"A year later, in a combined CIA/Mossad operation, a powerful car bomb went off at the entrance to the house of Hizbullah’s spiritual leader, Sheikh Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah. Seventy-five people were killed."
Whether this is true or not, I don't know what to believe anymore.
posted on September 23, 2001 08:06:40 PM
No Gravid. Remember that I even pleaded to save Tim McVeigh, however, he was in prison where we could watch him. This is a bit different.
I DO wish we could get people out who are innocent, harmless, and still accomplish the task at hand. There is no justice in killing babies any more than there is justice in letting terrorist run loose.
I don't have a solution any more than you do.
T
And yes, if we could save innocents, and we destroy their home or food source, it is absolutely our responsibility to help them recover what we can. If every person in the US gave up their 5th pair of shoes the money would likely be more than enough to feed them all. We are a selfish and wasteful and arrogant nation who flaunts it and that's why the world hates us. It's not because we are free.
posted on September 23, 2001 08:24:58 PMkrs: the majority of us *do* acknowledge that US actions in the middle east generated the anger that fueled the terrorists. But that does not excuse their actions on September 11. It was an act of war, and for people to think that the US should do nothing about it is ludicrous. They will do it again if we don't take action.
Not indiscriminate action--we need to find the perpetrators and move against them. And, unfortunately, if the people sheltering them refuse to give them up, they must share in what will happen.
What bothers me is that our government keeps saying that it has definite proof that bin Laden is repsonisble. But they won't show that evidence. The Arab & Muslim people's are saying "we will back you if you show us the proof" and doing so would make everything a whole lot easier. So why doesn't Bush show his proof? Is there proof?
I am all for taking out those who are responsible--but I ardently hope that we take out the right ones.
posted on September 23, 2001 08:40:28 PMHere, Bunnicula.
In any case, this isn't small claims court. The U.S. doesn't need to offer proof. Really irrelevant. This is war, we've identified the guilty party as this man who leads a terrorist network. This terrorist network is intimately tied in with other ones. For example, it is known that his Al Quaeda group trains Hamas fighters. Hamas is in bed with Hizballah (you know, the guys who blew up 240 Marines twenty years ago), who are financed and funded by Iran and Syria etc. It's one big, ugly chain and the usual suspects along with some new ones are all part of this cancer.
posted on September 23, 2001 08:44:24 PM
How credible will the "proof" be?
It has already been reported that many, if not all, the hijackers were using stolen identities, therefore how can they be traced or tracked back to the entity from where they originated?
posted on September 23, 2001 08:47:15 PM
Actually, Janes is a pretty credible source. But let's put it in context:
It was the assassination of one man in March 1984 that is said to have made Mughniyeh the CIA’s most wanted terrorist. Mughniyeh allegedly kidnapped the head of the CIA station in Beirut, William Buckley. The kidnapping triggered what later became known as ‘Irangate’, when the Americans tried to exchange Buckley (and others) with arms for Iran. However, the attempt ended in a fiasco. By one unconfirmed account, Mughniyeh tortured and killed Buckley with his own hands.
A year later, in a combined CIA/Mossad operation, a powerful car bomb went off at the entrance to the house of Hizbullah’s spiritual leader, Sheikh Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah. Seventy-five people were killed. One of them was his brother. Hunted by the CIA and the Mossad, Mughniyeh hid in Iran.
posted on September 23, 2001 09:40:33 PM
Well Bunnicula. A glimmer of agreement.
Regardless the extent of the 'cancer' as James put it, and even though Bin Laden may be replaced, he is enough of a figurehead for most all of the factions associated with him that taking him would go far in curtailing this entire muslim movement. Though it's very doubtful that if taken Laden could be forced or persuaded to denounce his own group or any group's activity in this, it does begin to seem to me that if a manner of treatment and death so demeaning and abhorrant to the guiding faith of all fundalistic Muslims could be devised for him it should be done without regard to any principal of justice or law or western morality because doing so in such a manner may very well deter others from continuing to follow in his footsteps. Apparently this is a person in possession of whatever qualities it takes to create an aura of charismatic awe in others for him and the destruction of that perception, the removal from him of any elements which give a sort of holy stature to him would work to take the wind from the sails of the entire movement. I'm not familiar enough with muslim faith or religious practice to know what sort of things such treatment need entail, but whatever it is, do it.
posted on September 23, 2001 10:34:56 PMThe U.S. doesn't need to offer proof.
We do if we expect other nations to support us in any military action.
