It is far less glamorous and painstakingly slow to end the 'allure' through treating a cause instead of a sympton - but as any physician knows, it's the only long term cure. The 'Shock and awe' campaign has barely won any territory let alone the many hearts and minds, as so promised. In creating healthy 'tissue' the 'disease' can be isolated and eventually destroyed. I'm optimistic it will occur, after the inevitable pain and the sacrifice all the developed (and developing) nations will need to take.

And Americans wonder why no-one likes them, when all they do is kill anyone who stands in the way of them having their "Freedom and Democracy".... all at the expense of the rest of the planet.

New, non-Chinese saying: "Never stand between an American and a barrel of oil".

How do we turn the impoverished and disenchanted away from terrorism? If it’s money that will bring about eudaemonia and lasting peace we have played our role. Over the last 30 or so years the OPEC members have deposited $7 trillion. A large chunk of that found its way to the ME. Did the house of al-Saud use the money to build up sustainable industries? Did other oil rich ME countries invest in their own populations? The man in the street in Iran and Iraq might be better placed to answer that question but anecdotal evidence suggests that the leaders of those countries prefer war toys to car manufacturing plants. We even subsidise their proclivity for philoprogenitivity pursued in some blinkered belief that a higher authority will take care of the future.

What would the results be if those living in abject poverty in the remote parts of Pakistan were given the chance to respond to a questionnaire, with the leading question being: Are you happy that your government spent all that money developing a nuclear weapons capability rather than build sustainable industries? Parenthetically, a neighbouring country with a vastly numerically superior population and its own share of poverty has been identified as one of the countries that will prosper in this current century. That might indicate that poverty and lack of opportunity are not always the catalyst for a life of terrorism.

The religious tribalism which is now being played out on the streets of downtown Baghdad suggests that peace has no appeal for some within that alleged religion and the answer to terrorism might be a more even distribution of the wealth held by the governments of those countries where terrorism flourishes

"— little is done to discourage the supply of terrorists."

Ankon - you got it in one.

Given that we have terrorised so very many Iraqis to death, the irony is that we have to start so close to home. Always attend to your own terrorists first. It won't be cured by being fixated on "them over there". We must do our own pest eradication first.

Our terrorists wear suits, have a good superannuation scheme and carry a fat cheque book. They send other people's children to do their dirty work for them. They wrap themselves in OUR flag for comfort. They have jealously guarded their own narrow definition of "terrorism" - as though we could be so naive.

But we are not so naive, are we possums?

It won't be fixed until we elect politicians who reflect our natural goodwill towards one another. That goodwill is more potent than any second-hand Abrahams tank, carries more lasting firepower than an F-16, corrodes slower than a whole fleet of cruisers.

It's way over time to dump this present government AND their sycophants in the Labor Party, sever the economic tentacles that yanked their genitals and messed with their minds. It's gonna be a big, big cleanup job, but it's do-able for we Aussies.

- colour, creed and racial origins will not be an issue. We are better than that.

The entry into Iraq undoubtedly expressed a certain high level of naiveté with its lofty ideals (notwithstanding the very real undercurrent of an American dependence on oil). Religious and secular tribalism were barely accounted for – a similar tribalism as perhaps existent within our own affluent cities, but covered by a protective veneer of well-established polity (a birth-right some might throw away).

I would agree, it is simplistic to suggest that in merely ridding the world of poverty we apply a universal ‘Mr fix-it’ for all the world’s ills – after all, it is only realistic to expect a certain percentage of any population to be relatively deprived (no political form of ‘equal’ distribution has been proven yet to work). It would seem we are capable of only a procedural justice, if at all, rather than any distributive justice many perhaps dream about in order to bring about true equality.

Given the fundamental inequalities pervasive even within the wealthiest countries of the world and the intuitive injustice of this fact, the West has little right to merely trumpet a freedom the haughty ideals of democracy might bring.

"What enables these militants to attract a ballooning number of recruits? The answer cannot be Islam, which has been around for more than 1000 years. This is a recent problem." The author should try reading a book called White Gold by Giles Milton. It documents the capture and slavery of more than 1 million white Christian Europeans as slaves in Morocco and other north african and middle eastern muslim countries, dating back hundreds of years. The main driver? Islams contempt for the infidel. I would suggest that the raiding barbary corsairs were the days terrorists, as very few european coastal communities were unaffected.

That said, instead of trying to solve world poverty (a noble but lofty ambition), perhaps we should try to learn our lessons from terrorism problems that HAVE been solved. Wasnt it only 20 years ago that the IRA were still blowing up parts of London? Hasnt Libya notable cooled its heels? I'm not trying to say that the approaches and advances made in these cases (and there are others I'm sure) will be a one-sized fits all solution, but these are situations where the problems (of mass violence at least) have been solved. Surely we can extract some useful lessons from these. I include the IRA in particular to redraw attention to the fact that not all terrorists are middle-eastern or islamic extremists.

I agree that we need to address the reasons why people are turning to terrorism as well as seeking to prevent and deter it. But the simple equation of violent alienation with poverty and the economic system doesn't fit the facts in this case.

Many of today Islamic terrorists are quite rich, either in absolute terms (Bin Laden) or relative to global living standards, such as the local residents responsible for acts of terror in London, Madrid, Canada, the Netherlands etc, or the western-educated perpetrators of S11. The terrorist attacks in Kenya were committed not by impoverished locals but by well-resourced ethnic Arabs. And most of the world’s poorest countries are not exporting international terrorists (although many do a brutally effective job of repressing their own citizens).

I agree with Richard Posner’s views on this point - “there is little basis either theoretical or empirical for thinking that poverty causes terrorism” and “most efforts to link terrorism and poverty are politically motivated”. http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/archives/2005/05/terrorism_and_p.html

Christopher Hitchens also got it right on this issue – “Random bombings are not a protest against poverty and unemployment. They are a cause of poverty and unemployment and of wider economic dislocation”. http://www.slate.com/id/2127343/ Ask the residents of Bali.

Global poverty is a terrible thing, and there are many good reasons why we should try to eliminate it. But discouraging terrorism is not one of them. Assuming that poverty must be the sole or main cause is ideological laziness that risks giving terrorists the victim status they crave but do not deserve.

Compare the supply of catholic theocrats before and after they were fought and defeated by the revolutionary struggles of the Enlightenment. There is an equivalent struggle in Islamic countries required and in progress throughout the entire Middle East right now. That struggle had been held up by over sixty years of rotten to the core US policies. Instead of supporting the democratic movements, the US policies were to support every rat-bag Autocracy and tyranny going. Now they have been forced by events to get behind the bourgeois revolution instead of trying to resist it.

The former US policies helped produced the mosquitoes that inflicted the outrage of 9/11. This, finally pulled the US ruling elite back from these failed policies. Naturally the pseudo left denies that there has been a change in direction but that is now totally unsustainable.

