[Fr_Chuck]

Many things happen that do not make the news, I know after 911, the FBI investigated varioius people of interest in the Atlanta area and the things found were all at a security level and not ever released.

But in the short term Bushes term may go down badly, but I think over the next few decades, it will be judged highly as history unfolds,

[excon]

Hello DC:

I think treating them like ordinary criminals would have been the best option. Wars are for nations. They ain't a nation.

What?? We got a blind sheik in jail who attacked the World Trade Center. We didn't go to war, and we didn't suspend habeas corpus to get HIM either

excon

[Skell]

It is easer to beleive that we have nothing to fear

I tend to think that your government has made it easier for you guys to have a lot of fear.

[George_1950]

Al-Qaeda is no myth; maybe you don't recall how the people in Afganistan were being oppressed.

"When the leadership of China, Vietnam, Singapore, Burma, Iran, Congo, [Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria,] et al speak out against democracy for their peoples, they propound racial, cultural, and economic arguments that sound intelligent and make sense. But they have this in common: none of those leaders thinks of asking the disfranchised common citizen for his opinion.

"Ask the average person in China, Zaire, or the Arab countries whether, like his country's political, spiritual, and business leaders — i.e., the nomenklatura, the people in power — he also thinks that a body of personal liberties on the western model (open elections, free speech, civil rights, etc) is a thing his country and people can do without, and — provided the secret police isn't listening — the odds are that the answer would be quite different."

Check the site: Erik Svane

If Billary were to leave Afganistan or Iraq with open elections, free speech, civil rights, public education for girls and boys, it would be time for a Nobel; George Bush, like Ronald Reagan, will never receive that recognition.

[tomder55]

Ex Our very 1st war was not against a nation but against pirates . Al-Qaeda is a modern version of the same plague .


Truth :Bin Laden formed al-Qaeda around 1988 when he decided he wanted to take jihad global. He had financed and trained recruits from many nations that were called mujahadeen to fight against the Soviets in Afghanistan.

It is also true that they are not a singular . Many of the attacks linked to al-Qaeda is done by a loose coalition of like minded jihadist organizations. As an example; much of jihadist terrorism in the Philippines is by a groups with ties to al-Qaeda called Abu Sayyaf and Jemaah Islamiya . Connecting the dots... Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, convicted of masterminding the 1993 WTC attack, planned al-Qaeda's foiled attack on American airliners over the Pacific Ocean in the Philippines and was ultimately captured there . He is the nephew of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed;mastermind of 9-11 . Mohammed Atta and the other "pilots " got their initial training in Angeles City, Pampanga before proceeding to the United States.

Egypt's two largest Islamist terrorist groups are Jamaat al-Islamiyya and Egyptian Islamic Jihad, both of which have important ties to OBL and al-Qaeda. Many of al-Qaeda's leaders are Egyptians including the person who probably leads the organization today ;Ayman al-Zawahiri

If it makes you any better lets call the movement jihadistan .The threat remains the same no matter which name you use.

[excon]

The threat remains the same no matter which name you use.

Hello again, tom:

I don't discount the threat - only how we treat it.

Seems to me, that it would be more auspicious to try them as criminals, rather than attempting to change our entire system of justice. Cause it hasn't worked and isn't going to.

If we did it the old way, they'd ALL be in the slam, we'd still have habeas corpus, there would be no Gitmo, we wouldn't have tortured anybody, and we'd still be the world's moral arbiter.

excon

[NeedKarma]

Don't they all seem to originate from Saudi Arabia? Or at least get their funding from there? Why is it that the U.S. stills gives billions of $ to S.A.

[tomder55]

Ex

Well the issue of how prisoners at GITMO justice is served is unrelated to a posting claiming that al-qaeda is a myth. For the record ;as you know ;I think they are prisoners captured on a battle field awaiting decisions from a military tribunal that would've most likely already occurred if the American court system had not delayed the process. You wonder why there are still jihadists at Gitmo ? Blame the ACLU .

[CaptainRich]

Why is it that the U.S. stills gives billions of $ to S.A.

Why does the U.S. give billions of $ to anybody?
Ask yourself that and research the question.

[Dark_crow]

Hello DC:

I think treating them like ordinary criminals would have been the best option. Wars are for nations. They ain't a nation.

