as wild-eyed, Koran-waving fanatics. These are pernicious ideas that stand in the way of fair judgment.

Our conversation lasted for hours. When we reached a pause, the waiter invited me to dinner at his house. There I met his brother, a devout Muslim. He too asked me why America hates Arabs and Muslims. I spent two more hours talking with him. When I left, he told me warmly how happy he was "to connect with an American on a human level." He and I shook hands like old friends, as we agreed that both Americans and Arab Muslims should strive to puncture the myth that "we" are somehow essentially different from "them."

A civilized human society cannot afford to think in those tribal terms. That type of thinking leads to despair, and thence to wholly unjustifiable disasters such as Americans have just experienced. Most Americans who have lived or traveled in the Arab world can relate similar experiences: Arabs are entirely capable of differentiating between a people and the actions of its government, or the values of a people and the political agenda of a narrow minority of them. What confuses, and, yes, angers them is that we do not seem to return the favor.

Scant days after I returned from Suez to Cairo, President Clinton ordered US fighter-bombers to attack Iraq, ostensibly because Hussein had expelled UN weapons inspectors from his country. The "surgical strikes" of Operation Desert Fox, like previous and subsequent campaigns, maimed and killed defenseless Iraqi civilians. Meanwhile, virtually every news outlet in Egypt ran pictures of grinning US seamen painting "Happy Ramadan" on the missiles destined for Baghdad. Those pictures mocked the suffering of Muslims, just as they mocked my attempts at playing cultural ambassador.

To the Arab and Muslim world, Americans project an image of utter indifference to the Iraqi civilian casualties of sanctions and bombing -- people who were also "moms and dads, friends and neighbors," as President Bush said of the Americans we mourn today. During Desert Fox, there was no outrage at the callous black humor of the missile-painters, or the purposeful insult to Islam's holy month. Despite the obvious failure of bombing to achieve our stated objective (ridding Iraq of Hussein), and the harm done to innocents in the process, no mass anti-war movement spilled into our streets to force a change in US policy. Hardly anyone has suggested since that US officials should be held accountable for willful acts of terror, though terror is surely what Iraqis must feel when bombs rain from the sky.

Only days after Desert Fox, the Iraq story faded from the front pages entirely, and the nation returned to its obsession with the Monica Lewinsky scandal. What could that waiter in Suez have been thinking of my careful distinctions then?

He does not have "links" to Osama bin Laden. He is not a prospective suicide bomber, nor would he defend their indefensible actions. Today I have no doubt that he feels intense sympathy for "us."

After watching unjust US policies continue for years without apology, after hearing of incidents of racist anti-Arab backlash following the execrable crimes of Sept. 11, perhaps he also senses great tragedy in that the hijackers spoke to Americans in a language the US government speaks all too well abroad.

Chris Toensing is the editor of Middle East Report, published by the Middle East Research and Information Project, a Washington, DC-based think tank.

This article was written no more than 2 weeks after 9/11.

host · 03-08-2006, 11:32 PM

Do the following news reports influence any of the posters here who unquestioningly believe the Bush administration's declaration of a "War on Terror", against "evil doers" who

Quote:

....hate what we see right here in this chamber -- a democratically elected government. Their leaders are self-appointed. They hate our freedoms -- our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0010920-8.html

.....to consider the following questions:
If we really were in the middle of the fifth year of fighting Mr. Bush's "war on terror", in earnest, against a "real" enemy that actually was a formidable enough threat to justify the expense measured in American blood and treasure and the "bluster" that comes from the mouths of Bush, Cheney, et al, would I be able to ask the following questions and post the following observations.....would I, ....really??

I doubt it...but you don't...what would it take....for you to doubt it...to stop repeating the Foxnews and Bush/Cheney/Rove phrases, as you seem to...in unison.
No more talk of "they're evil".....or the "homicide bomber" "Foxism".

Is it not "odd" the the "number 1" named conspirator, Brent Wilkes, who bribed Randy Cunningham...paid him at least $636,000, is still walking around, unindicted? Odder still that Wilkes is the best friend of....until recently, an undercover CIA agent of 22 years, who is "number 3", at CIA? And even odder that the Union Tribune in San Diego just reported that

Quote:

......After Foggo joined the CIA in 1982, Wilkes often visited him on Foggo's overseas assignments. Even before the CIA removed Foggo's undercover status last year, Wilkes and Foggo boasted to acquaintances about Foggo's secretive work.........

Quote:

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/p...9-1n1duke.html
Cunningham defense assailed in court filing
By Onell R. Soto
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

March 1, 2006

.....“I convinced myself that I wasn't selling my good offices because I have always believed in the value of the programs that I supported.”

Prosecutors Sanjay Bhandari, Jason Forge and Phillip Halpern said the facts contradict Cunningham's position.

They said Cunningham rejected concerns and objections raised by government officials and “bullied and hectored” them over red flags they raised about the legitimacy of the programs.

“At every stage of the funding process Cunningham set aside the judgment of (Department of Defense) officials about what was in the best interests of our country, in favor of what was in the best interests of his co-conspirators,” they said.

“To fund one initiative usually means cutting funding for another. Thus Cunningham lobbied to take funds away from other programs to ensure more money for his co-conspirators.” ......

....Included in the prosecutors' documents are e-mails by members of Cunningham's Washington staff, testimony by Pentagon officials and a letter written on Cunningham's congressional stationery – and under Cunningham's signature – by Wade. <h3>Also included is a script Wilkes gave the legislator on how to talk a skeptical Pentagon official into moving funds into his company's programs</h3>.....

...In 2004, shortly after Cunningham bought his Rancho Santa Fe mansion with proceeds from the sale of the Del Mar-area house, he asked Wilkes for $525,000 to pay off one of the mortgages.

Wilkes agreed, but asked for a $6 million contract, which he got over the objections of a Pentagon contracting officer.

The off-the-shelf computer equipment provided in that contract cost Wilkes $1.5 million to purchase, prosecutors said, netting an exorbitant profit.

Is it "odd" that, if not for a newspaper reporter in San Diego, who "broke" the story that Randy Cunningham was taking massive bribes to sell his influence on Pentagon procurement decisions, to Wilkes and his protege, the now guilty Mitchell Wade, it would still be "business as usual"....Cunningham would still be in congress....pressuring the Pentagon to buy things that it didn't need to defend our country, in exchange for more cash from Wilkes and Wade.

Isn't it odd that the chairman Jerry Lewis of the congressional Defense Appropriations committee, even now avoids launching a formal inquiry into the damage to our defense....in wartime"... that Randy Cunningham actaully cost, or to find if other members of congress were also accepting bribes?

Isn't it odd that the White House <a href="http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/000058.php">refuses to disclose</a> just what it paid Mitchell Wade's company...with the <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/27/AR2005062701856.html">people's money</a>. for? Or....why Tom Delay or his pastor and former chief of staff, Ed Buckham, won't disclose what influence Brent Wilkes bought with the more than $500,000 that Wilkes paid to Buckham's ASG lobbying entity, which employed Delay's wife, Christine, to not perform a "no show" job.

Did congressman Bob Ney act "oddly", when he entered praise for Brent Wilkes in the congressional record, oddly reminiscent of a similar action that he performed on behalf of convicted lobbyists Abramoff and Michael Scanlon?

Isn't it odd that two scandals, "Abramoff" and "Cunningham" can involve so many government officials and so much money, with a commonality that much of the money enriched members iof the ruling politcal party and their election campaigns, but almost nobody here talks about them? Is it just easier to chat about a vague "war on terror" that does not change the behavior of those charged by the American people to manage it as quickly, efficiently, and as inexpensively, and...of course,
AS OPENLY as possible, with more serious enforcement of all laws, and with the stiffest possible penalties for those who break the law and weaken our security or are "war profiteers"? Isn't actually undermining the "war effort", a crime that deserves to be examined, discussed, and railed against, more vigoroulsy with the attention and vitriol directed against those who merely ask questions like the ones I am asking, or engage in peaceful protest and dissent as they lawfully conduct themselves as per past constitutionally guaranteed precedent?

Why, then the silence, the acceptance, the lack of curious comment, the lack of outrage, the blind, lockstep, recitation of conservative republican official talking points? Odder still, when we observe that the "support" for failure, duplicity, and by intentional negelect....open, unchallenged and uninvestigated corruption committed by key intelligence, defense, and congressional officials, duing wartime, and at the expense of all of us, even those who once called themselves "small government, "fiscal conservatives"!

Quote:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...dpage%E2%80%9C

CIA's Goss Names Undercover Officer To No. 3 Position

By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, November 5, 2004; Page A02

CIA Director Porter J. Goss has selected a 22-year undercover
logistics officer nicknamed "Dusty" as executive director, the
third-ranking position at the agency.