‘No blood for oil’ was the foolish chant that both supposedly explained the real reason for the war in Iraq and rejected it. Yet the notion that the US ruling elite were capable of organizing the theft of the Iraqi people’s recourses without installing puppets to head the Iraqi government is a complete nonsense. Thus the pseudo left predicted that puppets would be installed (John Pilger named the General who the US would install); they were wrong. Free and fair elections were held and a legitimate government is a reality. The result is that the pseudo left ignore the elections and the requests for assistance from that government.

There is a transparent bankruptcy to the anti war position that is now so smugly being touted as the overwhelming consensus view of ‘progressives’. WMD were obviously not the immediate issue requiring war and neither was oil. So what was the real reason for launching a war of liberation that would obviously lead to elections that would see the empowerment of the Shia and Kurds as proportional power became a reality once the Baathist tyranny based in the Arab Sunni population was smashed?

A full discussion of this drain the swamp thesis can be found or had in the forum section of http://www.lastsuperpower.net/

Who are you kidding?

"The answer cannot be Islam, which has been around for more than 1000 years. This is a recent problem."

If you are going to talk about Islam you must at least research its barbaric bloody history.

Islam started with terror, with the mighty sword and is expanding today with very much the same terror tactics.

Poverty is largely an Islamic problem too - as well as illiteracy.

Instead of spreading Islam in the west, oil rich countries should feed their poor and provide them with a good education.

The "madrassas" type of Qur'an/ / terrorism schools is producing thousands of brain dead militant little islamist who hate America before they could spell their own name.

So instead of blaming the rest of the world for your Islamic problems - why don't you start questioning your own holy books and strange religion and be honest about the terrorist nature of your Qur'an as dictated by your self-proclaimed prophet?

The problem is Islam - the solution is to admit it.

This Article requires some very careful analysis.

"Instead, the supply of terrorists is better explained by the increasing numbers of dissociated and disenchanted people who feel hopeless."

Hopeless about...what ?

Which 'terrorists'?

I think different motives drive different groups.

1/ Sunni Muslims in Iraq.
Motive-
a) Restore lost economic status and privilege.
b) Restore the Shia muslims to their abjectly low oppressed status in order to fulfill a) In short...greed.
c) Remove the US troops who are a hinderance to a) and b) in the vain belief that they still actually have the firepower to re-oppress the Kurds and Shia as they did under Sadaam.

2/ Shia Muslims in Iraq.
Motive-
a)Destroy once and for all the power of the Sunnies who long oppressed them.
b)Build a new more 'Shia' flavored Iraq and forge close ties to Iran, giving them 'superpower' status in terms of Oil control.
c) Remove the US troops who are a hinderance to a) and b)

3/ Muslims in London.
Motive-
Fight the western governments who have:
a) "Invaded Muslim lands"
b) are Preventing the groups of 1 and 2 above from fulfilling their goals.

I would guess though, that the London Bombers were all Sunni.

4/ Palestine related Terrorists.
Again..depends on which group.
a) Fatah... more secular, more about 'loss of land' but not so much 'Muslim' Land though I'm sure this concept is used as a motivator.
b) HAMAS.. Sunni, and very fundamentalist. "Muslim Lands" is the primary issue with them.(as per their charter)

5/ Melbourne/Sydney.
I speculate they are
a) Sunni
b) Moved by attacks on 'Muslim Lands' and "Islam" in general.
c) Radicalized by lying propoganda and highly motivated radicals.

When we speak of muslim violence we won't go to the crusades will we? When we speak of slavery we won't speak of christian Britain, the US and other English protectorates enslaving people will we?

We won't bother to find out that in all the world in recognised "terror" attacks by single bombers in the world since September 11 2001 precisely 1429 people have been killed.

In recognised war zones where the Brits, Russians and US are invading under the guise of the war on terror as many as 300,000 have been slaughtered.

But then we wouldn't want to admit that we are the terrorists of the world would we?

Someone asks about the Pakistani nuclear program while people are hungry - were you aware that 35% of Israelis are living in a state of poverty while the US has supplied them with $91 billion in foreign aid ot build up their military?

If I was a child asleep in Baghdad, or Kabul, Beirut or Gaza City and a 1000 pound bomb was dropped on my house and I managed to survive it is a pretty fair bet I would think the bomber was a terrorist.

What about you all?

History has shown that war is a pointless exercise. How can killing innocent people ever be a solution? The day that war was declared on Iraq or "Terrorism" was the day we gave permission for violence to solve our worlds ills. I just hope and pray that we soon grow up and focus on what is important. Before we blow each other up out of greed and hatred.

"In creating healthy 'tissue' the 'disease' can be isolated and eventually destroyed. I'm optimistic it will occur, after the inevitable pain and the sacrifice all the developed (and developing) nations will need to take."

Continuing with your metaphors, chemotherapy can be just as devastating to a 'patient' and so can a heart bypass - possibly resulting in earlier fatality than nature's course. Before undertaking such invasive surgery, there is usually a great deal of shared understanding between ALL the people involved as to risks etc...

The healing here may take considerably longer because of the arrogance of the physicians. Having caused so much pain, without due consideration or dialogue, it may be time to remove them from the picture? What’s the point of using the same 'old' medicine if it has already been shown to exacerbate the problem?

Why do you guys insist on knocking people of other creeds?

Are you so impoverished that you need someone to feel superior to? Obviously the reverse must be true - ipso facto - you still command the low ground.

But do get your facts straight:

1. 9-11 was done by Wall Street money launderers and insurance shonks.

2. 7-7 was another wargame that went "live" - do your homework:

http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=-3770877779111334563&q=label%3Alondon+bombings

3. The skilled bombmakers of the IRA turned out to be the moles that MI5 planted. But then, if you knew anything about Ireland at all, you would know something of Martin Ingram and The Force Research Unit - do your homework:

http://www.serve.com/pfc/fru/fru23022k1b.html

4. There is NO civil war in Iraq. There IS a popular insurgency. In addition there are the militias (E Timor style) who have been armed and funded by the occupying forces, to thwart that insurgency. The militias are the jailbirds who were released by Pasha Paul Bremer - do your homework.

* * *

C'mon guys. Lets raise the standards around here.

- and Davo! What is the point of our efforts if you are going to insist on staying in that rut? Drink deep from the well of truth mate - that's Holy Water.

Article in West Australian - Thursday October 5

US Diplomatic Strains in Middle East shown
during Arabic meeting with Condoleeza Rice.

Leaders of Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Qater, Oman, and Bahrain reiterate to Dr Rice that the root of all problems in the ME is the Arab-Israeli conflict. They also question whether the Bush admin’ still has the energy and full commitment to really solve the Palestinian-Israeli issue before next year?

The concerned look on the face of Dr Rice shown in the coloured camera-shot while talking to Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Geit after the outcome seems to say it all.

But not quite, the joyous look of relief on Condy’s face while being hugged by the Israelis just across the border in a later TV shot really completes the depiction of the rapidly failing US diplomacy in the Middle East.

Maybe there are some of us who might agree that Condy’s happiness with the Israelis is all for the good in the Middle East. But taking the Arabic side we others believe that it only increases the gravity of the situation. Also so many of us are getting scared to suggest that much of the hatred between the Arabs and Israelis, did increase after the US did help Israel manufacture atomic weaponry in the late 1970s.

