Al Qaeda

[max]

I have to fess up and admit to being one of those people who reads novels about international terrorism. The concept of an executive level of terrorists is a theme which runs through many of them. There may not be one Al-Qaeda organisation but there are several authors out there writing about one organisation which manipulates all the world's terrorists. In fact the Al-Qaeda network has been written about in many of them and not recently.

 

IMO we shouldn't be trying to bomb civilization into them rather win their support with hospitals and schools.

[Funky Dave]

I agree with you Max. The West won't ever defeat Islamic terrorism by using brute force alone because the terrorists have far too many supporters. We had to retaliate after September 11th in order to try and bring the perpertrators to justice; to have done otherwise would have been unthinkable. But I believe that we're going to have to listen to their demands eventually. True, there are many many different Islamic terrorist organisations each with their own demands, but we will have to negotiate with some of them or their supporters eventually. We can't shoot them all.

[max]

Originally posted by Funky Dave

I agree with you Max. The West won't ever defeat Islamic terrorism by using brute force alone because the terrorists have far too many supporters. We had to retaliate after September 11th in order to try and bring the perpertrators to justice; to have done otherwise would have been unthinkable. But I believe that we're going to have to listen to their demands eventually. True, there are many many different Islamic terrorist organisations each with their own demands, but we will have to negotiate with some of them or their supporters eventually. We can't shoot them all.

Thanks, but I'm not sure what their demands are. IMO the problem is with their own 'governments' who are wallowing in the riches brought about by the accident of oil being where it is. The west needs the oil so we prop up these repressive regimes.

 

What we're seeing in the mid-east is civilizations at the same level we were at the time of our crusades, imo. There is a feudal type relationship between the rich and poor and the poor are, in the main, illiterate. They live in 3rd world conditions while their rulers live in luxury. The only people who can reach them are the religious fanatics who are subservient to the ruling classes and fund their 'revolution'. Is that too simplistic?

[Carlwarker]

Originally posted by Funky Dave

...We had to retaliate after September 11th in order to try and bring the perpertrators to justice; to have done otherwise would have been unthinkable...

 

Just as a matter of interest - why did we have to react?

[Funky Dave]

I just wrote a 45 line, well thought out, passionate response to the above post, but my computer crashed when I tried to submit it - I'm fuming!!!

 

 

I'm not writing it again. The main points were:

1) Bin Laden and his fanatics were quilty of mass murder so they had to be brought to justice.

 

2) The Taliban refused to hand them over, so the US could have either given up (deprive the victims of justice), gone to war, or spent years trying to get hold of them by diplomatic means.

 

3) Therefore the US had no choice but to attack Afghanistan, and the resulting deaths are the fault of Bin Laden and his murderers, not the US.

 

4) Iraq is a seperate conflict, September 11th is was just an excuse to oust Saddam. We did not HAVE to do this. Saddam was a cruel murderer, but he was not responsible for 9/11. I am pro-Afghan war but anti-Iraq conflict.

 

5) If you are asking "Why do we (the Brits) have to fight, it is because, in my opinion, we stand for similar principles to the US, and they are our allies. If they are attacked by an external enemy then it is also a matter for us and vice versa.

 

My original post was far better. Damn!

[DaBouncer]

Originally posted by Carlwarker

Just as a matter of interest - why did we have to react?

Because IMHO it wasn't an attack on the USA that Bin Laden did on 09/11 it was an attack on the whole western world. We are part of that attack.

 

He knew there'd be tourists (British too) in those towers, and there were. Many of mine and your fellow countrymen anmd women died that day.

 

We were right to go to war with the taliban. And IMHO right to oust Saddam (he was killing his people after all), but on the interest of Iraq, the way it has been handled since the official 'end' of the conflict has been very poor.

 

But on the original subject of 09/11 then yes we did have to react!

[Callassa]

If you examine many conflicts it wasn't possible to predict the outcomes very well. It seems that there are a great many issues involved in facing opponents whom are scattered across the world and are continously emerging/changing to accomadate how it/they are thwarted. The point being that the ways so far that have been used in what very basically is a religious conflict appear to have been successful but at massive cost and immeasurable turmoil. This does not mean to say that there really has been success, no matter how you see it. The recent attack in Turkey illustrates this. Americans according to the polls do feel safer by virtue of what has been achieved so far, whether they really are is a good question. Many actions utilized in dealing with threat incite a greater adherence to what motivates the attacks in the first place. However, if people do feel safer, although the danger becomes greater (the true ramifications kept from them and replaced by propaganda to the contrary) does this constitute success? Is living in a deluded safety zone better than living in fear?

>>Second Point. The IRA have been as great a threat to the safety of lives in the UK as have any terrorist group. This is unequivocal. Did the UK attack where they knew these particular terrorists were and still are, or at the supply lines of arms and explosive materials to Ireland coming from supporters in the USA?. No. As far as the latter point is concerned, the UK military knew precisely who was sending arms, (down to the very individuals responsible residing in Boston) how they were and when, but because the UK didn't wish to be seen as an aggressor nation and upset the US, they chose surveillance instead (and still do). Consider if this situation was reversed, how the US would deal with it. Many argue that sending UK troops to invade Iraq was kind of secondary in importance with respect to how they had dealt with real threat in the past, but politics and trade allegiances being what they are, a different course of action was chosen. That of colluding and insisting on a 'special relationship' with the US, which from here appears more to be so by virtue of British insistence, than the other way around.

[Callassa]

Originally posted by max

I have to fess up and admit to being one of those people who reads novels about international terrorism. The concept of an executive level of terrorists is a theme which runs through many of them. There may not be one Al-Qaeda organisation but there are several authors out there writing about one organisation which manipulates all the world's terrorists. In fact the Al-Qaeda network has been written about in many of them and not recently.

 

IMO we shouldn't be trying to bomb civilization into them rather win their support with hospitals and schools.

 

Can it be so simple, conflict resolution down to the gestures you describe? If you examine the convictions which underlie the 'justifications' for annihilation held by many tyrants of the past and obviously in the present, there seems to be no way of dealing with these justifications. Religious extremists, some argue, are looking past being offered what it is that they detest, to the extent that they want only to see it destroyed in its entirety. Extremists of all pursuasion have entered the USA and have had access to what you say they should be offered, the very fundamental Western institutions and the values which are their foundation. What happened as a result? They didn't join in but were seeking to destroy. OK, you say that there are many whom are not terrorists and who would benefit from such gestures, but these gestures have always been in place.