A public announcement of the choice is being delayed until his name
can be "cleared" and made public, a senior administration official
said yesterday. "He is undercover at this time but will become public
fairly soon," the official said. Because Dusty has had five overseas
tours in undercover roles, the agency must "roll back his name" to
ensure that those holding embassy positions he once occupied are no
longer agency personnel, a former CIA official said.

The executive director manages the day-to-day administrative
activities of the $5 billion agency, including personnel and
budgeting matters, while the director and deputy director focus on
intelligence and clandestine operations.

Described as a logistician, Dusty has served at home and abroad,
including work for the counterterrorism center, the directorate of
science and technology, and the administrative directorate, officials
said. Several retired and active agency officials noted that although
he had run offices overseas, Dusty had no experience managing an
operation as big as the CIA.

Three retired officials noted that Dusty had maintained a close
relationship in recent years with several Republican staff members of
the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence whom Goss, the
panel's former chairman, has brought to the agency as his top
assistants.

Dusty is also a critic of a controversial new pay-for-performance
compensation reform plan that was put together by A.B. "Buzzy"
Krongard, who served as executive director under former CIA director
George J. Tenet.........

Odd that Foggo's identity was in a classified status as recently as earlier this year, but Wilkes was able to "go visit him" during his overseas assignments? Wouldn't it be more likely that Wilkes would not even know where in the world Foggo was, if his identity and his missions were classified?

Indeed...as recently as three months ago, this news report describes the CIA website's description of Foggo's "status:

Quote:

http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cf...dcn=todaysnews
DAILY BRIEFING
December 4, 2005

.....Contracting probe could extend to CIA

One current and two retired senior CIA officials told Government Executive that (as noted last week by reporter Laura Rozen in The American Prospect's TAPPED blog) the relationship of Wilkes and Foggo--who the CIA's Web site declares is "under cover and cannot be named at this time," even though he is pictured and identified on a federal charity web page--has been a subject of increasing concern by some at Langley.

Quote:

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/p...-1n4foggo.html
No. 3 CIA official investigated on ties to Wilkes

By Dean Calbreath
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

March 4, 2006

The CIA said yesterday it is investigating the connection between the agency's No. 3 official and a co-conspirator in the bribery case of former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham.

The CIA's executive director, Kyle “Dusty” Foggo, is a lifelong friend of Poway defense contractor Brent Wilkes. Federal prosecutors say Wilkes is the unindicted co-conspirator who, according to court documents, gave Cunningham $630,000 in bribes in exchange for federal contracts.

....Keith Ashdown, who monitors government contracts at the nonpartisan Taxpayers for Common Sense, said the investigation is overdue.

“One guy controls acquisition budgets. The other guy abuses acquisition budgets,” Ashdown said. “It's as close to a perfect storm as you can get.”

Because the CIA is funded through the so-called “black budget” – which is shielded from public scrutiny – it is hard to know how much business Wilkes is doing with the agency.

But CIA employees, business associates of Wilkes and former employees of his flagship company, ADCS Inc., have told The San Diego Union-Tribune that Wilkes has several CIA contracts, ranging from providing CIA agents with bottled water and first-aid kits to performing unspecified work in Iraq.

Most of the work, the sources say, was handled by Archer Logistics, a Wilkes company that shares office space in Chantilly, Va., with Wilkes' two-person lobbying firm, Group W Advisors. .....

.....After Foggo joined the CIA in 1982, Wilkes often visited him on Foggo's overseas assignments. Even before the CIA removed Foggo's undercover status last year, Wilkes and Foggo boasted to acquaintances about Foggo's secretive work.

At ADCS corporate headquarters, Wilkes set aside an office next to his executive suite where Foggo could work when he leaves the CIA, according to several former ADCS employees and business associates.

Quote:

http://www.sdcitybeat.com/article.php?id=3834
BRINGING DOWN DUKE
Meet the man who ended Cunningham’s career

by Daniel Strumpf

Shivering on a dark street in Islamabad, Pakistan, Marcus Stern tells
his story via a satellite phone with a patchy connection. The
52-year-old journalist is the man of the moment here in San Diego,
despite being half a world away.

In truth, Stern’s moment came seven months ago, when his article
published in the Union-Tribune revealed that Mitchell Wade, a defense
contractor, had paid an inflated price for a Del Mar home belonging
to Congressman Randy “Duke” Cunningham. The story noted a
corresponding surge in multimillion-dollar government contracts won
by Wade’s company, MZM Inc., thanks in part to the House Defense
Appropriations subcommittee of which Cunningham was a member.

A bombshell from the outset, Stern’s story cast an unflattering
spotlight on Cunningham, a heretofore outspoken conservative
Republican politician with a chest full of war medals and eight terms
under his belt as the representative for California’s 50th
Congressional district.

But details of the crooked real-estate deal quickly emerged, as did
stories of proffered boats and shady campaign contributions that in
turn spawned a federal investigation, a flurry of subpoenas and raids
at the homes and offices of Cunningham and Wade........

Quote:

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/p...n29events.html
Timeline of events
Cunningham: 'I broke the law'
UNION-TRIBUNE

November 29, 2005

....June 12, 2005
Copley News Service and The San Diego Union-Tribune reveal that Mitchell Wade, a defense contractor with ties to Cunningham, took a $700,000 loss on the purchase of the congressman's Del Mar-area house while Cunningham, a member of the influential defense appropriations subcommittee, was supporting Wade's efforts to get tens of millions of dollars in contracts from the Pentagon.....

.......July 21, 2005
The U.S. Attorney's office sends notice to the San Diego County Recorder's office that it has filed a lawsuit stating it has an interest in Cunningham's Rancho Santa Fe property. The lawsuit, which was initially secret but later made public, contends Cunningham should forfeit his home to the government because it was purchased with illegally obtained money.

Aug. 5, 2005
CNS and the Union-Tribune report that Cunningham – along with other high-profile passengers, including then-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay – has taken jet flights provided by Group W Transportation, owned by Poway defense contractor Brent Wilkes.

Aug. 16, 2005
Agents from the FBI, Internal Revenue Service and Department of Defense seize documents from the Poway headquarters of ADCS Inc. and the home of Wilkes, the company's president..........

Quote:

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/p...n30bribes.html
Randy 'Duke' Cunningham
Timeline of bribes

UNION-TRIBUNE

November 30, 2005

Quote:

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/p...-1n29duke.html

Randy 'Duke' Cunningham
Rep. Cunningham resigns; took $2.4 million in bribes

By Onell R. Soto
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

November 29, 2005

....Cunningham admitted in a plea agreement that he "made recommendations and took other official action" to benefit two government contractors because of the payments and not because it was "in the best interest of the country."

Contractor Wade's company, MZM Inc., received $163 million in federal work, primarily for Pentagon programs, from 2002 to 2005. It had not done government business before.

Wade has since sold the company.

Authorities investigated Cunningham's relationship with Wade and two other businessmen, Brent Wilkes, founder of Poway-based ADCS Inc., and Thomas Kontogiannis, a Long Island developer.

The investigation has included testimony from numerous witnesses before a San Diego federal grand jury, subpoenaed documents, and raids on the congressman's home and offices and the offices and homes of the businessmen.

The government contractors – who have not been charged – are identified in the court documents filed yesterday as "Co-conspirator No. 1 and Co-conspirator No. 2."

Justice Department officials confirmed yesterday that Wilkes is Co-conspirator No. 1 and Wade is Co-conspirator No. 2.

The officials also confirmed that Kontogiannis and John T. Michael are the other two uncharged co-conspirators identified in the documents.

Kontogiannis controlled a financial company in Long Island, N.Y., and his wife's nephew, Michael, is president of a mortgage company there.

Wade paid more than $1.1 million in bribes, Wilkes $636,000 and Kontogiannis $328,000, according to the plea agreement and Justice Department officials.

In May 2004, several months after Cunningham bought the Rancho Santa Fe home for $2.5 million, Wilkes paid Kontogiannis $525,000 to be used to pay off the second mortgage on the home, according to the documents.

Kontogiannis said in an interview in July that he paid off the mortgage primarily as payment for his purchase of the Kelly C, a 65-foot yacht he said he bought from Cunningham for $627,000.

Prosecutors say Cunningham never sold the boat, but Kontogiannis made $58,674 in mortgage payments on it over 2½ years.

The Coast Guard has no record of a sale.

In August 2004, according to the documents, Wade paid $500,000 to Kontogiannis to pay off the Rancho Santa Fe home's first mortgage. Kontogiannis made $28,237 in mortgage payments to Washington Mutual until this June, when news of the questionable Del Mar Heights house deal broke.

This summer, Cunningham's wife filed a court declaration saying the couple were paying a $3,250 monthly mortgage on the home.