It has lately got to the stage behind the scenes with suggestions to allow Iran to go nuclear to match Israel - creating a Bismarckian power balance which certainly helped to calm down India and Pakistan who both had gone atomic within a couple of years of each other.

Yet what lies ahead in this troublesome world, heaven knows? Maybe we could do with a Gandhi, a Mandela or even a Gorbachev?

Chris Shaw:
Davo may have been drinking holy water, but judging by your ramblings-you have obviously been imbibing in something much more mind numbing.

9-11 had nothing to do with wall-street, or Zionism, the Masons, Opus Dei etc.
It had everything to do with a mode of thinking found in some extremist Islamics which is so removed from your petty bourgeois mind-set you cannot comprehend it.

Sky98
“History has shown that war is a pointless exercise. How can killing innocent people ever be a solution?”

War & killing innocents have served some now “respectable” cultures very well, thank you!

If you win the war, eliminate the opposition & rewrite history who’s to know otherwise.
You then become a respectable culture/creed & you talk about tolerance.

Please read a little more deeply the history of the middle east.

Brushbred,
As I recall Mandela for all statesman’s like qualities, refused to renounce violence and Gorbechov, Nero like, fiddled away while the Soviet Union burnt ( no great qualities needed loose an empire) and Gandhi could only exist under a feeble British Administration –how long would a Gandhi figure last in Taliban Afghanistan or Iran ( read a little about the fate of the founders of Baha’ism when they tried a similar approach)

Dear Chris
you do make some pertinant points which I will not dispute.

But I see them as a kind of 'overlay' like applies to my property, where there is the 'on the ground' day2day realities I face, then I goto council because I want to change something and find this 'overlay' about green wedges and important vegetation blah blah.. its all real, but not always visible. There are bigger hands pulling the econo/geographic strings.

All that I said, I stand by, its not a 'rut', all that you said, I basically concurr with, its not one or the other mate, its both. Do your homework :)

Poor Marilyn. Again, when she points to the very real historic cruelties of various streams of history, misses the point a----gain, that ALL have, are, and will continue to sin, and fall short of the righteousness of God. This includes the USA,Britain and Australia.

She makes true observations, but mistakenly seems to think that I or others have some kind of unilateral moral justification for 'our' history stream, but only condemnation for 'the other' one.

Apart from the (real)Kingdom of God, where there is no racial or cultural divide between people, the world is divided into 'allies and enemies' and the closer you get to the 'top'...the closer you get to the amorality of much going on.

She points to her 'list' of 'victims' and I point to others (Damur) but she then says "but that pales into insignificance compared OUR brutality" (words to that effect) as if there are 'levels' of sin.

I worry about Marilyn, she is good at pointing the moral bone at all and sundry, but solutions ? "stop" ? errr.. tap tap M.... wakey wakey mate.

Life is much more complex than 'good guys' and 'bad guys'...sometimes it deteriorates so far that its just 'us' and 'them'. When the victor rises from the dust and ashes, they rebuild, and contemplate the deeper things of life and love. From the wreckage of the Anglo Saxon invasion and Nors pillaging of England, a Shakespeare arose.

“little is done to discourage the supply...."

What discouraged the supply of Nazis in the 1940s? War dried up the supply; the same thing that discouraged the Japanese militarists and Italian Fascists.

Defeating them in total war dries up the supply. The requirement was for their unconditional surrender as no deal could be struck that would have left these forces with any degree of power. Once defeated, bourgeois democracy was then imposed on these countries in the west and Soviet democracy in the east European countries like Hungary, Bulgaria etc (becoming police-state tyrannies when the revolutionary Soviet Union gave way to the counter-revolutionary revisionist regime of Khrushchev etc).

In the Soviet superpower, proletarian revolutionaries were replaced by state capitalists running a vicious police-state empire that eventually launched a war of conquest into Afghanistan. But what were the other ruling class imperialists in the second superpower up to?

The policies adopted at the end stage of, and immediately after WW2 by the U.S. imperialists of backing other fascists and other right-wingers right across the globe. Having viciously exterminated the hundreds-of-thousands of people at Hiroshima, Dresden, and Nagasaki in order to attempt to intimidate the Soviets under Stalin, they immediately slaughtered the people of Greece and then backed the gangster Chaing Kai Shek as he re-launched a civil-war to prevent democracy in China. Then they interfered in the affairs of the Korean people’s and brought on a war costing millions of lives and ending in stalemate. Then the US inflicted millions of deaths trying to prevent the will of the peoples’ of Indo China while maintaining a political swamp in the Middle East. Ah the history of the Liberals who criticize totalitarian revolutionary communists!

Those who support the bourgeois democratic revolution fight case by case. Liberate the peoples of Iraq and the rest of the swamp will largely drain itself. We can’t endlessly kill terrorists; we have to drain the swamp that breeds them. See the forum at http://www.lastsuperpower.net/ for a full discussion. The US reversing its old rotten policies is the vital first step. The pseudo left do not get it.

This needs repeating, the fact is, that every rising civilization has been imperialistic, including Islam, which from the seventh century through to the 16th century established its hegemony in the Middle East, the Indian subcontinent and North Africa through bloody conquest. Should Muslims now feel guilty about conquering what were once Christian lands in the Middle East and North Africa? Should they be expected to vacate those lands and return them to the Christian fold? A rhetorical question, but there's no gainsaying the hypocrisy in denouncing the West for its imperial past while letting other cultures off the hook.

Removing the “log from one’s eye” can give a whole new dimension.

‘Draining the swamp’ is an interesting metaphor because is suggests a clarity achieved after removing muddied thinking - a pseudonym for critical thinking, perhaps?
The godfather of Islamic terrorism and inspiration to bin Laden, was an Egyptian intellectual named Sayyid Qutb and in 1948 believed, Western countries were populated by consumers who assume security and entertainment are a birthright, that they have a "right" to lives of comfort and plenty. What offended Qutb most, however, were American women. He loathed their "thirsty lips, bulging breasts, smooth legs," and denounced "that animal freedom which is called permissiveness, that slave market dubbed 'women's liberation'."
Many of the Christian right and not so right would simply agree with such sentiment. In a strange sort of warped, moralistic way, the Jihadist revolutionaries make a point – they see the very real corruption and hypocrisy of the West. In not understanding our own guilt or our corruption, neither then do we fully appreciate our ‘enemy’.

Harvard political scientist, Samuel Huntington, makes a worthy point: "Muslims increasingly see America as their enemy. If that is a fate Americans cannot avoid, their only alternative is to accept it and to take measures necessary to cope with it." In other words, how long can a liberal democracy tolerate the presence of a substantial number of those who regard themselves as a distinct and potentially hostile body? ... Perhaps as long as its own corruption (and guilt) persists.

To Horus - Latest reports from the White House do confirm that the days of US imperial swashbuckling might be over, with the realisation that our own wonderful Western military advancing technology has begun to backfire - surely soon in the shape of one Islamic-primed mini-nuclear bomb or even a number set off from more than a thousand k’s away.