What???? We got a blind sheik in jail who attacked the World Trade Center. We didn't go to war, and we didn't suspend habeas corpus to get HIM either

excon

What something is is the way it is described…Al Qaeda is not now, or has never been what Bush and Blair described. They are a scraggly little fringe group with out any organization at all.

[Dark_crow]

Ex Our very 1st war was not against a nation but against pirates . Al-Qaeda is a modern version of the same plague .


Truth :Bin Laden formed al-Qaeda arround 1988 when he decided he wanted to take jihad global. He had financed and trained recruits from many nations that were called mujahadeen to fight against the Soviets in Afghanistan.

It is also true that they are not a singular . Many of the attacks linked to al-Qaeda is done by a loose coalition of like minded jihadist organizations. As an example; much of jihadist terrorism in the Phillipines is by a groups with ties to al-Qaeda called Abu Sayyaf and Jemaah Islamiya . Connecting the dots ....... Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, convicted of masterminding the 1993 WTC attack, planned al-Qaeda's foiled attack on American airliners over the Pacific Ocean in the Phillipines and was ultimately captured there . He is the nephew of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed;mastermind of 9-11 . Mohammed Atta and the other "pilots " got their initial training in Angeles City, Pampanga before proceeding to the United States.

Egypt’s two largest Islamist terrorist groups are Jamaat al-Islamiyya and Egyptian Islamic Jihad, both of which have important ties to OBL and al-Qaeda. Many of al-Qaeda’s leaders are Egyptians including the person who probably leads the organization today ;Ayman al-Zawahiri

If it makes you any better lets call the movement jihadistan .The threat remains the same no matter which name you use.

Bin Laden was a member of the mujaheddin 1988 and was not starting up any organization of his own.

Osama bin Laden

[tomder55]

DC ;He financed much of the mujaheddin effort and had his own separate training camp. But regardless of his status before 1988 he did establish al-Qaeda afterwards.

From the site you just linked

August 11-20, 1988: Bin Laden Forms Al-Qaeda

[Dark_crow]

DC ;He financed much of the mujaheddin effort and had his own seperate training camp. But regardless of his status before 1988 he did establish al-Qaeda afterwards.

From the site you just linked

Yes, it is believed that the Bush administration assigned that name to them in 1998, and of course it has stuck. So when someone refers to the group they use that name.

First let me explain what I mean by Myth. I use the myth in its technical, anthropologic sense: a partly fictional story (or image) with some historic basis that imparts a lesson to society.

What I object to is the widespread image of al-Qaeda as a ubiquitous, super-organised terror network. We should call it as it is: a loose collection of groups and individuals that doesn't even refer to itself as al-Qaeda.

[tomder55]

Agreed ; that is why I generally call them jihadistan except when they specifically take credit under the banner al-Qaeda .

[tomder55]

DC

Found this Belmont Club posting interesting and relevant to this discussion.
The Belmont Club: Ring out the old, ring in the new

... the history of clandestine organizations is not one of evolutionary progress but succession. When al-Qaeda falls far enough from accumulated setbacks it will be challenged by another clandestine organization with a new and possibly better strategic vision. Therefore what is likely to happen in Iraq, and possibly in the world at large, is that al-Qaeda will continue to decline until a new and better adapted Jihadi group makes an appearance. If there is a next September 11 it will be launched by a new organization, possibly an offshoot of the old, which has been gathering unnnoticed in the shadows while we continue to beat up on Osama's old jalopy.

[Dark_crow]

Riggio got it right Tom. The U.S. National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) described a terrorist act as one which was: "premeditated; perpetrated by a subnational or clandestine agent; politically motivated, potentially including religious, philosophical, or culturally symbolic motivations; violent; and perpetrated against a noncombatant target."

As was the attack on 9/11, it was against “Liberalism” by jihads (A person engaged in jihad is called a mujahid, the plural is mujahideen.) out of which Al-Qaeda was born. The primary aim of jihad is the expansion and defense of the Islamic state. Individuals that make-up the mujahideen form into different small groups for many reasons, but the main reason is because they cannot travel in large groups. So that one day they may assist in an operation they fancy that is being planned by what is called Al-Qaeda, and another day for another small group.

EDIT... Of course assuming that 9/11 was not a "false flag operation."