We do if the government doesn't want any military action taken on this to be another Vietnam. We lost *that* war because it didn't have the wholehearted support of the American people. Because they didn't believe that it was a just war. Right now anger is high & people are screaming for blood. But when push comes to shove, the majority of Americans will want to know that any warfare is just. Yes, bin Laden is a terrorist. Yes, *my* first thought was that he must have been behind September 11 events. But...what if *I* am wrong on that? What if, in this instance, he's *not* the perpetrator? What if it were a South American group? Or (and I sincerely hope not) an American group?
By all means, I want military action taken. But I want it taken against the right group. The government should lay its cards on the table as soon as possible. Show the American public its proof. Show the world our proof.
Because I fear that if the US bulls ahead and takes military action without deigning to show proof that we will be not only *more* hated by non-allies, but that we will lose important allies we have now. And the time is past when a nation can stand alone without allies.
posted on September 23, 2001 10:45:28 PM
Proof? Uh, we don't need a scintilla of proof that Bin-Laden is connected with these attacks. If one remembers, Osama is already indicted for multiple other crimes. We were entirely within our rights to capture and extradate him prior to 9/11.
krs: You are very long on talk of what we shouldn't do but mum on what exactly we should do. What does your experienced military mind see as our plan of action?
posted on September 23, 2001 10:56:09 PM
Very wise advice Bunnicula.
T
Daily Manna for Sept 24, 2001
"This is what the LORD Almighty says: `Administer true justice; show mercy
and compassion to one another. Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the alien or the poor. In your hearts do
not think evil of each other.' (Zechariah 7:9-10 NIV)
posted on September 23, 2001 11:04:01 PM
Huh? Cooltom, see my previous post. It was made with the assumption that bin laden is central to much of the muslim actions even if not directly involved in this latest.
posted on September 23, 2001 11:18:29 PM
We killed Che Guevara -- did Cuba fall?
Ho Che Minh died in 1969 -- did North Vietnam surrender?
Osama is merely a poster boy. In the hierachy he is merely a Colonel at best. There are 100s that can replace him. In fact, he has his counterparts in nearly every Mideast nation. Agreed?
Uh, the "experienced military mind" was sarcasm. Are you a Vietnam Vet, do tell...
posted on September 23, 2001 11:37:49 PM
Actually, according to a program I was watching yesterday, Bin-Laden has named a successor should anything happen to him (sorry, I don't remember the person's name).
posted on September 24, 2001 12:15:46 AM
I suspect that "the choosing of the hour" of our response is not just for the sake of positioning our troops abroad.If the rest of the country is as prepared as Wash.DC was on the 11th,we have some serious holes to plug.
The plane that hit the Pentagon could have taken out any number of targets.The Emergency Broadcasting System failed and local authorities admitted that in some cases they were ad-libbing.If the NATION'S CAPITOL has these kinds of holes.. just how safe is the rest of the country? YOUR city?
In any event bin Laden AND Sadam Hussain must go...regardless of their involvement in this most recent evil.We can't share a world with the likes of this kind of evil.
The inability to finish off these two fanatics earlier is most likely why we must now make plans to bury almost SEVEN THOUSAND CIVILIANS !! The evil twins above serve as role models for future generations of this terrorist movement.It is my hope that they get to meet their god soon...AND that their god has horns,a long red tail,pitchfork in hand... and..... a veil ! Reap what ya sow.
"You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it; and those who brought war into our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out." William Tecumseh Sherman 1864
..and another Sherman quote.
"If the people raise a howl against my barbarity and cruelty, I will answer that war is war and not popularity-seeking. If they want peace, they and their relatives must stop the war."
posted on September 24, 2001 07:01:46 AM
jt - I respect your desire. Once when I was young if someone had killed my wife and ran into a house and I followed and came upon him sitting on the couch with his twin brother I would have been stopped cold by all the moral problems. Now I would shot them both without hesitation and search the house to make sure they were not triplets. I have gotten to the point were if you don't have any neat clean solutions you do what you need to do and make sure if the price has to be high you do a jolly good job of it. That comes from a life of finding these messy problems where nobody will allow you a painless way out.
posted on September 24, 2001 09:30:39 AM
Jamesoblivian, I missed your following comments yesterday.
<quote>
"Helen, you may not be grateful but it will be your safety and security that will be fought for as well."
<end quote>
Grateful for what? Grateful that thousands of more people are killed in a quest for bin Ladin or a few terrorists. No, I will not be grateful for that. Although you may try to justify the battle with this rhetoric, our saftey and security will actually be further diminished by such a battle. I don't value my personal safety over that of thousands.
<quote>
"It is the mentality of a slave or a damaged rape victim who blames themselves after they have been struck unjustly."
<end quote>
How can you equate an unjust strike or rape to the unjust killing of 7,000 innocent people by a murderous terrorist system with an infrastructure involving terrorists operating in 60 countries including the United states? Don't you think that it would be wise to understand why these people hate our country with such ferocity? Do you really think that eliminating a few terrorists will solve the root problem?
posted on September 24, 2001 10:01:01 AM
Certainly I do not advocate getting a few terrorists.