Iraq has already shown how even conventional pattern bombing cannot now win a war - as even an attack on Iran will prove.

Scorning the philosophy of a Sermon on the Mount style forgiveness, which indeed Mandela has practised, what indeed have we got left then?

Just one imperialist unipolar nation, with a proven record of accord as with the Post WW2 Marshall Plan, along with the reformation of Immanuel Kant’s idea of a democratic United Nations, yet totally buggered up with the US and her allies holding four out of the five seats on the UN Security Council.

In the latest Comment and Analysis section of the Guardian newspaper, Timothy Garton Ash shows his headline - A Hint of Policy Shift in the Air

Across the Potomatic in the State Department the talk is not so much about bombs including possibly nuclear, but with other ways of promoting democracy in the Islamic world. Of course some still like it hot - Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney included, while others like a Senate hopeful Ned Lamont says it looks like we are left with a heap of lousy choices!

But be that as it may, the White House might be at last using diplomatic common sense rather than shaking the big stick backed by those hideous tools of war.

The Swansong of our so-called fruitcake academics, especially among the Humanities, has long been about a stronger and fairer United Nations without an imperialist monopoly, and it is so disheartening that so many of our Onliners will howl the UN down till maybe they will wake up to find the Uni’ fruitcakes were right all along

"What discouraged the supply of Nazis in the 1940s? War dried up the supply; the same thing that discouraged the Japanese militarists and Italian Fascists."

Holy smoke Pat, the financiers who made it happen got off scot free. First they shook hands across across the banquet table, then they shook hands across the battlefield - and they got off scot free at war's end.

- leaving us with Spitfire vs Messerschmitt books galore. That's not much of a reference library for a brave new future, is it?

I've got no problem with your descriptions of imperialist machinations post-war, except for the obvious omission that the self-same profiteers just carried on with business as usual. Who profited from all that? Don't you ever wonder?

The effort to dry up the money swamp where these creatures feed is casually tossed off as a "bourgeois democratic revolution". Those who go through the old incriminating cheque stubs are described as "pseudo left". When you have finally overcome a lifetime of propaganda, you will see that such labels are of no account.

"9-11 had nothing to do with wall-street, or Zionism, the Masons, Opus Dei etc.
It had everything to do with a mode of thinking found in some extremist Islamics which is so removed from your petty bourgeois mind-set you cannot comprehend it...."

You can fill a washing basket with labels (neo-cons, labor, liberal, islamo-fascist, zionist, communist) - but you'll be ever further from the truth. While blokes like you and I become fixated on the labels, the shoplifters make off with the goods. They have been doing that for the last hundred years of war - and laughing at our gullibility.

Little Johnny Howard cottoned on to that principle - and his corporate mates are set to do very well.

Tell me it's not true!

There are many nations who have suffered extreme poverty. Many, particularly in Asia have or are pulling themselves out of the mire. China South Korea Japan India (not Pakistan) Taiwan.

None of these have resorted to terrorism or hatred of the West.

The least success has been achieved it would seem, by the Islamic nations. If true why is that? Historically it was not always so. But then the people who produced algebra and scientific advances also produced the Karma Sutra. They were a liberal Islamic society.

Nowadays, Marilyn Shephard's views not with standing, far more Muslims have been killed by other Muslims than by American or Israeli bombs. (Darfur Bangla Desh Saddam etc.) Why is that? Any ideas?

And don't blame colonialism or the US invasion. India Japan Taiwan South Korea all made it.

you raise an interesting point logic - but it might b an issue of timing

PatrickM, was wondering where your pseudo-left wing titular originated from? Sounds so much like Leon Trotsky’s bitter depiction of both Lenin and Stalin when they forsook the principle of global dialectical Marxism to call it a social system of the state alone. As you know, Trotsky was finally murdered by Stalin's agents over it.

Of course, the Soviets did expand from a state system when Stalin took over East Europe after WW2. Just as Germany expanded from a state system when late in 1940 it captured pretty well the whole of Europe bar Britain Sweden and Spain.

Also as proven after Germany’s invasion of Poland, Stalin in rather friendly fashion moved into Eastern Poland as if already arranged.

In fact, history books do tell how before Hitler’s attack on Soviet Russia in mid 1941, Stalin had developed a kind of respect for Hitler proven of course by the Pact they had arranged to share Poland.

The point is, when looking back at history, whom can we really trust - as proven these days when a highly mobile military force like Israel can occupy a neighbour at only a moment’s notice. A full frontal attack these days especially from the air, can so much be termed a defensive attack, as GW Bush called his attack on Iraq as one to bring regime change to preserve American freedom. An attack on Iran might be argued the same.

Yet again when we think of international relations even beyond the 20th century, only the prefix has changed from gunboat diplomacy to missile diplomacy.

It is interesting that in my retirement from the farm nearly 33 years ago after a crash course was able to get into university studying history and politics. Seeing the Cold War was still on, found myself studying balance of power theory with an American teacher. Much about how the Americans and Soviets kept their nuclear missile technology as if they were in touch to preserve peace. With both having wandering nuclear-missile equipped subs hard to track guess it was a case of necessity.

Bushbred
1) I always humors me when I hear people talk about a FAIRER UN, removing excess US/western influence etc.

Considering the vastly disproportionate levels of funding, manpower & technology etc supplied by the west, it is only fair it has greater influence.

He who pays the piper calls the tune!

2) I question whether US technology has failed.
Remember Postwar Japan, it went from a feudal militarist society to a modern (model) democratic society-under (largely) US occupation .
I wonder if we then had today’s troupe of reporters & trendy academics if it would have ever happened.
The west is today are too much dominated by short-termism
and a will to find fault with everything.

Relda,
An excellent post –we need to hear more from you.

Amen Horus.. Relda does have a good contribution.

Brushy.. the problem with the UN is not excessive US influence but 'VESTED' interest by all parties concerned. Lobby groups, ranging from the gay lobby (lets remove all discrimination) to the Japanese whaling industry (Lets pay tiny countries to vote FOR an open whaling policy).
So, the absence of the USA would mean the presence of another and all vying for a bigger slice of the world cake for their own tribal interests.

PatrickM your discussion seemed to suggest that the only thing wrong with the Soviet revolution was it being hijacked from the proletarian revolutionaries by 'totalitarian' elements. Well, "Welcome to the reason why no political 'ideology' no matter how ideal will ever work"

Thats why I continually make the statement that the problem is in the human heart.. 'sin' is how the Bible describes it, -Alienation from God.

Psalm 1 kind of says it all

" Blessed is the man
who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked"

History should have revealed to you already PatrickM that todays 'pure revolutionary' is tomorrows capitalist tyrant. Power corrupts, but absolute power corrupts absolutely.
If the underlying philosophy of Marxism is that God is not, then once the revolutionaries have the power, and realize they only have 'one life'..... does it not stand to reason and logic that they would then use that power to make what remaining life they have as enjoyable as possible ? Hence the fundamental flaw of atheistic political philosophies claiming a wider benevolent goal

Horus, Boaz and others,

Surely we can all agree on one point, there are powerful people in the world, people whose monetary and political influence far exceeds that of you or me. Is it such a stretch to believe that these people plot and scheme to maintain their positions of power?

