Whilst masticating on , Jeff Binkley (1:226/600)
wrote to All:

JB> But according to John Edwards, the war on terror is just a bumper 
JB> sticker slogan...

Because that's what it is, like the War on  Drugs.  Terrorism
is a tactic - a War on Terror is like a War on Dogfights.  But it sounds
good.  Israel has been fighting against terrorist tactics since 1948, and
even they know that they'll never be able to beat it completely unless the
underlying rationale for the terrorism changes, and that won't happen
(Israel will continue to exist, Jews will live there, and Islamists will
want them gone.  Until/unless non-Islamists get tired of their religion
being misused to promote hatred and killing of non-Muslims, and the
Islamists are isolated and looked down upon by their society, Islamic
terrorism against Israel and non-Muslim countries everywhere will
continue.)  The War on Terror is not something that can be won the way we
beat the Nazis and the Japanese, because we're not fighting against a
government that can be overthrown - we're fighting against fundamentalist
members of a religion that is world wide.  We have to protect ourselves and
our assets as best we can (and we're still doing a lousy job of that,
despite some plots having been foiled, as our port and rail security, among
other things, remains poor.)

JB> =========================

JB> 
JB> le=1

JB> Qaeda warns of attacks 'worse than 9/11'  

JB> May 30 06:26 AM US/Eastern

JB> An American member of Al-Qaeda warned in an Internet video that 
JB> US President George W. Bush should withdraw all his troops from 
JB> Muslim land or face attacks worse than September 11. 

People don't remember that the primary rationale for 9/11 expressed by al
Qaeda was the presence of U.S. military bases in Saudi Arabia, home of
Islam's two holiest cities, Mecca and Medina (they only added
Israel-Palestinian situation later, after almost the entire world, save for
Palestinians and a few others, denounced the 9/11 attacks on, and using,
civilians, which is why we had almost worldwide support for attacking the
Taliban after it refused to turn over bin Laden and friends. 
Unfortunately, Bush squandered that support when he began his war of choice
against Saddam, and the Taliban remains in existence and resurgent because
Bush focused our attention on Iraq rather than finish the job in
Afghanistan.)  There was no excuse for them to attack civilians - they
could have attacked the bases whose presence bothered them, as our Marine
barracks in Lebanon were (those are military targets) - and it was the fact
that the World Trade Center was a civilian target that had world opinion on
our side.

I have no doubt there will be future attacks, as Islamism isn't going away
(some of the blame for that falls on the non-Islamist Muslims, who should
be speaking out more against the Islamists, and whose leaders should be
issuing fatwas of their own against al Qaeda and other Muslim terrorist
groups.)  Even if our security is greatly improved, as it should be, some
plots will unfortunately succeed.  Even tiny Israel, which could be
completely walled in and has checkpoints, with more expertise than anyone,
can't stop them all, especially home grown plots.

JB> Gadahn -- sporting a headress, glasses and long beard -- said 
JB> Bush had "embroiled his nation in a series of unwinable and 
JB> bloody conflicts in the Islamic world." 

JB> He also called on the United States to cease support for the 
JB> "bastard state of Israel" and the "56-plus apostate regimes of 
JB> the Muslim world" and to free all Muslims from its prisons. 

Fat chance.

Ironically, Iraq was one of those "apostate regimes" until we did
al Qaeda a favor by deposing Saddam, which they couldn't have done
themselves.  Now, even if the Iraqi government we created survives, their
Constitution recognizes Sharia law as supreme, which doesn't seem to be
something that will lead to a secular democratic republic like ours.  And
who knows what happens if one or the other (Shiite or Sunni) wins the civil
war.  Joe Biden is right - Iraq should be divided into three separate
states - Shiite, Sunni, Kurdish - under a central government with oil
revenue shared between the states.  Iraq, like many countries in the Middle
East, was created with artificial boundaries, so creating three separate
enclaves inside Iraq wouldn't be setting a precedent for the region.  The
Turkish government, however, does not want a Kurdistan, either as a state
or as an indepent state, because there are many Kurds in Turkey
(apparently, there is very little Kurdish terrorism against civilians, and
none against Jews, so world opinion isn't on the Kurds' side.)

JB> "We don't negotiate with war criminals and baby killers like you. 
JB> No, these are legitimate demands which must be met," he said. 

He can talk all he wants.  Perhaps we can give him a nice pork hot dog for
dinner in jail.

JB> Born in 1978, Gadahn -- also known Azzam al-Amriki and Azzam the 
JB> American -- is a native of southern California and has appeared 
JB> in several videotapes for Al-Qaeda since 2004. 

JB> His conversion to Islam came after he began attending the Islamic 
JB> Centre of Orange County in California, where he is believed to 
JB> have come under the influence of two foreign-born Islamic radicals. 

We seem to have a bunch of radical mosques in the U.S., many, if not most,
supported by our "ally," the Wahhabist government of Saudi
Arabia.

JB> Gadahn's reference to Virginia Tech was to the shooting of 32 
JB> people at the university by Korean-born gunman Cho Seung-hui who 
JB> then turned the gun on himself.

Damn shame these suicide killers don't kill themselves first at home, then
go on their "mission."  :-(

--- Msged/2 6.0.1