Tag: terrorism

There’s someone who gets it:

Rudd has said the Iraq deployment has made Australia more of a target for terrorism.

I knew it would come to this one day, because one side was so stubborn and the other side was feeling rejected. Maybe this rift can be filled one day, but right now, there is only pain and hurt. Makes one wonder how it all came down to this.

That’s right, al-Qaida and Iran have irreconcilable differences, they are tearing their Axis of Evil apart.

http://www.breitbart.com/artic…

The increasing enmity toward Iran is a notable change of rhetoric from al-Zawahri, who in the past rarely mentioned the country-apparently in a hopes he would be able to forge some sort of understanding with Tehran based on their common rivalry with the United States. Iran has long sought to distance itself from al-Qaida.  

“Al-Zawahri wanted to work with Iran, but he’s deeply disappointed that Iran has not cooperated with al-Qaida,” said Rohan Gunaratna, a terrorism expert and author of “Inside al-Qaida: The Global Network of Terror.”

So now, al-Zawahri “wants to appeal to the anti-Shiite, anti-Iran sentiments in the Arab and Muslim world,” said Gunaratna, head of the International Center for Political Violence and Terrorism Research in Singapore.

Al-Zawahri appeared intent on exploiting widespread worry in the Arab world over Iran’s influence, particularly in Iraq, to garner support for al-Qaida. At the same time, he sought to denigrate Iran’s ally Hezbollah, which has gained some popularity even among Sunnis in the region for its fight against Israel.

But in many of his answers, al-Zawahri went out of his way to criticize Iran. He said the Iraqi insurgent umbrella group led by al- Qaida, called the Islamic State of Iraq, is “the primary force opposing the Crusaders (the United States) and challenging Iranian ambitions” in Iraq.

Great, al-Zawahri plays the race card. Way to turn the Arabs against the Persians, asshole. This Jihad was suppose to be about ideas and policies, but here al-Zawahri goes back to the terrorism of old.

“Iran’s aim here is also clear-to cover up its involvement with America in invading the homes of Muslims in Afghanistan and Iraq,” he added. Iran cooperated with the United States in the 2001 U.S. assault on Afghanistan that toppled al-Qaida’s allies, the Taliban.

This campaign of dirty tricks has to end, you don’t go into Jihad as a people divided. You don’t see Iran bringing up Osama’s playboy youth or compassionate sane cleric.

Iran has never been in bed with America, while it is well know Osama was. Do you see Iran making obscure internet videos about that?

No. Because they are against tearing this party apart.

The rhetoric is a stark change for al-Zawahri, who in the past did not seek to exploit Shiite-Sunni tensions. When the former head of al- Qaida in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, was waging a campaign of suicide bombings against Shiites in Iraq, al-Zawahri sent messages telling him to stop, fearing it would hurt al-Qaida’s image.

This just goes to show al-Zawahri will stop at nothing to win this thing. He will flipflop, he will lie and he will ruin other members of the Axis of Evil for his own entitlement.

This was suppose to be a different Jihad, a Jihad about ideas. About policy. A Jihad where fanatical Muslim could walk hand in hand with other fanatical Muslims, regardless of sects, setting off each other’s suicide belts, showing the world what a terrorist party united can do.

al-Zawahri has ruined that hope, which is why he is the real Great Satan.

The basis for this posting is “H.R. 1955 Could Spell Trouble for Muslim Civil Rights” by Ibrahim Abdil-Mu’id Ramey via the Muslim American Society:

No, this isn’t a right-wing diary.

Does anyone remember what Bin Laden’s original demand was? We don’t negotiate with terrorists, we just give them what they want.

So now we see him railing against cartoons again, and he is implying that many will pay for these cartoons.

Cartoons? I’m an Irish American, and that has ensured that I have heard every Irish joke going. I have not blown up so much as a mail box over any of them. I’m pretty sure I laughed at most of them, or maybe poked someone in the eye, at worst.

The problems he creates with these kind of threats or worse, is that it becomes maddening for reasonable, rational people to hear. It’s red meat for the war pigs, and you can feel the ground tilt as the unthinking, fearful masses start leaning to the right again.

I used to like the sound of a fiddle, but now that so many are being played like one, I am getting really sick of that sound.

The cost of a fucking audio tape. That’s asymmetrical.

If you listen close enough, you can actually hear Bin Laden laughing right now.

An Update to my post from last night, I also expect a Video report following a local TV Stations nightly news from the area, with the family press conferance.

Body identified as former Marine Hall

(Last updated: March 12, 2008 11:14 AM)  

The Charlotte County Sheriff’s Office has notified Eric Hall’s family this morning that the remains found in a culvert Sunday was the former Marine.

A detective from the agency notified the family at 10 a.m. and relayed the cause of death has not been determined.

Becky Hall, Eric’s mother, plans a press conference at noon.

The family scheduled a military memorial service at noon Thursday at the Faith Lutheran Church, 4005 Palm Drive, Punta Gorda.

I certainly hope this Country is out of it’s collective Denial, about Vietnam, and it’s Apathy as to this World we live in, much of it created by our past policies and now the present, for the Future is Here!

It’s tempting to say that Afghanistan represents the Bush Administration’s supreme failure. I’ve made that claim, in the past. But that presumes that the Bush Administration was, in the the smallest degree, interested in catching the people who attacked us on September 11, 2001, and in keeping this nation safe. Of course, some have done very well, from Bush’s wars. Meanwhile, the collective wisdom of the more than 100 bipartisan foreign-policy experts consulted by Foreign Policy and the Center for American Progress to form The Terrorism Index led to this summary:

The world these experts see today is one that continues to grow more threatening. Fully 91 percent say the world is becoming more dangerous for Americans and the United States, up 10 percentage points since February. Eighty-four percent do not believe the United States is winning the war on terror, an increase of 9 percentage points from six months ago. More than 80 percent expect a terrorist attack on the scale of 9/11 within a decade, a result that is more or less unchanged from one year ago.

But, of course, if the Bush Administration actually gave a damn about national security, and catching the terrorists who attacked us, they’d have done something about it. Instead, their incompetence allowed Osama bin Laden to get away, when he could have been caught or killed, at the battle of Tora Bora. They disastrously shifted their focus from those who had attacked us to those who never had, and because of that, the Taliban are growing stronger both in Afghanistan and Pakistan, while Al Qaeda has also regrouped and grown stronger in both countries. In fact, both countries are having to negotiate with the Taliban, and bin Laden, himself, is even now well-positioned to launch another attack.

If this war actually was about justice and security, rather than profits, it would be correctly seen as the signature failure of the singularly disastrous administration. Bush is destroying the Constitution and violating international law, not to mention the basic laws of humanity and morality, but he has not made America safer, and he has not caught the people who committed the worst ever act of terrorism on American soil. It would be surreal, were it not so damnable.  

Don Rumsfeld was charged with war-crimes today. Bushco’s connection to Mid-East terrorism and pork may be the next story to blow.

Wapo

Retired Air Force Gen. Joseph W. Ralston, a former NATO commander Bush appointed last year as his special envoy to work on the issue, left the job recently because of what several sources described as his frustration at the administration’s failure to devote serious attention to the problem. Ralston, vice chairman of an international consulting firm led by former defense secretary William S. Cohen, did not return several calls for comment.

There’s far more at stake…