If I were to rob a bank tomorrow, a good deal of money, manpower and skilled detective work would be used to apprehend me. A meticulous investigation would be conducted, all evidence would be considered and no theory would be deemed too outrageous. It is a shame that the same standard of investigation did not apply to the 9/11 attacks.

There are plotters and schemers, there are those with vested interests in the scheming, business, politicians, media conglomerates, and there are those who do not care either way, so long as they have shelter, food material goods and their football team is winning games.

Allegations of 9/11 conspiracies may be greeted with outrage and ridicule from middle class white guys like myself (that is how I first reacted). However, go and tell someone from the Block in Redfern that the US govt. was responsible for 9/11, they won’t be surprised, they are used to being screwed over by authorities and have learnt the hard way that the news media is little more that a script for the power players.

I have experienced this myself with 2 of my good friends. For the last few months I have discussed the overwhelming evidence against the Bush regime with one friend who was educated in a private school and earns a lot of money as an IT expert, its taken some time but he starting to think we could be on to something. My other friend, who grew up in Bogota, Colombia, has little education beyond year 10 and works as a carpet layer just said, ‘yeah, I just assumed it was something like that’

DB, your problem is that you rely far too much on a book written over 2,000 years ago which has little relevance to today's world.
I dont' rely on that book. Many muslims rely on their book, and Jews rely on the torah all of which are books of violence written by men.

Does it occur to people that in Darfur the hatred for the US doesn't exist on the same level because the US is not involved? Now we get to the other places.

The US props up Pakistan which produces the most terrorists in the world but the people hate the US. In Lebanon the US helped Israel plan the demolition based on the deranged notion that Hezbollah was actually doing something to Israel - the records show they had not.

In Palestine the US totally support Israel even though the whole world except the US and Israel and a few Pacific Islands have stated for 50 years that the 1948 borders are the legal borders of Israel and the occupied territories must be given back.

Then the US supported the Taliban, gave the Afghan people Bin Laden and then turned against them. In Iraq they forced the Iraqi people to accept Saddam Hussein then starved, bombed and tormented the civilians for 14 years before bombing them again.

The first car bomb in Iraq can be traced to 22 March 2003 when someone I knew, Paul Moran, was murdered.

Afghanistan had never seen a car bomb now they are regular.

Do you understand why these nations might just hate the US?

We are not talking about Western influence in the UN, Horus, but the problem of dictatorial American influence, which political scientists believe has been the problem with the UN ever since it was reformed from what was left of the League of Nations after WW2.

Little change has happened since. Indeed, just lately with the Israeli Lebanese problem, we might as well say that the UN has been under the command of Condoleeza Rice.

Questions similar to the above, is what caused the German philosopher Immanuel Kant to first bring up the idea of a Federation of Nations when Napoleon declared himself Emperor after breaking the Enlightenment code of Liberty Equality and Fraternity.

The idea of a Federation of Nations was Immanuel Kant’s lack of confidence in not only one person running the world, but even one person under God running the world, a weakness which had been proven so many times through history. Even the Federal body itself must not be chosen by one person, but by a group, as Kant intimated.

Humanity itself does have that physical weakness Kant wrote about, Horus, as was clearly shown in two different camera shots of Condoleeza Rice which I presented in my first OLO in the current programme. First the sombre disappointed look on her face, after failing over talks with Middle East Arab representatives, and in the second the look of joyful relief as she was greeted by the Israelis as she crossed over the border.

Those camera shots to any political philosopher do reveal not only too much cushiness between the US and Israel, but also the cause of much of the present Islamic terrorism and world tension

Don’t know where you study, Horus, because your argument that America should be virtually in command of the UN because she is by far the strongest nation, is like saying that our largest corporation, or even our wealthiest family should have the most say in Australia.

If you don’t mind me asking, mate, concerning the above problem, do you hold a degree in either politics or international relations?

The average standard of living of countries, from which Muslim terrorists (who strike the West) mainly come, has increased over the last 20 years yet terrorism has increased.

Hence there is no correlation between poverty and terrorism.

- Wealthy Arabs from Saudi Arabia and the UAE formed the majority of the 9/11 bombers.

- the al Qaeda leadership includes many professionals - engineers (eg bin Laden), doctors and others from the Arab world.

- I agree with Sage that oil rich Muslim countries have misspent their oil trillions.

- countries producing the most Muslim terrorist who hit the West may be Saudi Arabia and Iran. Would economic aid discussed by the G20 be useful for these countries?

Terrorist say they bomb not because of alleged poverty but as a suicidal protest against Western influence in Muslim countries and Western occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Ankon's rich West vs poor Muslims argument has more to do with his "Bangladeshi-Muslim extraction" than the facts. Bangladesh is simply one of the poorer Muslim countries.

Applying dependency theory (rich West/poor Third Word) to terrorism (particularly homegrown terrorism) therefore doesn't make sense.

Pete
http://spyingbadthings.blogspot.com

Pete, I see by your website that you are in earnest about this terrorism schism.

But I have to say that you have repeated the official fallback line on the hijackers:

"Wealthy Arabs from Saudi Arabia and the UAE formed the majority of the 9/11 bombers."

Mate - can you show me a passenger list from any 9-11 plane with an alleged hijacker's name on it? If not, why would they bother to conceal their names? Does a bloke with one eyebrow sign on as Jock McTavish? The authorities made up the story on the strength of a scrap of paper found in an abandoned van.

- is that good enough for you?

No hijacker turned up on an airport security video.

- is that good enough for you?

No 9-11 plane was forensically identified - nyet - zilch. For the first time in the history of modern airplane crashes, the scraps were not lovingly assembled in a hangar in order to find the telltale serial number on some virtually indestructable part.

- is that good enough for you?

- - -

Grab your spade and come with me to the official passenger lists down this page:

http://s15.invisionfree.com/Loose_Change_Forum/index.php?showtopic=750&st=30

Then to the Social Security Death Index which is mirrored on Rootsweb (it's not perfect, but pretty darn good):

http://ssdi.rootsweb.com/

Now try and see how many passengers from Flights 77 and 93 you can find. This is the best fun since Rubik's Cube, and hey, I always had a secret desire to be a grave robber. I must have read too much Dickens.

Bushbred,
I don’t think I was arguing that the US "SHOULD" control the UN.
Rather, that it’s perceived domination was not surprising, given its disproportionate input.

By all means make the UN more democratic/representative, but make the input/contributions even too. As at the national level, on the international level, too many people/groups/nations want a free ride.

As for my qualifications, they are not going to be disclosed at this point in time.

Chris

My post above was about many aspects of the Article - not just its weakness in view of 9/11.

Thanks for visiting my sight but I say to 9/11 skeptics - its fine presenting innumerable links "as evidence", however, as with anyone trying to prove a major point it needs to be argued in their own words.