Wilkes paid $11,116 over five months, ending in April 2001, in mortgage payments for the Kelly C, according to the documents. Cunningham bought the boat in 1997 and lived aboard it, docked in a Washington, D.C, marina a few blocks from the Capitol.

In August 2002, after buying an Arlington condominium with Kontogiannis paying the $200,000 down payment, Cunningham moved the Kelly C out of Washington, according to the plea agreement.

The agreement doesn't say what Kontogiannis received in return for his financial dealings with Cunningham.

However, in 2002, Kontogiannis pleaded guilty to being part of a $6.3 million bid-rigging scheme in New York schools and asked Cunningham for advice in how to get a presidential pardon. Kontogiannis never followed through on trying to get the pardon.

Before Kontogiannis pleaded guilty, Cunningham wrote a letter to a New York prosecutor saying the prosecution was politically motivated, according to The Washington Post and The Associated Press.

In 2002, Wade bought a 45-foot boat for $140,000, renamed it the Duke-Stir, and docked it in the same slip once occupied by the Kelly C for Cunningham to live in.

Cunningham claimed he paid docking fees and maintenance in lieu of rent for his use of the Duke-Stir, but those benefits were included in the bribery charges he admitted to yesterday.

When announcing in July that he wouldn't run for re-election, Cunningham publicly declared his innocence.

Yesterday, he said, "I was not strong enough to face the truth" about his earlier denials. "So, I misled my family, staff, friends, colleagues, the public – even myself. For all of this, I am deeply sorry."

Copley News Service writers Joe Cantlupe and Dana Wilkie contributed to this report.

Quote:

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/p...-1n29duke.html

March 3, 2006 — A stunning investigation of bribery and corruption in Congress has spread to the CIA, ABC News has learned.

The CIA inspector general has opened an investigation into the spy agency's executive director, Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, and his connections to two defense contractors accused of bribing a member of Congress and Pentagon officials.

The CIA released an official statement on the matter to ABC News, saying: "It is standard practice for CIA's Office of Inspector General — an aggressive, independent watchdog — to look into assertions that mention agency officers. That should in no way be seen as lending credibility to any allegation.

"Mr. Foggo has overseen many contracts in his decades of public service. He reaffirms that they were properly awarded and administered."

The CIA said Foggo, the No. 3 official at the CIA, would have no further comment. He will remain in his post at the CIA during the investigation, according to officials.

Two former CIA officials told ABC News that Foggo oversaw contracts involving at least one of the companies accused of paying bribes to Congressman Randall "Duke" Cunningham. The story was first reported by Newsweek magazine.....

Quote:

http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?...rticleId=10816
“Duke” of Deception
From our February issue: The overlooked security implications of the Cunningham scandal.

By Laura Rozen
Web Exclusive: 01.13.06

Prosecutors have further targets in their crosshairs beyond Cunningham.........

....What the Time report suggests was that Cunningham might not be the biggest fish in this case after all.

The Cunningham case has revealed several lawmakers worthy of investigative scrutiny. Two men described but not named as co-conspirators in the original indictment -- Brent Wilkes, the chairman of San Diego-based defense contractor ADCS Inc., and Mitchell J. Wade, the founder and until recently chairman and president of defense and intelligence contractor MZM Inc. -- donated “more than a million dollars in the last ten years to a roster of politicians,”.............

.........Among the pols of potential interest to investigators is Representative Tom DeLay, whose Texans for a Republican Majority fund-raising committee received a $15,000 donation in September 2002 from Perfect Wave Technologies, a subsidiary of Wilkes’ corporate umbrella, the Wilkes Corporation. Through another Wilkes’ subsidiary, Perfect Wave also hired a lobbying firm, Alexander Strategy Group, set up by DeLay’s former Chief of Staff Ed Buckham, and which employed DeLay’s wife Christine, to lobby successfully for Perfect Wave to receive a Navy contract........

....Popping up again on the radar as well is Congressman Bob Ney, the Ohio Republican who, like DeLay, is simultaneously under investigation in the rapidly expanding Indian gaming case that has led to guilty pleas by lobbyist Jack Abramoff and PR Executive Michael Scanlon. On October 1, 2002, Ney inexplicably entered praise of a San Diego-based charity headed by Wilkes, the Tribute to Heroes Foundation, into the Congressional Record -- the same kind of service Ney performed for his benefactor Abramoff on more than one occasion.

Extensive reporting published by the San Diego Union-Tribune indicates that several other Republicans in southern California’s congressional delegation may have drawn the attention of investigators in the Cunningham case. Among them are Representative Duncan Hunter, identified by a Defense Department Inspector General report -- along with Cunningham -- as actively intervening with the Pentagon to try to award a contract to a document-conversion company that had given him tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions for a program the Pentagon did not request or consider a priority; Representative Jerry Lewis, chairman of the powerful House Appropriations Committee, on which Cunningham sat; and former Congressman-turned-lobbyist Bill Lowery.....

Quote:

http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?...rticleId=10816

......There’s little doubt that Cunningham, who sat on the defense appropriations subcommittee, possessed sufficient influence to steer defense contracts to those from whom he has admitted taking bribes. In repeated interviews with The American Prospect, however, the press spokesman for the Appropriations Committee has indicated that Lewis has decided to only “informally” investigate those “programmatic recommendations” made by Cunningham in the past -- although Cunningham himself has admitted corrupting the program process. “There is an informal review going on,” committee Spokesman John Scofield explained in December. “It’s not something we had made a big announcement on.”.....

Damn "that host"...he doesn't believe our prezinent !!
What's wrong with that boy? Dosen't he know that we're a "nation at war"?
Nope....I look at congressman Jerry Lewis's reaction to Cunningham's unlawful armtwisting of Pentagon procurers, and I have to conclude...no official probe by Jerry, no real committment to a "war". Foggo's still at CIA, Wilkes is walking the streets, unindicted. Must be a phoney war, or...... many officials are traitors....one or the other.....

tecoyah · 03-09-2006, 03:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ustwo

Well I'd be interesting and hearing what you think should be done then.

I honestly wish I knew. Unfortunately my understanding of the depths of this issue is limited by time, and lack of motivation to deal with something that has been with us for centuries, as an immediate threat. My belief is simple:

Regardless of tactic, we will not end terrorism because we decide to kill terrorists.

The current "War" on terrorism is ,in my opinion, misguided and more a political tool than a serious attempt to address the core issues.

By occupying a country for undefined reasons (in the eyes of the terrorists), we have only made matters worse, and unfortunately justified (again in the eyes of terrorists) the reasons for the underlying hatred that leads to these actions.

I dont pretend to know the path to peace in this situation, but I do feel the direction we are going is counter productive if the desired result is less death and fear.

Charlatan · 03-09-2006, 06:10 AM

I had a wonderful and complex response written out and then I hit post while my wireless was off line... lost it all. Now I'm grumpy.

The gist of it was this. There will always be terrorism (one could argue that there always has been some form or another of it). This "war on terror" is just another piece of trumped up bullshit like "the war on drugs."

The people who are profitting from this are the people in the arms trade and logistics.

The occasional death in the West by terrorism from the Middle East is the price of doing business the way we do business in that region.

Given that reality the only way to mitigate against further attacks (because they are going to happen anyway) is to police and educate (i.e. diplomacy).

In other words, the realy solution is to wean our nations off oil. Stop the need for Middle Eastern oil and you stop the need to be in the region. End of confict. As this is *not* likely to happen... get used to terrorism and war.

macmanmike6100 · 03-09-2006, 06:15 AM

Quote:

Now, I observe the response to an OP on this thread that offers no information, yet it prompts discussion. I've wondered what it will take to get it through my head that the "theme" on this forum seems much more aligned to the theme of the entire site. The priority seems to be to promote and engage in "chit chat". "Informed" and "discussion" don't seem to require any linkage, and this thread is a "poster child" as an example of why I don't feel like I fit in here, and maybe an indicator of why the country is led by such mediocre and abysmal folks.

First of all, perhaps the reason why this thread is a little more successful than your own is because I'm looking specifically for open discourse and would, at least, keep my thoughts on it specifically out for the moment. Regardless, I think it's a wonderful sign that just a short thought could spark so much debate.

Regarding the actual content of the thread, I think we see two sides pretty clearly: work with the world to achieve our goals or do so with strong military efforts.

I think that the seeming point of the war -- at least among those who wanted to go in the first place -- was to bring less death, less fear, and eliminate a specific threat. As we're all aware, terrorism is not a 'specific threat' (it's a methodology, an intelligent poster pointed out, rather than a clearly-delineated national body). Because of that, we've spent billions for troops, munitions, and equipment without an exit strategy.

What can Bush's administration do, I think? Not necessary to pull out of Iraq (although I'd prefer it to free up money for things like, I don't know, *education*) but most definitely necessary to get to Clinton-year diplomatic relation quality levels. Follow the money and stop it at the source.