I advocate 'getting' all terrorists, their leaders, foot soldiers, collaberators, financial companies that make their operations possible, heads of states which prop them up and harbour them and the infrastructures and armies of those states, whether these people and organizations I listed number in the thousands or hundreds of thousands or more. These aren't innocents that I advocate 'getting'. Only guilty people who threaten me.
If in your view the 'root causes' of terrorism against American civilians includes such dastardly deeds as American defense of Saudi Arabia from Iraqi aggression and you view that as some kind of a negative policy, there really isn't much we can discuss. That's just bizarre, that you find the following view so persuasive: Bin Laden views the presence of infidel U.S. troops in Arabia, the holy soil on which Muhammad tread as sacrilegous. I wonder why he doesn't also view the spilling of Arab blood on holy Arabian soil, which would be the sure result of us leaving there as sacrilegous?
I'll give you a hint; it's because he's a sick person and it's maybe very noble of you to view your own personal security as a less worthy goal than his goal -- to kill you, and to destablize the world and to inflict death upon thousands or even millions.
Answer me this; why is it that Osama bin Laden trained Somali militias to fight American troops who went there to feed famine stricken people and nothing more? No one can make a persuasive case that America sent troops to Somalia for any reason but for a purely humanitarian motive. If you remember, we were treated to ghastly images for months of the situation there and the American people simply demanded that the U.S. save these people from digesting their own bodies. Obviously there was no military advantage in occupying Somalia, which let's face it, isn't exactly a very strategic corner of the world.
What was his advantage in doing that? What 'root cause', what abhorrent U.S. foreign policy do you discern in our efforts to simply feed babies with swollen stomachs covered by sores?
Do you know, well, anything about terrorism in general (the means through which militarily weaker totalitarian states wage war on the Western democracies) and Islamist fundementalism, the instrument they are exploiting for that purpose? Have you at all read Osama bin Laden's programme?
posted on September 24, 2001 10:25:51 AMI advocate 'getting' all terrorists, their leaders, foot soldiers, collaberators, financial companies that make their operations possible, heads of states which prop them up and harbour them and the infrastructures and armies of those states, whether these people and organizations I listed number in the thousands or hundreds of thousands or more. These aren't innocents that I advocate 'getting'.
Well, since you seem to be convinced that the majority of the Islamic world is against us and wants to see us all dead, how would you suggest we proceed? In your posts in my "Are we being hypocrites" thread, you made it clear that you saw this as a cultural problem, dating back well before the 11th century. Shall we just invade and occupy the entire mideast? Or would it be easier to just carpet bomb the entire region to rubble?
And if it isn't the entire [or even the majority] of the Islamic world that you want to "get", how would you recommend we tell the "good" Moslems apart from the "bad" ones? Shoot them all and let God sort things out, perhaps? Interview them one by one and ask them if they harbor any ill will towards America, Christians, and Western civilization in general?
Barry
---
The opinions expressed above are for comparison purposes only. Your mileage may vary....
posted on September 24, 2001 10:53:26 AM
Not at all. It's definitely not the majority of the Islamic world that is intrinsicly against us. Most of the Islamic world isn't in the Middle East, to begin with. Indonesia is the most populous Islamic country in the world, for example. Pakistan, which we may be facing problems from in the near or not so near future, has 140 million Muslims. We've had good relations and under the right conditions that can continue. India also has almost 140 million Muslims. There are millions of Muslims in Eastern European countries. Turkey is a very large Islamic country that is basically democratic and western. Taken as a whole, the majority of Muslims in the world are not of this mentality. I'm not saying they aren't likely to be sympathetic with their coreligionists if the battle lines are successfully drawn as "Crusaders vs Islam" (which is exactly what people like bin Laden are doing their hardest to portray), but it's nowhere near as dire as "one billion fanatics against America -- to the death!"
Not at all. I never blamed it on Islam. What we're facing is a particular brand of Islam (that happens to be extremely popular in the Middle East and that must be stopped). It is viewed a a very pure form of Islam that hearkens back to the spirit of Islam under Muhammad. Whether they are correct according to their reading of the Koran or not isn't the point. The point is that this brand of Islamist (the term is generally used instead of 'Islamic' to distinguish) fundementalism is a threat to the entire western world. This view does depict this as a battle between black and white.