As the suggestions of 9/11 skeptics often appear way out - from intentional errors, to massive coverup, to conspiracy, to a joint CIA/Mossad operation, you'd need to write many words indeed to prove your case.

Given the enormity of interactions on 9/11 you'll get strong inconsistences following any theory from official to "CIA did it". It seems to depend on a person's political outlook about which theory they want to believe or followup - and much of that depends on general attitude to the US Government.

If you want to set up your own website (own words) on 9/11 I'll visit it and comment.

Regards

Pete

Chris,

Come on now, be reasonable.

Remember that after those massive fireballs and under all that rubble from the collapsed towers, somebody managed to find the intact passport of one of the alleged terrorists. It must have been hidden under one of the black box recorders.
(I forget, they never found the recorders).

They used personal ID to identify the London bombers too because the security camera footage originally presented could not have been true, due to timetable anomalies on the day. (Except that the ID of one of them was found at two different bomb sites.)

There's probably rational explanations for all this stuff.

I'm really looking forward to seeing it.

While everyone here is flexing their pseudo-intellectual muscles trying to find a politico/scientific argument to the problem of islamic terrorism - no one is talking about a solution.

Major totalitarian ideologies have been squashed before islam. It happened mostly from the people living under those regimes. i.e. people power / revolution.

So why do you look at the "West" or outside the islamic regimes for answers? Muslems are the ones living with the problematic regimes. Terrorism is just their frustration relief which we have to endure until they realise that they must own the problem of their false religion.

Islam, like any other evil before it, has to be exposed for what it really is. The Qur'an is the source of evil and has to be openly scrutinised BY MUSLEMS.

The failure to attack a cancer and eradicate it from its roots is total stupidity.

Draining the swamp will only expose the problem - not cure it.

Marilyn Shephard,

you say that the U.S forced the Iraqi people to accept Saddam Hussein?

How did they do this?

You're not one of those extremist leftists who believe that the U.S are omnipotent and the C.I.A are experimenting on half man half machine soldiers are you?

The U.S didn't install Saddam Hussein, they simply used him. And why shouldn't they, given their aim is to promote stability so they can hock their wears?

Arming Iraq was a great idea, it set the mad mullah's in Iran back 20 years, which is why we are only hearing about their nuclear program now.

The middle-east is a pit of racist tribesmen who can't tolerate each other, it has nothing to do with the west. Saddam Hussein toppled his leader for power, that is their natural state over there, democracy is an alien concept, which, although good to try, it can never work in this region.

As for ending the allure of terrorism, this won't happen either until the populist politics employed in every Muslim nation, that the west is to blame for all their ills, even to blame for the reason their leaders take child-brides, and hang 16 year old girls from cranes for being raped (those immoral wenches!) nothing will change.

But it doesn't help when westerners put forward garbage ideas, as the U.S certainly did not create Saddam Hussein.

The world isn't just us, it's a savage place with cruel, backward cultures who have no concept of tolerance. Better the Americans use such leaders in their interest than have them as an enemy, for then one gets an Iran.

Benjamin,

Sorry to disappoint you but Saddam's rise to power was intimately orchestrated and assisted by the CIA. They got him out of the country after his failed assassination attempt on PM Qassim and later gave him support during his coup.
They also provided him with 600+ names to put on on the subsequent "death list".
Of course they "used him" - that's why he was put there in the first place.

It was the same story for the installation of almost every dictator in Central America (except Cuba)plus a few in Africa as well.

The rise of militant Islam in Iran was the result of their ongoing support for the Shah. By the time he was forced out, he had literally killed of all his moderate opposition so only the fundamentalists were left to take control.

Another famous recruit was Osama Bin Laden, who they used to fight the Russians for them in Afghanistan.

The USA also had good relations with their friends, the Taliban - until they reneged on an oil pipeline contract.

The USA has a long and tragic history of meddling in the affairs of any foreign government it sees as a threat or one that cannot be controlled, but it's only now that their past is beginning to catch up with them.

Anybody who thinks this is just a simple struggle over religious dogma is completely missing the point and probably watches too much TV.

OK Pete and Wobbles - my fault for being obtuse - I was drinking cheap Lambrusco (4lt / $6.99).

This is my point in reverse:

6. The US Government's narrative is just a story - that's all.

5. The case for the 19 brown hijackers with box cutters is totally shonky.

4. Can you give me one scintilla of actual evidence in support the official conspiracy theory that it was done by an Islamic suicide team of brilliantly gifted airline pilots?

3. If not, then why do we waste thousands of postings to dozens of threads in support of an unproven idea?

2. Are we breathing life into an idea which has no basis in reality?

1. Who would want us to do that?

Chris,

The laws of the paralell universe that you live in do not seem to apply here. Logic, reason and clear as day evidence is completley ignored in this universe, we have been told a million times about the evils of OBL and the fact that he is responsbile for 9/11. This makes it now true, despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

To finish, some words from a modern political activist you may not of heard of.

'weapons, not food, not homes not shoes, not need, just feed the war cannibal animal. I walk the road down to the rubble, that used to be a library, line up for the mind cemetery now. What we don't know keeps the contracts alive and moving, they don't gotta burn the bookss they just remove them. While arms warehouses fill as quick as the cells, rally around the family, pocket full of shells.'

Zach De la Rocha.

Special for Rache, Carl and Chris...the 'GANG OF 3':)

Now let me tell you a thing or two !(I have Joh's hat on right now)

1/ All that you say about the CIA, is undoubtedly true, but in all honesty it is the 'degree' which is probably the fuzziest.
2/ All that is true of the CIA is EQUALLY true of every regime that has ever been.

Why ? simple, they are at the coal face of national survival. The old tribalism has NEVER died, its still with us. (another reason to be VERY suspicious of such absurd inventions as 'multiculturalism')
Every tribe is vyying for control, and greater influence. Why you mob single out the Yanks and Brits is beyond my imagination, because I simply repeat my oft stated question "To WHOM do you point as a better, purer, and less ugly alternative"

I think that until you can, its best not to keep on whining about the evils of Western Intelligence agencies as they are looking after YOUR interests and security. For every CIA agent there was KGB one..right ? etc etc etc.

Now.. you all know where I stand.. I DO have an alternative -and its Life in Christ. That immediately lifts us out of this grisley human quagmire of evil. In Christ, we are one with brothers and sisters in Russia, America, England, Iran, Palestine, South America.. EVery where.
I cannot and will not say that 'When Christians are in power, things will be ok' because we all know thats not the case. Reason ? Christ's kingdom is not of this world. Plus, Christian emperors are exposed to very powerful people who do not share the same principles. (Study the Cromwell experience)

But I don't see any value in ripping into the CIA "ALONE".
Thrash senseless ALL Intelligence agencies from ALL countries. But I promise, it will eventually come full circle back to.....ourselves :)

BD,

Ill try and explain for you. We are undoubtedly amongst the luckiest people in the world, as are all middle class westerners. Access, to food, healthcare and some level of freedom are luxuries that the large majority of people in the world are not lucky enough to have. Of course, you are already aware of this.