Very broad, I know, so let's keep working on this (I kind of laughed a little, because it sounds as if this is our job). In any case, thanks for your comments

blade02 · 03-09-2006, 06:40 AM

First we have to get our damn media out of our military's business. Terrorists don't need spy networks, they just need cable tv. But everyone's so trigger happy to be the first to expose some great evil that the US is doing, no one stops to think that they might be hurting our cause over there. The fact of the matter is that war is a nasty terrible thing, and until the last 40 years or so the general public was sheltered from all of the bad things that go on. Now everyone is almost to the point of saturation with war time coverage.

Secondly, I think we need to model our efforts after the Isrealis. If anyone knows how to survive over there its them. If they can fight off the rest of the middle east by themselves, then think of what we could do. Of course they are reminded about every month or so why they are fighting because its their neighbors that are getting blown up on busses and in the mall and coffee shops. While America is patriotic only when its convenient.

stevo · 03-09-2006, 06:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by willravel

I agree that it's not enough to learn why people do the bad things they do. You need to figure out what it would take to make them stop.

Will, something was uncovered last year that I'm guessing you didn't read. An excerpt goes something like this:

Quote:

Unbelief is still the same. It pushed Abou Jahl- may Allah curse him-and Kureish's valiant infidels to battle the prophet - God bless and keep him - and to torture his companions - may Allah's grace be on them. It is the same unbelief that drove Sadat, Hosni Mubarak, Gadhafi, Hafez Assad, Saleh, Fahed -Allah's curse be upon the non-believing leaders - and all the apostate Arab rulers to torture, kill, imprison, and torment Moslems.

These young men realized that an Islamic government would never be established except by the bomb and rifle. Islam does not coincide or make a truce with unbelief, but rather confronts it. The confrontation that Islam calls for with these godless and apostate regimes, does not know Socratic debates, Platonic ideals nor Aristotelian diplomacy. But it knows the dialogue of bullets, the ideals of assassination, bombing, and destruction, and the diplomacy of the cannon and machine-gun.

The young came to prepare themselves for Jihad [holy war], commanded by the majestic Allah's order in the holy Koran. [Koranic verse:] "Against them make ready your strength to the utmost of your power, including steeds of war, to strike terror into (the hearts of) the enemies of Allah and your enemies, and others besides whom ye may not know, but whom Allah doth know."

I present this humble effort to these young Moslem men who are pure, believing, and fighting for the cause of Allah. It is my contribution toward paving the road that leads to majestic Allah and establishes a caliphate according to the prophecy.

http://cryptome.org/alq-terr-man.htm

And these are the people the left wants to reason with. These are the people we need diplomatic talks with. People that don't believe in diplomacy, but : "The confrontation that Islam calls for with these godless and apostate regimes, does not know Socratic debates, Platonic ideals nor Aristotelian diplomacy. But it knows the dialogue of bullets, the ideals of assassination, bombing, and destruction, and the diplomacy of the cannon and machine-gun." - I'm not making this shit up.

They have told us clearly why they do what they do. We are UNBELIEVERS so we are INFIDELS and we deserve to die. They want to create their islamic state, regain the glory of the caliphate. They have told us this, yet there are still people in this country that think terrorism stems from poverty and descrimination. IF that was true, then al-qaeda's stated goal would be to end poverty and descrimination of muslims world-wide, not to kill all the infidels and create an islamic empire. Until everyone can come to realize this is their stated goal and agenda - the REASON they fight us, the cause of their Jihad, then we will always have a divide in this country.

BigBen · 03-09-2006, 07:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by willravel

... As far as foriegn relations....well how are we doing in that department? On a scale of 1-10, 10 being Canada, and 1 being Nazi Germany, where do we fall? ...

That is so sweet. Thanks Will. That is the nicest thing anyone has said about Canada in a long time.

*sniffle*

I owe you one, man.

Charlatan · 03-09-2006, 07:24 AM

Actually Stevo... those aren't the people I am talking about when I say we need diplomacy.

I am talking about strengthening ties to the millions of moderate Muslims. I am talking about reaching out to the people who are being taught by these ignorant Immams that spread the hate.

Part of the reason why they have some much power in the first place is that the nations like Iran (prior to the revolution) and Saudia Arabia have been propped up by the Western powers. Free Speech and freedome of assciation have been squashed out of existance, except in the Mosques.

Moderate voices in Iran were silenced in the face of their inability to combat the US led coup of Mossadegh. They were seen as ineffective. At the same time any public debate was squashed.

When the revolution came about in Iran it could be traced back to the coup of Mossadegh and the support of the increasingly tyrannical Shah.

In Saudia Arabia there have been a few attempts at democratic reform (reform in general) but those were squashed by the House of Saud who let's the more fundamentalist Immam's get away with what they want in order to maintain an unsteady hold on power.

Neither of these situations would exist without the west's support. Why the support? Oil.

I am not blaming it all on the West. I am saying that our need of oil and love of oil profits has lead us to continue to want remain in the Middle East. Because of its strategic importance to, well, everything in the West, we have often taken a heavy handed approach and bungled relations. We have aided in the creation of conditions that gave birth to the very terrorists that we now fight.

As I said above. Get used to it. We will never rid ourselves of terrorists. It is the price of doing business the way we continue to do business in that part of the world.

Going to war with it exacerbates the situation. Better to accept that it is going to happen. Police and defend against the inevitable (much like we do with crime) and work better our associations with the people on the ground so that we lessen the conditions that bring about "terrorists" in the first place (most importantly the people the Immam's recruit).

stevo · 03-09-2006, 07:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Charlatan

I am talking about strengthening ties to the millions of moderate Muslims. I am talking about reaching out to the people who are being taught by these ignorant Immams that spread the hate.

I agree that we need to strengthen ties to the millions of moderate Muslims. But where we disagree is how that is done. You can't have diplomatic talks with syria or iran, asking them to allow free speach and free expression. When they say no, how do you reach the oridnary muslim? I think by doing what we are doing in iraq, we are strenghtening the ties to moderate muslims. Don't take the media's word for it, take the moderate muslims in the regions word for it. By completing the job in iraq we are giving the iraqis the freedom they wouldn't have received through diplomatic talks with saddam. Once they have that freedom they are able to decide for themselves if they want to die for the Immams' cause or live a free life with the opportunity to do what they couldn't do before. They can get on the internet, not like the chinese can, but like westerners can, unrestricted, access to all sorts of information. Thats the gift we give the iraqis, the frredoms that would not have been given to them through talks with saddam.

Ustwo · 03-09-2006, 08:05 AM

Who are these moderate musilms?

I missed their last protest over terrorist acts.

stevo · 03-09-2006, 08:14 AM

There are iraqis that tell coalition troops where roadside bombs are, where the insurgents are hiding. There are iraqis that don't want any more war and only want to get on with their lives. While they aren't vocal against the islamofacists, I don't feel threatened by them. I would consider them to be moderate...

Willravel · 03-09-2006, 08:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stevo

Will, something was uncovered last year that I'm guessing you didn't read. An excerpt goes something like this: http://cryptome.org/alq-terr-man.htm

And these are the people the left wants to reason with. These are the people we need diplomatic talks with. People that don't believe in diplomacy, but : "The confrontation that Islam calls for with these godless and apostate regimes, does not know Socratic debates, Platonic ideals nor Aristotelian diplomacy. But it knows the dialogue of bullets, the ideals of assassination, bombing, and destruction, and the diplomacy of the cannon and machine-gun." - I'm not making this shit up.

They have told us clearly why they do what they do. We are UNBELIEVERS so we are INFIDELS and we deserve to die. They want to create their islamic state, regain the glory of the caliphate. They have told us this, yet there are still people in this country that think terrorism stems from poverty and descrimination. IF that was true, then al-qaeda's stated goal would be to end poverty and descrimination of muslims world-wide, not to kill all the infidels and create an islamic empire. Until everyone can come to realize this is their stated goal and agenda - the REASON they fight us, the cause of their Jihad, then we will always have a divide in this country.

Stevo, my best response to this is to ask you to sit down and speak with a muslim about tha above quote: "The confrontation that Islam calls for with these godless and apostate regimes, does not know Socratic debates, Platonic ideals nor Aristotelian diplomacy. But it knows the dialogue of bullets, the ideals of assassination, bombing, and destruction, and the diplomacy of the cannon and machine-gun." The reality, as I understand it, is that there are almost no militant muslims in the world. I've read the Qu'ran several times, and the book preaches respect of other religions ESPICALLY Judism and Christianity (people of the book). Even the most right wing muslims know this to be true. The onyl people who fit into the "we're going to kil the infadels" catagory are maybe a few thousand muslims out of millions and millions. You know what? Other muslims hate them for it. Can you imagine if some Christian started a war because God told him to? Oh, wait, our president did. Hey, how do you think that makes us look to them? Maybe the same way they look to us!

