On 7/12/05, Dan Minette <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote a bunch of stuff. I will slowly get to it.
PBS Frontline had an excellent show tonight on the Europeans fighting terrorists. Some of what I thought were highlights. A big split between how the Europeans are handling terrorism and America. Europe does primarily treat it as a police problem and has been pretty successful, despite the major bombings including London. Sixty-eight plots had been stopped, some bigger than 9/11. (Several people complained about Bush and the lack of cooperation with America but I will ignore Bush, he is now just an ineffective incompetent lame duck.) Spain has a policy of holding terrorists up to four years without charges because of the need to keep this web of virus-like cells from operating and the difficulty in making some cases. Complaints of the Americans still having an 80's model of terrorists with a more formal structure. A major terrorist in Germany on trial will probably win because the US will not provide Gitmo prisoners to testify against him. Even if they were provided their testimony may be ruled inadmissible because of the possibility of torture. Someone from the CIA noted that since the 90's - starting with Clinton, the CIA had to decide how to treat terrorists because there has been no direction from the White House. The CIA decided they had a preventative role, primarily adopting the policy of shipping captives to countries most likely to keep them locked up and provide more information through interrogation. The biggest threat may not be directly al Qaeda but an Egyptian inspired group which advises not following the Koran or Muslim teachings. They have a theory of special dispensation because of the mission they are on where it is more important to blend in to strike at enemies. Nearly all terrorists are not very religious but have been radicalized students and young professionals, often engineers. This is a political extremist movement but they want to create a Muslim religious network of states. Does this make it a religious movement? I don't think so but am not sure - we have such a blending and blurring of the lines between political and religious fundamentalist groups now, not only within Islam but with American Dominionists and Indian fundamentalist Hindus. Europeans seem to hold that the terrorists are seeking to reestablish the Great Caliphate when Arabs were the major political and intellectual Empire. This is similar to the view expressed by many others here but not expressed by officials on the program were the racial and religious bigotry I normally hear by those writing or speaking of this. More directly to Dan: Interesting contradiction in the Weekly Standard: I can't ignore the irony of calling Gitmo "kind" which is only possible by the comparison to secret CIA facilities. "But neither the CIA facilities, nor the far more open, regulated, and by most accounts kind Guantanamo jail, are likely to have made us less safe by boosting the recruitment of holy warriors. It's possible that the humiliating image of these prisons is somewhere in the cauldron that makes for death-wish holy warriors. Not enough time has passed to allow us to know for sure one way or the other." But then it argues: "However, it is far more reasonable to suppose, given the history of al Qaeda and of the first generation of holy warriors, that the prison's closure would be seen on Islamic extremist websites--the ones *New York Times* columnist Thomas Friedman is rightly terrified of--as an enormous boon to militants." Somehow it misses the point that both views are true - now that we have it and the world knows about our vaulted democracy and rule of law and semi-torture it is a recruitment tool and when we close it it will be seen as a victory. I have expressed my opinions of Friedman and the fearful supporters of the view expressed here before. The article does seem to avoid the point that Gitmo sole reason for being was to avoid US or another nation's or arguably international laws. I agree when they write this: "The administration should also consider challenging Congress to make membership in several Islamic extremist groups punishable by death or life imprisonment." and this "The administration should demand of itself very high intelligence standards for ascertaining whether someone belongs to al Qaeda, or Algeria's vicious and al Qaeda-aligned Armed Islamic Group, or just the often intellectually ugly but nonlethal Tabligh fundamentalist movement." I disagree in a number of places and don't think he is arguing for the rule of law and not vengeance and I believe he is arguing for the establishment of some more imperial state that I would. Particularly when he concludes "The Bush administration should minimize the possible intrusion of the courts into the strategy and tactics of the war on terror..." I disagree with his outlook for Iraq and the Middle East. This is more like Vietnam with Bush as LBJ, launching an unwinable war based on lies and a misunderstanding of the enemy while also reward friends at home with his tax policies and destroying the economy in the process. Do you think Iraq was and is worth what it costs? On the two Muslim statements both are what I expect. The first was echoed by another Muslim leader on Frontline. The second, well, I see American religious fanaticism expressed in the same terms by abortion bombers, etc. There is a reporter in America that has been writing on the rise of fascism and the right religious fanatics for some time. He also notes some cogent words on this war on terrorism by a former FBI agent. http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2005/06/whos-weak-on-terror.html On 7/12/05, Dan Minette <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:<snip> > I'm thinking about it, and I still have to put forth my #3, so I'll just > add three opinions (or maybe two opinions and one fact to the mix. The > first is a commentary by a Muslim peer on the present situation in > Britain, > after it was found out that the terrorists were British citizens: > > http://comment.independent.co.uk/commentators/article298478.ece > > The second is a statement by Van Gogh's killer at his sentencing. It > probably shouldn't be taken as fully representative of the viewpoint of > people who join AQ, or the British bombers, but it is a data point. > > http://tinyurl.com/8e93q > > The third is the opinion of a former CIA agent: > > > http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/005/771uukif.asp > -- Gary Denton http://www.apollocon.org June 23-25, 2006 Easter Lemming Blogs http://elemming.blogspot.com http://elemming2.blogspot.com _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