I don't for one minute think that folks like Saddam are really so pious, but they are savvy enough to arm and abet a few fanatical warlords, the same way the Soviets exploited Palestinian statelessness. Why? To destabilize and topple the western world. Why do you think Assad Jr. thought to tell Pope John Paul II in May, in a state visit that "The Jews try to kill the principle of religions in the same mentality in which they betrayed Jesus Christ and the same way they tried to betray and kill the Prophet Muhammad." What, is Assad a theologian? No, he's a bigot but more important a despot. He thought perhaps he could tap into the deicide canard which the Catholic Church did away with and gain a billion Catholic allies. Create common ground, in other words. Nice try, Bashar.
As I've previously pointed out, I am sure bin Laden thinks he is using Saddam and those like him. The reality is, Saddam is using people like him. Saddam can't send missiles to America. He can't reach. He can't directly order a terrorist action like the one on 9/11. That would invite real fire and brimstone onto his head.
Instead, he and those like him can use their proxy warriors like Osama. The result? The damage is the same and we now have bleeding hearts whining about 'proof' and whether we should "stoop" to anyones level. Saddam and those like him are grinning all the way to our future destruction.
But Islam itself? Nothing of the sort. It's the 21st century and 21st century Islam can co-exist with anyone. We have millions of Muslims in America who are not terrorists or sympathetic to terrorists. America defended Kosovar Muslims from genocide who now wave American flags. America fed Somali Muslims who were caught in a famine. Turkey and Israel are allies. Strange bedfellows? Evidently not.
[ edited by jamesoblivion on Sep 24, 2001 10:54 AM ]
posted on September 24, 2001 10:57:57 AM
Knowing how your enemy thinks is a number one priority in an effort to defend your position. Going in with blazing fire will not solve the problem. A military response will only invite retaliation and serve to recruit even more terrorists to bin Ladins cause. Gorillas thrive on such confrontation.
I do know that war and killing innocent people is sick. On that point we agree. And going to war with Afganistan and Pakistan and Iraq will not make a dent in bin Ladins operation. Anybody who believes that is naive.
posted on September 24, 2001 11:13:19 AMWhat we're facing is a particular brand of Islam (that happens to be extremely popular in the Middle East and that must be stopped)
Well, maybe if you could define "extremely popular"? It still sounds like you are talking about the majority of Moslems in the Middle East.
How do you "stop" an extremely popular "brand" of Islam? How do you identify which Moslems ascribe to that particualr "brand" or not? And how do we stop other Moslems from coverting to that "brand" when they see what we have been doing?
Barry
---
The opinions expressed above are for comparison purposes only. Your mileage may vary....
posted on September 24, 2001 11:58:28 AMDon't you think that it would be wise to understand why these people hate our country with such ferocity?
I know! Let's hold international seminars and symposiums to understand terrorist motivations. Let's commission some scholarly papers on the subject. Let's send in Jesse Jackson to talk to the terrorists, to get inside their heads.
Meanwhile the terrorists can continue shopping for crop duster planes to disperse anthrax, smallpox, Serin (or whatever they have in their bag of tricks) over our cities.
The time has come and gone for the stop-them-with-understanding approach. The FBI has confirmed that Mohammed Atta, one of the Trade Center hijackers, and a couple of his Middle Eastern cohorts, visited a Florida crop-dusting firm on several occasions previous to the WTC attack.
"He was asking a lot of questions about how much fuel they haul, how fast they go, how much they hold," the company's general manager, Willie Lee, said.
Know how many might die if they were to fly over a city and release a disease? Not thousands this time.
Millions.
This isn't a fantasy. The facts are there. The terrorists were checking out the planes. Maybe it didn't happen this time. But the chances are greater than ever now that it will. It seems like only a matter of time.
posted on September 24, 2001 12:15:45 PM
If you buy into the party line that going and 'getting' all of the terrorists has a chance in hell of succeeding, shame on your niavette. The terrorist movement in the middle east against the United States is a result of this country's policy of interference in theirs. The only sure way to remove ourselves from their persistant angst is to remove ourselves from all meddling in the affairs of the middle east, including Isreal.
posted on September 24, 2001 12:27:55 PMThe terrorist movement in the middle east against the United States is a result of this country's policy of interference in theirs.
No. It's not about "politics". It's about "religion". In fact, Al Queda has targeted Islamic regimes as well. And America is not the only country on their list. JamesOblivian has it right.
posted on September 24, 2001 12:29:47 PMThe only sure way to remove ourselves from their persistant angst is to remove ourselves from all meddling in the affairs of the middle east, including Isreal.
Get rael, Ken!
---
The opinions expressed above are for comparison purposes only. Your mileage may vary....
posted on September 24, 2001 12:30:12 PMkrsThe only sure way to remove ourselves from their persistant angst is to remove ourselves from all meddling in the affairs of the middle east, including Isreal
That seems reasonable. I don't see how terrorists would dare try and manipulate the US in the future if we apply that train of thought.