Also, no one wants a muslim empire. They want a theocratic monarchy at most. The only thing they want is for us to leave. No military presence. No xommercial presence. No industrial presence. It's that simple.

Willravel · 03-09-2006, 08:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ustwo

Who are these moderate musilms?

I missed their last protest over terrorist acts.

http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/20...n-bahrain.html
http://www.vichaar.org/2004/08/06/in...nst-terrorism/
http://gopvixen.blogs.com/gop_vixen/...s_protest.html
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20051...0234-2315r.htm
http://www.hyscience.com/archives/20...ms_march_t.php

Very, very few Muslims support the terrorist actions of radical fundamentalists.

roachboy · 03-09-2006, 09:16 AM

thanks for raising the level of this thread a bit, folks.

ambient condition no. 1 that explains something of the drift in this thread.

Quote:

Negative Perception Of Islam Increasing
Poll Numbers in U.S. Higher Than in 2001

By Claudia Deane and Darryl Fears
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, March 9, 2006; A01

As the war in Iraq grinds into its fourth year, a growing proportion of Americans are expressing unfavorable views of Islam, and a majority now say that Muslims are disproportionately prone to violence, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

The poll found that nearly half of Americans -- 46 percent -- have a negative view of Islam, seven percentage points higher than in the tense months after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, when Muslims were often targeted for violence.

The survey comes at a time of increasing tension; the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq show little sign of ending, and members of Congress are seeking to block the Bush administration's attempt to hire an Arab company to manage operations at six of the nation's ports. Also, Americans are reading news of deadly protests by Muslims over Danish cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad.

Conservative and liberal experts said Americans' attitudes about Islam are fueled in part by political statements and media reports that focus almost solely on the actions of Muslim extremists.

According to the poll, the proportion of Americans who believe that Islam helps to stoke violence against non-Muslims has more than doubled since the attacks, from 14 percent in January 2002 to 33 percent today.

The survey also found that one in three Americans have heard prejudiced comments about Muslims lately. In a separate question, slightly more (43 percent) reported having heard negative remarks about Arabs. One in four Americans admitted to harboring prejudice toward Muslims, the same proportion that expressed some personal bias against Arabs.

Though the two groups are often linked in popular discourse, most of the world's Muslims are not of Arab descent. For example, the country with the largest Muslim population is Indonesia.

As a school bus driver in Chicago, Gary McCord, 65, dealt with many children of Arab descent. "Some of the best families I've ever had were some of my Muslim families," he said in a follow-up interview. "They were so nice to me." He now works for a Palestinian Christian family, whose members he says are "really marvelous."

But his good feelings do not extend to Islam. "I don't mean to sound harsh or anything, but I don't like what the Muslim people believe in, according to the Koran. Because I think they preach hate," he said.

As for the controversial cartoons of Muhammad, he said Arabs seem hypersensitive about religion. "I think it's been blown out of proportion," he said.

Frederick Cole, a welder in Roosevelt, Utah, acknowledged: "As far as being prejudiced against them, I'd have to say maybe a little bit. If I were to go through an airport and I saw one out of the corner of my eye, I'd say, 'I wonder what he's thinking.' " Still, Cole, 30, said, "I don't think the religion is based on just wanting to terrorize people."

A total of 1,000 randomly selected Americans were interviewed March 2-5 for this Post-ABC News poll. The margin of sampling error for the overall results is plus or minus three percentage points.

Americans who said they understood Islam were more likely to see the religion overall as peaceful and respectful. But they were no less likely to say it harbors harmful extremists, and they were also no less likely to have prejudiced feelings against Muslims.

In Gadsden, Ala., Ron Hardy, an auto parts supplier, said Arabs own a lot of stores in his area and "they're okay." But, Hardy, 41, said "I do think" Islam has been "hijacked by some militant-like guys."

Edward Rios, 31, an engineer in McHenry, Ill., said he feels that Islam "is as good a religion as any other" yet vengeance seems to be "built into their own set of beliefs: If someone attacks our people, it is your duty to defend them. . . . I don't think Christianity has anything like that."

James J. Zogby, president of the Washington-based Arab American Institute, said he is not surprised by the poll's results. Politicians, authors and media commentators have demonized the Arab world since 2001, he said.

"The intensity has not abated and remains a vein that's very near the surface, ready to be tapped at any moment," Zogby said. "Members of Congress have been exploiting this over the ports issue. Radio commentators have been talking about it nonstop."

Juan Cole, a professor of modern Middle Eastern and South Asian history at the University of Michigan, agreed, saying Americans "have been given the message to respond this way by the American political elite, mass media and by select special interests."

Cole said he was shocked when a radio talk show host asked him if Islamic extremists would set off a nuclear bomb in the United States in the next six months. "It was ridiculous. I think anti-Arab racism and profiling has become respectable," he said.

Ronald Stockton, a professor of political science at the University of Michigan at Dearborn who helped conduct a study of Arabs in the Detroit area and on views of them held by non-Arabs, said an exceptionally high percentage of non-Muslims feels the media depicts Arabs unfairly, yet still holds negative opinions.

"You're getting a constant drumbeat of negative information about Islam," he said.

Michael Franc, vice president of government relations for the conservative Heritage Foundation, said that the survey responses "seems to me to be a real backlash against Islam" and that congressional leaders do not help the problem by sometimes using language that links all Muslims with extremists.

Polling director Richard Morin contributed to this reporT.

source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...802221_pf.html

the driver of this is obvious:
it is a direct function of how the entire "war on terror" has been framed since 2001. it follows from a choice, based on political expediency, made by the bush administration, concerning how best to market itself by marketing a new, vague "war."
the primary function of this "war" is, in the long run, to replace the cold war in providing an ongoing legitimation for reagan style military keynesian economic policies.

which makes of it an instrument in conventional domestic politics--an issue across which resources are diverted by a political party to the social faction that supports it most consistently.

the price of the focus on this vague, worthless category "terrorist" in this context=the structuration of a type of socially legitimate racism.

that the cateogry "terrorist" is a vague composite image of arabs=self-evident.

calls for the transformation of the united states into a state terrorist apparatus, the intermal political regime of which would be dictatorship, rationalized in the name of an absurd "war on terror"=displaced racism.

dictatorship=a political regime that is not bound by law. what folk from teh right above are calling for, whether they see it or not, is the reduction of the united states to a huge terrorist organization militarily. the discourse of "national will" that mojo in particular seems fond of is a rationalization for an (illegal) clampdown on domestic dissent.
the expediencies introduced by this administration--you know, illegal wiretaops and all that=fine with these same folk because they see legal parameters as an obstacle to efective state action. thsi kind ofshit comes directly out of carl schmitt. it si central to his notion of the state of exception, which, for him, requires dictatorship. teh argument, in this end, from schitt=efficiency of dictatorship. you should read some of his work. it is unnerving, particularly if you know the history of its usage as a legal rationale for fascism in germany.

the category "terrorist" is such that there is nothing to be done about it.
the category "terrorist" is about mobilization of political support in the united states for an otherwise wholly bankrupt ideology, and a wholly incompetent administration.
period.
another way: if you think about the world across the cateogry "terrorist" you are looking the wrong way around: this category is only useful if you are trying to explain a modality of political mobilization within the united states. the analytic question opened up via the category "terrorist" is the producton of consent in the united states.

as for conditions that obtain in the world: the cateogry "terrorist" strips any possible meaningful context away from a given action.
it unifies phenomena that have no reason to be unified.
corrolate:
most actions have been carried out by small, unrelated groups.
in some cases, you have continuity of organization--in many you dont.
it follows then that consistency of agency is the exception, not the rule. or is it? this is undecidable, isn't it? how do you fashion a coherent strategy if the most basic aspect of the object against which this strategy is to be directed contains this kind of undecidability at its core?

so even at the most rudimentary strategic level, the cateogry is an obstacle to thinking--not to speak of action.

another way: the category "terrorism" is an editorial position taken as to the content of the actions, not their origin---you cannot easily move from thinking about content to thinking about sources.