We are privvy to these luxuries because of a complicated mix of history, luck and politics. America gave the world something pretty special when they conceived the idea of a nation based on democracy and freedom (however far from reality that dream was is irrelevant).

Now tell me BD, how do you expect the despotic regimes in China, Norht Korea, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia, Sudan or elsewhere to respect democracy when the most powerful nation in the world, and the so called western democracies behave in such an anti-democratic ways?

Why do I single out the CIA? Because they are the ones in the best position to change things. I DO despise the despots in the developing world as much as I do Bush and Cheney, but I criticise the US the most because they are in a position to make the world a better place, most despots can't feed there own people

The allure of terrorism will never be completely gotten rid of. Look at how many nutty Christian groups there are and some of the stupid things they do e.g. the Jones town suicides and David Koresh. If living in a 1st world civilised country does not destroy extreme Christianity what hope is there for Islam? At least extreme Christians don’t run around killing innocent people in the name of Jesus Christ.

Australians can look forward to many centuries of being worried about people blowing themselves up in the name of Allah in our cities and we can thank our good friend multiculturalism for that! Who would dare saying anything bad about multiculturalism

The US has worked continuously to maintain a tyrannous swamp in the Middle East since WW2 (while rhetorically being for democracy); the left have always argued against these policies.

Currently the pseudo-left argues against the new policies of ‘draining the swamp’ and genuinely getting behind the revolutionary struggle for bourgeois democracy and pretends that the US ruling elite have not reversed the rotten policies that led to 9/11, but are carrying-on as ever. (installing puppets and stealing oil etc.)

Yet even the pseudo-left can see that the US foreign policy establishment are furious that their life’s work has been junked and they are opposing these new policies from an openly rightwing standpoint. Where will it all end is their great worry. How can we put Humpty Dumpty together again they wonder.

Well as the effort to undo the damage of sixty years of rotten policy in Iraq is demonstrating, even when they are on the side of vast majority of the Iraqi peoples', the effort is enormous. To try to hold the people's struggles back anywhere would now (forty years after the Vietnamese showed how diminished imperialism is) be ridiculous.

Thus they shout a lot at Iran while having no capacity to go to war with them. Even with the Iranian ruling theocrats hated by their own people the only possible way of them avoiding being overthrown by their own people is if the US launched a war against them. Iran will be liberated by the Iranian masses observing the freedoms enjoyed by their Iraqi neighbors.

The pseudo-left is laughable. Iraq is seen by them as a disaster and last year's elections are ignored; GWB is seen as having led the US into a quagmire; peculiar comparisons are made with the Vietnam war, where the US were determined to prevent elections because they knew that the communists would win and Iraq where they fostered elections that would obviously bring to power political parties that are Iraq’s equivalent of Lebanon’s Hezbollah.

The policy of keeping Saddam in power is held up as progressive. Give me a break.

BD,
I can't speak for the rest of my gang but the reason I "singled out" the CIA is because in this topic, it's their over the years that are partly responsible for the mess we are in today.

They have created more despotic regimes that have cost more lives of innocents than any covert other group I can name, and they don't do it for National Security - it's done primarily to create new economic opportunities for business.

As well as their involvement in the overthrow of democratically elected governments they've been involved in arms deals and drug running to raise funds as well as numerous political assassinations. They fund and promote international terrorist groups when required. The end always justifies the means.

While all countries may have covert groups, none even come close to having the influence or history of the CIA (except perhaps Mossad over the last few decades).

You also seem to use the same logical arguments as our politicians.
It's OK if we torture 100 for example, as long as they torture 101. That obviously makes us better than them.

Oh, and the reason that there is not likely to be any "Christian governments" real soon is that government is all about compromise while theocracy, by definition, does not permit it.
It's historically better for fundamentalist groups to remain anonymous and stay behind the scenes where they don't have to answer difficult public questions, although there has been an obvious drift toward it in the West lately, as a way to promote self-righteousness in what is portrayed as a religious war. Theocracy has worked so very well for Iran, just as the Inquisition did for Europe in the past.

The unexpected swipe at multiculturalism is also interesting. I wonder if heaven is divided into distinct racial or cultural areas or will we all have to agree to abide by identical values.

Perhaps if the Jews all assimilated and dressed and behaved as their Roman rulers did a couple of thousand years ago, things would have been much better for us all today.

Rache,

I don't buy that the CIA orchestrated Saddam's rise to power, there is a lot more to it than that, but I do completely agree that the CIA does do this around the world, in particular, in South America.

I would say to that such actions are neccessary where they do happen.

Throwing out all the politics for a moment, let's look at nations the "evil Americans" have occupied:

Japan & Germany after WWII, both on their knees after their aggressive takeover bid, both subdued by a superior force. Why did the US allow Japan and Germany to get up?

Japan today is what Iraq, if all the intolerant bigots there got over their tribalism, could become. Do you not see the logic in wanting a world where every nation is open and democratic, in the western sense?

I know that you may argue that the US stops democracy, as it did in Chile by killing a democratically elected communist leader, but again, I say that is totally acceptable.

Despite the rabid leftists like Phillip Adams admirality for such a system, would such deceiving people actually live in Cuba, Soviet Russia, East Germany?

I believe that the western world has a mandate, that given all human traffic flows desire to live in the open, tolerant west, that we have a right to shape the world into our type of society.

One can see the obvious failures of not doing this, with North Korea. Contrast the North with the South (where the "evil US" went) and you will see, if your open to it, there is no choice but western style democracy.

I say western style because we've seen in Palestine, a terrorist organisation voted in democratically. This couldn't happen in a state that didn't control the media, the people's minds, as they have been bred to be so racist they believe all their ills are the wests fault, even though it is we, only we, not Arab govt's, that feed them, pay for their police, and so on.

rache

"Perhaps if the Jews all assimilated and dressed and behaved as their Roman rulers did a couple of thousand years ago, things would have been much better for us all today."

Actually most of them did. It was the Roman rulers who copied the Jewish faith. They called it Christianity.

Islam and the occupation of Iraq, Egypt Palestine etc by people from Arabia occured 700 years later. I don't think any of this has anything to do with terrorism or the problems amongst Muslims. We have seen murderous wars between sections of Islam as we did much earlier on between Christians.

In recent times Sudan has seen some of the worst conflict and Israel Jews and Christians are not involved. And there was the Iran/Iraq war.

All of the nations which declare themselves as Islamic have despotic governments and extreme poverty. All have awful human rights records. There is a problem. It matters to us directly because innocent Astralians have been murdered in mass by those who have proclaimed themselves as followers of Islam. I think and hope that they are wrong in taking the name of Mahommet to justify their actions.

But they are there none the less. And when they invade our world it affects us. We need a solution. Short term to stop them killing us and long term to put an end to the horror.

Benjamin,

Saddam's rise to power-
http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/51/217.html
http://www.representativepress.org/CIASaddam.html
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/EL17Ak01.html

Here's a summary of what the CIA have been up to for the last 50 years -
http://www.atrocities.net/

And a couple more -
http://www.betterworldlinks.org/book73e.htm
http://www.neravt.com/left/cia.html

Post-War Germany and Japan had to recover for commercial reasons, if not political. Would you prefer that we continue to pay to support them forever?