another explanation for the cateogry: it reflects the ideology of a vertically organized nation-state style military apparatus, which finds itself in a nearly intractable bind if it is called on to react to an enemy that is not organizationally the mirror image of itself. the strongest strategic element these small groups of militants have going for them is this organizational assymetry.
because nearly all military strategic thinking is predicated on conflict between nation-states....responses that attempt to blur the kind of problem posed by small horizontally organized groups into vertically organized nation-state style organizations results in situations of the blind application of force coupled with a total lack of feedback loops. so information concerning what the military is doing that would be available to the military itself as a mean to modulate its actions---this at the most basic level----would be problematic at best.
conflict would pit a vertically organized military apparatus against an enemy it cannot find.
in this context, recourse to torture is the worst possible move because it generates information shaped by the desires of the questioner--that is, fit to the system requirement that a "real' nation-state style military apparatus lurk somewhere behind the "fiction" of small horizontally organized units.
the outcome of this--moving in a striaght line logically and demonstrated repeatedly since 9/11/2001, is a variant of hysteria---the most likely outcome=death and destruction on a huge scale that would be totally ineffective in terms of stopping "terrorism"--

it is in fact worse than this: the very brutality and incoherence of this type of state terrorist action would function as a great recruiting tool for these organizations--while being worthless (except by chance) in terms of accomplishing a goal of fighting them.

conservative "resoluteness" in a context shaped by this type of ideological incoherence results in the support for state terrorism. period. because incoherent conflict motivated by fear of a phantom enemy that is everywhere and nowhere--particularly when supported by racism---results in nothing coherent, only endless violence.

but conservatives in the states--for whom nothing is materially at stake in all this--feel better.
so the category "terrorist" serves a therapeutic function.
nothing else.

caveat at the end of a long post: i am not saying that the u.s.does not have enemies nor am i necessarily saying that these enemies should not be fought--what i am saying is that nothing--and i mean nothing--coherent can or will happen so long as this idiotic notion of "terrorist" operates at any level in thinking about either these adveraries or conflicts. the thread itself demonstrates this: at each point where a coherent debate/conversation happened above acorss positions, it required a de facto abandonment of the category. that posters reverted to it in the end speaks to the therapeutic function of the category itself--they prefer to feel as though something is being done in the present context. i too think something is being done in this context--a fiasco is unfolding that will make the u.s. less safe---politically less credible----militiarily less imposing--because the outcomes of incoherence ideolgically, militarily play out as theater for the rest of the world. incoherent violence becomes what "we" are.

host · 03-09-2006, 10:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stevo

Will, something was uncovered last year that I'm guessing you didn't read. An excerpt goes something like this: http://cryptome.org/alq-terr-man.htm

stevo, four hours before you made the mistake of representing discredited material, exposed in April, 2005 in the "Ricin Terrorist Trial" in the UK as a 2001 US DOJ propaganda "OP", most likely compiled and distributed in the '80's by a US intelligence agency for the benefit of "our side" in the war against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan....

Here is the thread link, and an excerpt.....
(Written in response to Mojo_PeiPei "pulling" the same "material" out of his "hat"....or from....???)
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthr...62#post2022762

Sorry to bring news that your "smokinggun" was discredited last year in the UK "ricin terrorists" trial. I wrote about it in a <a href="http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthread.php?p=1751493&highlight=ricin#post1751493">TFP thread</a> that you posted to, but you apparently didn't read the news articles that I linked to... in April, 2005, when it happened...it was well reported in the UK and in the US. The "manual" that you cite, was exposed as a US DOJ misinformation "OP". It was apparently actually compiled in the '80's, possibly by one of our own intelligence agencies....

Quote:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/alqaida/st...585130,00.html
The ricin ring that never was

Yesterday's trial collapse has exposed the deception behind attempts to link al-Qaida to a 'poison attack' on London

Duncan Campbell
Thursday April 14, 2005

......The most ironic twist was an attempt to introduce an "al-Qaida manual" into the case. The manual - called the Manual of the Afghan Jihad - had been found on a raid in Manchester in 2000. It was given to the FBI to produce in the 2001 New York trial for the first attack on the World Trade Centre. But it wasn't an al-Qaida manual. The name was invented by the US department of justice in 2001, and the contents were rushed on to the net to aid a presentation to the Senate by the then attorney general, John Ashcroft, supporting the US Patriot Act.

To show that the Jihad manual was written in the 1980s and the period of the US-supported war against the Soviet occupation was easy. The ricin recipe it contained was a direct translation from a 1988 US book called the Poisoner's Handbook, by Maxwell Hutchkinson.......

.....The most ironic twist was an attempt to introduce an "al-Qaida manual" into the case. The manual - called the Manual of the Afghan Jihad - had been found on a raid in Manchester in 2000. It was given to the FBI to produce in the 2001 New York trial for the first attack on the World Trade Centre. But it wasn't an al-Qaida manual. The name was invented by the US department of justice in 2001, and the contents were rushed on to the net to aid a presentation to the Senate by the then attorney general, John Ashcroft, supporting the US Patriot Act.

To show that the Jihad manual was written in the 1980s and the period of the US-supported war against the Soviet occupation was easy. The ricin recipe it contained was a direct translation from a 1988 US book called the Poisoner's Handbook, by Maxwell Hutchkinson.

Later in April 2005, the British Government forced the Guardian UK to remove the above article from it's website:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/04...s_ricin_piece/ and it was later restored.........

Mojo_PeiPei · 03-09-2006, 11:04 AM

So what exactly is the article saying Host? That the guide doesn't exist, or it is merely from an earlier time?

host · 03-09-2006, 11:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mojo_PeiPei

So what exactly is the article saying Host? That the guide doesn't exist, or it is merely from an earlier time?

Here's the rest...Mojo_ please also read my response to you on
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthr...62#post2022762

Quote:

http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/nsn/nsn-050411.htm
April 11, 2005

SPECIAL National Security Notes
UK TERROR TRIAL FINDS NO TERROR: Not guilty of conspiracy to poison London with ricin

by George Smith, Ph.D., Senior Fellow, GlobalSecurity.Org

America "invents" the ricin recipe and prosecution claims fail to persuade

...In a mini-trial within the trial, the prosecution's claims became unconvincing for a number of reasons. The "Manual of Afghan Jihad" was obtained in Manchester in April 2000 by British anti-terrorism agents and subsequently turned over to the FBI's Nanette Schumaker later that month and contains sections on poisons. Its ricin recipe is clearly taken from Hutchkinson and Saxon and although it is of similar nature to the recipe in the Bourgas trial, it is not identical.

In the manner of details, the "Manual of Afghan Jihad" calls for the use of lye in the treatment of castor seeds. The use of lye was subsequently dropped for many methods found in terrorist literature and it also does not appear in the Bourgas recipe. Other portions of the "Jihad" recipe straighforwardly descend from Hutchkinson, including the reference to DMSO. And still other fine details separate it from the Bourgas formulation.

A further knock on the "Manual of Afghan Jihad" as an al Qaida source comes from its apparent origin in the first jihad against the Communist occupation of Afghanistan, prior to al Qaida. The "Manual of Afghan Jihad" was the property of Nazib al Raghie, also known as Anas Al Liby to the US government. At the time the manual was taken off al Raghie in Britain, UK authorities were not interested in him. Neither, apparently, was the FBI and he was not arrested. These days, al Raghie, as Al Liby, is on the FBI's list of most wanted terrorists.

The "Manual of Afghan Jihad's" ricin recipe was fairly obviously not the same as the one presented as evidence in the trial and a representative of the defense added that its appellation as an "al Qaida manual" was and is an invention of the United States government. More to the point, it was the work of the Department of Justice because nowhere in the manual is the word "al Qaida" mentioned although one could find it entitled as such on the DoJ website copy.....

...and...George Smith got a "plug" for his work on the trial....from the Post...

Quote:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2005Apr13.html
London Ricin Finding Called a False Positive

By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, April 14, 2005; Page A22

The claim that traces of the deadly poison ricin had been found in the London apartment of alleged al Qaeda operatives, first broadcast around the world in early January 2003, has been proved wrong, a senior British official said yesterday.......

.......Evidence introduced during the trial included a document from a senior scientist at Porton Down, the British government's biochemical research facility, saying tests showed that "the material from the pestle and mortar did not detect the presence of ricin," according to ,George Smith, a scientist and senior fellow at GlobalSecurity.org, who served as an expert for some defendants in the trial..........

Hanxter · 03-23-2006, 12:02 PM

...i found this in thursday's 03-23-06 usa today... i know it's long but i found it very interesting - in fact it reminds me of the 60's - 70's when the theory was that russia was influencing the young in America against the Viet Nam war by promoting the nationwide protests... make them mad enough and they'll get careless - hank

Quote:

An effective weapon against terrorists: Ridicule
By Peter Schweizer

Is America taking terrorists too seriously? In the wake of continued threats, that might seem like a ridiculous question. But in terms of the psychology of the war on terrorism, it's a question that needs to be asked.

In a brilliant new white paper on public diplomacy, Michael Waller, the Walter and Leonore Annenberg chair in International Communication at The Institute of World Politics, makes a strong case for America's employing a new powerful weapon against the terrorists: ridicule.

“Ridicule raises morale at home. Ridicule strips the enemy/adversary of his mystique and prestige. Ridicule erodes the enemy's claim to justice. Ridicule eliminates the enemy's image of invincibility. Directed properly at an enemy, ridicule can be a fate worse than death,” writes Waller.

History teaches that ridicule weakens the moral and political capital of our enemies. Ronald Reagan employed it with great effect during the Cold War. We all remember the “evil empire” speech, but what about the jokes? Two guys were standing in line at the vodka store. They were there for half an hour, then an hour, then an hour and a half. “I'm sick of this,” one finally said. “I'm going over to the Kremlin to shoot (Mikhail) Gorbachev.” The man left and returned about an hour later. “Well, did you shoot him?” “Heck no,” he responded. “The line up there is a lot longer than this one.”

Many of Reagan's comments reached the underground press in the Soviet Union, no doubt encouraging dissenters against communism. Reagan understood that sowing fear in the West was a potent weapon for Moscow. By laughing at communism, the spell of fear was broken. It was the same during World War II. A cartoon of Donald Duck mocking Hitler and Mein Kampf no doubt was demeaning to the Fhrer.

Thus far, the Bush administration's approach to fighting terrorists has been to demonize them. “Their vision of the world is dark and dim,” President Bush said in January at Kansas State University. “They have got desires to spread a totalitarian empire.” During his March 11 radio address, he said: “The enemy we face has proved to be brutal and relentless.”

Certainly, their actions and goals warrant such treatment. But that alone is a tough strategy to maintain psychologically because it can be exhausting. As Waller writes: “Incessant, morbid portrayals of an individual, movement or mortal enemy might rally support for the American side, but they have a shelf-life that gets tired over time. Constant specters of unrelenting dangers risk sowing defeatism and chipping away at our own morale. Abroad, they risk making the U.S. look like a bully in some places and surrender the propaganda advantage to the other side.”

By continuing to demonize our enemies, we elevate their political status in the eyes of those disaffected souls in the developing world who dislike the United States.

I'm not suggesting that Bush start cracking Osama bin Laden jokes. And we should not mock Islam. Reagan joked about communist leaders but never about the Russian people. What the Bush administration can do is mock the terrorists.

For example, we should note that these self-professed warriors hide while they pay impoverished young men and women to become human bombs. We should play up Osama's privileged background. We should highlight the terrorists' ridiculous failures. The reality is that much like Soviet officials, terrorists are full of grand illusions about themselves and their mission.

The war on terror has military, political and economic dimensions. But it also has a critical psychological component. The terrorists are not 10 feet tall. We should engage in a psychological war that brings these thugs down to size.

Peter Schweizer is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution and author of Do As I Say (Not As I Do): Profiles in Liberal Hypocrisy and Reagan's War.

linkage

btw, i spent a good 20 minutes looking for an appropriate thread for this rather than start a new one... think about it

rainheart · 03-23-2006, 09:29 PM

George Orwell would have a field day with you guys. If I didn't think it would be pointless to try and get the most of you to put some real critical thought onto the subject, I would elaborate- but I don't have to, my views have already been expressed.

One thing I will say though: The war on terrorism isn't meant to be won- it cannot be. It's meant to do exactly what most have been doing in this thread- make you curious as to how to achieve victory without recognizing how absurd and impossible it really is, and then make you willing to take most drastic and unwise measures to try and achieve a victory.

Ergo erosion of liberties, u.s. effectively being a pseudo-democracy (and therefore a de-facto police state), and creating a "crisis of state legitimacy." This is how the terrorists win. You want to win the war on terror? Stop helping the terrorists win.

Willravel · 03-23-2006, 09:36 PM

We can stop terrorism by removing the racist leaders who insist on attcking innocent people for personal profits.

ubertuber · 03-24-2006, 04:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rainheart

George Orwell would have a field day with you guys. If I didn't think it would be pointless to try and get the most of you to put some real critical thought onto the subject, I would elaborate...

Please make your mind up and either post to add to the discussion or not at all. The whole "too good for you guys and this conversation" genre of posts is pretty lame. If you'd just left this part (that I snipped above) out of your post, your main point would receive more attention - and maybe then we'd be approaching "enlightenment".

shakran · 03-24-2006, 06:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ubertuber

Please make your mind up and either post to add to the discussion or not at all. The whole "too good for you guys and this conversation" genre of posts is pretty lame. If you'd just left this part (that I snipped above) out of your post, your main point would receive more attention - and maybe then we'd be approaching "enlightenment".

I'll elaborate for him. Orwell's 1984 depicted a country which was perpetually at "war" with an unseen, nebulous enemy. Because there was no clear definition of who the enemy was, the war never had to end. And the government used the war as a vehicle to control its people - by stripping freedoms in the name of fighting for the country's survival.

Sound familiar?

It really does seem like this administration is using 1984 as an instruction manual.

Charlatan · 03-24-2006, 06:38 AM

Shakran, I don't think Ubertuber was objecting to his arguement, rather he was pointing out that Rainheart, if he wants to contribute, should contribute. Shit or get off the pot. Don't waste everyone's time by coming in and coping an attitude that suggests all here are beneath him... That verges on flaming.

That said, I can agree that parallels can be drawn between the Orwell's ongoing wars with Eurasia.

Quote:

Originally Posted by willravel

We can stop terrorism by removing the racist leaders who insist on attcking innocent people for personal profits.

So, in effect, you are agreeing with the Bush policy of removing Saddam... or are you talking about your own leadership being removed by the vote or impeachment?

Willravel · 03-24-2006, 07:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Charlatan

So, in effect, you are agreeing with the Bush policy of removing Saddam... or are you talking about your own leadership being removed by the vote or impeachment?

There is a difference to note between our government and the former Iraqi government: one is the responsibility of the American people, the other is not. While there are many governments around the world that do terrible things, we (the people of the country where the government is in question) are responsible for fixing our own problems first and foremost. Can you imagine Nazi Germany going into a third world country and removing a dictator who was guilty of ethnic clensing?

The_Jazz · 03-24-2006, 09:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by willravel

There is a difference to note between our government and the former Iraqi government: one is the responsibility of the American people, the other is not. While there are many governments around the world that do terrible things, we (the people of the country where the government is in question) are responsible for fixing our own problems first and foremost. Can you imagine Nazi Germany going into a third world country and removing a dictator who was guilty of ethnic clensing?

I have no problem imagining this because they did. Protecting the Volga Germans from the terror of the Soviet autrocities (no worse than any other Ukrainians at the time) was a key excuse in the Nazi invasion of the USSR. There were others, and it certainly wasn't the most important, but it was included. A quick history lesson - the Volga Germans were Germans who immigrated to Russia (specifically to the Ukraine) in the mid 18th Century, primarily under Catherine II (the Great) and Alexander I. They built their own villages and weren't entirely integrated into the general population since German remained their dominant language and they remained primarily Catholic, although there was some erosion of both of those by the October Revolution of 1917. They were later persecuted by Soviet authorities for perceived complicity with the enemy, although there was significant resistance to Nazi rule by the VG's.

History lesson aside, let's remember of the true aims of the Nazi thrust into the USSR, specifically the Ukraine. They were after oil, and "liberating" the Volga Germans was an excuse on their way to reserves in Georgia and the rest of the Caucasus. Sound familiar to anyone?

stevo · 03-24-2006, 09:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by The_Jazz

History lesson aside, let's remember of the true aims of the Nazi thrust into the USSR, specifically the Ukraine. They were after oil, and "liberating" the Volga Germans was an excuse on their way to reserves in Georgia and the rest of the Caucasus. Sound familiar to anyone?

You people act like we're in iraq barreling up the oil and shipping it to the US for free. This oil argument is old and dead.

dksuddeth · 03-24-2006, 09:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stevo

You people act like we're in iraq barreling up the oil and shipping it to the US for free. This oil argument is old and dead.

no kidding. If we were there for oil, why am I paying $2.50 a gallon for gas?

samcol · 03-24-2006, 10:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stevo

You people act like we're in iraq barreling up the oil and shipping it to the US for free. This oil argument is old and dead.

Nothing like eliminating the competition to artificially inflate prices and post record profits.

Charlatan · 03-24-2006, 10:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dksuddeth

no kidding. If we were there for oil, why am I paying $2.50 a gallon for gas?

Why would you be paying less?

Did the oil industry start running a non-profit venture?

dksuddeth · 03-24-2006, 10:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Charlatan

Why would you be paying less?

Did the oil industry start running a non-profit venture?

If memory serves, the last time that the oil industry was hammered about fuel prices was right after katrina, when barrels of oil suddenly jumped to over $70 bucks a barrel because of fears of 'supply'. So seeing that we get most of our oil from comes from the western hemisphere, like canada, mexico, and south america it would only make sense that if we were suddenly trucking in millions of barrels of oil from iraq (of which we only get 19% from the middle east anyway) then supply would not be an issue, oil prices would drop in the US therefore making gas prices drop instead of rising like they have the last few weeks.