Logic,

A quick check of the facts would show you that there are already 15 Muslim democratic nations in the world and not all of them are in extreme poverty.

There were a couple of very big "Murderous Wars", and lots of smaller ones between Christians over the last 100 years - in fact almost all of them.

The situation in Sudan is more an ongoing civil war than a war between states, much like the slaughter in Rwanda during 1994.
(except that Sudan is 70% Muslim while Rwanda is 93% Christian).

Also, what you see as modern democracy is more typically a duopoly or oligarchy. There is a subtle but very significant difference.
Do Western Governments control the media or vice-versa? I don't think either option is a good idea in a "free society".

To the author

Thank you for an interesting and thought provoking article. I have also enjoyed reading all of the posts. I do not know enough about the subject to comment.

Cheers

Quite so Benjamin.

For those of you not old enough to remember, here's an event a little closer to home:

http://www.cia.com.au/vic/cia.60min.txt

More here:

http://www.cia.com.au/vic/cia.html

- of course we're friends, so when they squeeze our nuts they do it with kid gloves. No blood on the carpet as long as we toe the party line.

You say, "Jump!" We say, "How high?"

Enjoy the read -

Sorry Rache.

I meant to compliment you on the nice set of links you posted.

Thankyou -

Marilyn Shepard seems to spend a lot of time pontificating and not much time directly engaging the arguments of those who criticize her. She was so condescending toward me, yet I'm still waiting for a reply.

..."little is done to discourage the supply of terrorists", you say Ankon - and it looks like this will do little to help either...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1892888,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=1

rache

"A quick check of the facts would show you that there are already 15 Muslim democratic nations in the world"

Sorry if I got things wrong. Please enlighten me by naming these fifteen nations. I do not count a country as democratic if any of the seats in the main house of parliament are reserved for groups such as the army, or clerics of a particular religion, or if the electorate is deliberately skewed towards particular religious groups.

I was also refering to nations which declare themselves as Islamic as opposed to nations which have a Muslim majority but allow equality to all.

I think your views regarding the media and goverment are too cynical. People in western democratic nations do remove leaders if they are not satisfied with the results. And that is very important. It does keep the leaders on their toes.

The following, written by a Muslim, illustrate just how fuzzy the borders are. A Muslim can be an American patriot, just as equally, any one Jewish is able to support a pluraristic and open society, just as any one on the left of politics as any on the right can value the ideals as contained in an open democracy. The extremists within any group identify and operate only in a narrow political vacuum, engaging only those of similar rabid and narrow persuasion.

“My pride in faith and country remain rock solid. But my real life American dream often feels more like a nightmare these days. Renegade members of my faith are committing horrendous acts of global terrorism, and I am left embarrassed and angry.

I am embarrassed when I read the names of the terrorists in the newspaper. What must non-Muslims think when some criminal claiming to act in the name of Islam and bearing the same name as the Prophet Muhammad is arrested?

I am also embarrassed that not all American Muslims do all they can to expose those in our community who would commit mayhem or would give succor in any way to those who would cause harm. Too many American Muslims hold back from publicly speaking out against extremist ideologies that threaten us all because they fear being stigmatized by their coreligionists for cooperating with security agencies.”
Osman Siddique September 1, 2006
http://www.aifdemocracy.org/policy-issues.php

relda,

If you believe in this form of propaganda you must be a greater fool than the American public who might fall for: "Islam is compatible with our western democracy mantra..."

The real embarrassment is to continue to follow a religion that has at its core the destruction of the non-muslem world. i.e. the very country that they now live in.

Islam has many ways of “infiltration” into new territories. Terrorism is but one of them.

To be a Muslem is to support this kind of ideology - don't tell us that when hundreds of American Muslems (and Australian Muslems) cheered and rejoiced when the Twin Towers collapsed other Muslems were a bit embarrassed about their jubilation.

America in the mind of a Muslem is synonymous with Christian and Jewish infidel scum. Israel presence is but a daily reminder of that intolerable hatred that is inoculated in the hearts of all Muslems by Islamic governments through their education systems.

Mohammad had one goal in mind when he stumbled on the idea of a new religion from Allah, and that is to convert the world (as he knew it then) to Islam – the last and perfect religion that was to replace all other religions before it.

Mohammad was in fact establishing a territorial kingdom with no borders for Allah – thinking that he had a mandate from God to do so.

What we see today is the application of his teachings, taken literally or figuratively they still mean one thing: world domination and supremacist intolerant mob mentality against the evil of freedom and democracy.

Islam cannot survive (although it will make us believe that it does) under any other foreign regimes.

Islam IS a political vacuum that operates beautifully in its bubble without the need for any outside influence to prosper and grow. True Muslems will only respond to and have a respect for their own Islamic laws.

So the concept of separation of state and mosque is an anathema in Islam. To retain the control of their flocks, Imams must use the state power to implement their religious laws.

Coach,
Your typifying of all Muslims as believing in, or having sympathy with an ideology of violent Jihad, is dangerously narrow. By your polemic, I’m dangerously naïve - so we’ll just have to survive such as impasse.

I can only state further, there is every reason to believe the fanatics within the ‘House of Islam’ share total contempt for the acculturated Muslim communities within Western communities. The extreme form of this puritanical Islam does not represent all Muslims today – just as Fundamentalist Christianity doesn’t represent Christian diversity.

There are two ways in which contemporary Muslim culture, Arab or non-Arab, inadvertently feeds these extreme trends. First, since the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the onslaught of colonialism, Islamic intellectuals have busied themselves with the task of "defending Islam" by rampant apologetics. This has produced a culture that eschews self-critical and introspective insight and embraces projection of blame and a fantasy-like level of confidence and arrogance. The same ideological parallel exists within rampant forms of Christianity – fortunately ‘moderate’ Christianity abounds, despite this affliction. At least the fundamentalist "puritans" around the world are consistent. Jerry Falwell and Osama bin Laden agree: America deserves to suffer. I imagine these like-minded thinkers singing "God Is Great" and "God Bless America" in harmony.

The voice of these Western Muslim communities must be listened to rather than the voice that is heard most loudly in the world umma. Rather than the enemy within, the Muslims of the West should be seen as the ally within. The following ‘propaganda’, from Muslim pen, spreads also the same ‘propaganda’ a Christian might preach:
“It [Peace] comes into being when human beings honour the divine imperative to live justly, learn to be just to themselves and to others. Constant striving is required to overcome the fragmentation to which most human beings are subjected in the technological age and also to eliminate sexism, racism, classism, and all forms of totalitarianism which lead to the injustices and inequities which characterize the world in which we live. To engage in such striving is the purpose of a Muslim's/ [Christians’] life.” R.Hissan

Lets not give them a righteous title by calling them Terrorists or by stating that one mans terrorist is another mans freedom fighter.How about we tell it like it is to the families of thier victims.Lets call them MURDERERS instead