03-08-2006, 06:06 PM	#43 (permalink)
Mojo_PeiPei Kiss of Death Location: Perpetual wind and sorrow	I don't get why everyone is always yapping about repairing global relations, especially in how it relates to Iraq. It is just so naive to assume that every other country was taking some moral high road in being against the invasion, when the reality is plain and simple, they would enhance their own power at the expensive of our own. I agree the current state of economics might not be as favorable as it has been in recent years, but China is no where near our equal economically, and they are still not close militarily. If Taiwan declared it's independence tomorrow and China made a move we would lay them to shreds as they have no lift capabilities and the 7th fleet would bury them. Our presence in Iraq curtails their growth or at the very least regulates, as such it is an asset to us; at the same time it does the same for Western Europe/and other Asian countries, therefore it's beneficial. How are we fucking our allies? By doing something in our own interests? In that sense helping our allies hurts ourselves, that is a big nono, never lend to anothers power at your own expense. The analogy isn't about fucking people, it's just noting the reality that sometime, some place down the line, military action will be required. It is a necessity, and as a basis of government one of its sole purposes. Evil is not a subjective term, I know some hear might like to think so. Decapitating civilians is evil, Flying civilians planes into civilian targets is evil, lynching christians in response to cartoons is evil, inciting civil war to forward a facist agenda is evil; again Seditious doctrine. Also I have to ask, how in the hell do you figure OBL is not responsible for 9/11? Either as the predominant and widely accepted fact that he was the mastermind, at the very least he facilitated it. Please indulge me. __________________ To win a war you must serve no master but your ambition.

03-08-2006, 10:43 PM	#47 (permalink)
Mojo_PeiPei Kiss of Death Location: Perpetual wind and sorrow	If I recall, the terrorists do want to fight, is that not the premise of their Jihad? __________________ To win a war you must serve no master but your ambition.

03-08-2006, 10:53 PM	#49 (permalink)
Mojo_PeiPei Kiss of Death Location: Perpetual wind and sorrow	I know why they fight... Something to do with some tired old Caliphate reestablishment... There is the fighting for honor because of the great embarresment of the Turkish Empire and all subsequent colonial bullshit... Something about Eradicating the jews... American presence in Saudi Arabia... SOme pretty stupid bullshit if you ask me, and by and large that is some of their more legitimate claims. __________________ To win a war you must serve no master but your ambition.

03-09-2006, 06:10 AM	#53 (permalink)
Charlatan Getting it. Super Moderator Location: Lion City	I had a wonderful and complex response written out and then I hit post while my wireless was off line... lost it all. Now I'm grumpy. The gist of it was this. There will always be terrorism (one could argue that there always has been some form or another of it). This "war on terror" is just another piece of trumped up bullshit like "the war on drugs." The people who are profitting from this are the people in the arms trade and logistics. The occasional death in the West by terrorism from the Middle East is the price of doing business the way we do business in that region. Given that reality the only way to mitigate against further attacks (because they are going to happen anyway) is to police and educate (i.e. diplomacy). In other words, the realy solution is to wean our nations off oil. Stop the need for Middle Eastern oil and you stop the need to be in the region. End of confict. As this is not likely to happen... get used to terrorism and war. __________________ "My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars." - Old Man Luedecke

03-09-2006, 07:24 AM	#58 (permalink)
Charlatan Getting it. Super Moderator Location: Lion City	Actually Stevo... those aren't the people I am talking about when I say we need diplomacy. I am talking about strengthening ties to the millions of moderate Muslims. I am talking about reaching out to the people who are being taught by these ignorant Immams that spread the hate. Part of the reason why they have some much power in the first place is that the nations like Iran (prior to the revolution) and Saudia Arabia have been propped up by the Western powers. Free Speech and freedome of assciation have been squashed out of existance, except in the Mosques. Moderate voices in Iran were silenced in the face of their inability to combat the US led coup of Mossadegh. They were seen as ineffective. At the same time any public debate was squashed. When the revolution came about in Iran it could be traced back to the coup of Mossadegh and the support of the increasingly tyrannical Shah. In Saudia Arabia there have been a few attempts at democratic reform (reform in general) but those were squashed by the House of Saud who let's the more fundamentalist Immam's get away with what they want in order to maintain an unsteady hold on power. Neither of these situations would exist without the west's support. Why the support? Oil. I am not blaming it all on the West. I am saying that our need of oil and love of oil profits has lead us to continue to want remain in the Middle East. Because of its strategic importance to, well, everything in the West, we have often taken a heavy handed approach and bungled relations. We have aided in the creation of conditions that gave birth to the very terrorists that we now fight. As I said above. Get used to it. We will never rid ourselves of terrorists. It is the price of doing business the way we continue to do business in that part of the world. Going to war with it exacerbates the situation. Better to accept that it is going to happen. Police and defend against the inevitable (much like we do with crime) and work better our associations with the people on the ground so that we lessen the conditions that bring about "terrorists" in the first place (most importantly the people the Immam's recruit). __________________ "My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars." - Old Man Luedecke

03-08-2006, 10:40 PM	#46 (permalink)
Willravel ... a sort of licensed troubleshooter.	Powerclown, please reread the quote you chose from my above post. I wrote: "Now we need to figure out what would make them stop." That quote goes beyond simply asking wehy someone does something. It moves onto the next tsep: learning how to control that behavior. If we could figure out how to make people stop rape, then we could make people stop raping. If we could figure out how to make people stop comitting murder, then we could make people stop comitting murder. Do you understand? I agree that it's not enough to learn why people do the bad things they do. You need to figure out what it would take to make them stop. The romans had philosophy, but not formal psychology. Let me say this: I believe that no human behavior is completly irrational. War, which gave birth to terrorism, is not the solution to terrorism. I have found that in any situation in which two parties are posturing, mutuality is the first step towards a solution. Neither one of us, terrorists or imperial militaries, wants to be fighting. We should start from there.

03-09-2006, 06:40 AM	#55 (permalink)
blade02 Insane	First we have to get our damn media out of our military's business. Terrorists don't need spy networks, they just need cable tv. But everyone's so trigger happy to be the first to expose some great evil that the US is doing, no one stops to think that they might be hurting our cause over there. The fact of the matter is that war is a nasty terrible thing, and until the last 40 years or so the general public was sheltered from all of the bad things that go on. Now everyone is almost to the point of saturation with war time coverage. Secondly, I think we need to model our efforts after the Isrealis. If anyone knows how to survive over there its them. If they can fight off the rest of the middle east by themselves, then think of what we could do. Of course they are reminded about every month or so why they are fighting because its their neighbors that are getting blown up on busses and in the mall and coffee shops. While America is patriotic only when its convenient.

03-09-2006, 08:05 AM	#60 (permalink)
Ustwo Pissing in the cornflakes	Who are these moderate musilms? I missed their last protest over terrorist acts. __________________ Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

03-09-2006, 08:14 AM	#61 (permalink)
stevo Rail Baron Location: Tallyfla	There are iraqis that tell coalition troops where roadside bombs are, where the insurgents are hiding. There are iraqis that don't want any more war and only want to get on with their lives. While they aren't vocal against the islamofacists, I don't feel threatened by them. I would consider them to be moderate... __________________ "If I am such a genius why am I drunk, lost in the desert, with a bullet in my ass?" -Otto Mannkusser

03-09-2006, 11:04 AM	#66 (permalink)
Mojo_PeiPei Kiss of Death Location: Perpetual wind and sorrow	So what exactly is the article saying Host? That the guide doesn't exist, or it is merely from an earlier time? __________________ To win a war you must serve no master but your ambition.

03-23-2006, 09:29 PM	#69 (permalink)
rainheart Psycho	George Orwell would have a field day with you guys. If I didn't think it would be pointless to try and get the most of you to put some real critical thought onto the subject, I would elaborate- but I don't have to, my views have already been expressed. One thing I will say though: The war on terrorism isn't meant to be won- it cannot be. It's meant to do exactly what most have been doing in this thread- make you curious as to how to achieve victory without recognizing how absurd and impossible it really is, and then make you willing to take most drastic and unwise measures to try and achieve a victory. Ergo erosion of liberties, u.s. effectively being a pseudo-democracy (and therefore a de-facto police state), and creating a "crisis of state legitimacy." This is how the terrorists win. You want to win the war on terror? Stop helping the terrorists win. Last edited by rainheart; 03-23-2006 at 09:33 PM..

03-23-2006, 09:36 PM	#70 (permalink)
Willravel ... a sort of licensed troubleshooter.	We can stop terrorism by removing the racist leaders who insist on attcking innocent people for personal profits.