Al-Qaeda seeks to expand its operations
 

Al-Qaeda is reaching out from its base in Pakistan to turn militant Islamist groups in the Middle East and Africa into franchises charged with intensifying attacks on western targets, according to European officials and terrorism specialists.


http://www.ft.com/cms/s/8b10a240-ef6...b5df10621.html

When y'poke a stick in the red ant nest...

Hi, welcome to Al-Qaeda. May I take your order?

Not a very good approach.

http://www.jerseyarts.com/gallery/ex...mages/evil.jpg

Nice. Kids these days.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070420/..._executioner_1

According to the AP. Iraqi insurgents are now fighting each other, as "moderate" Sunni terrorists tangle with "extremist" al-Qaeda whose brand of Islam is so radical that it prohibits placing cucumbers beside tomatoes because these vegetables have different genders.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Iraqi police and security forces — not Americans — have been negotiating with 1920 Revolution Brigades fighters, who have said "they want some help against al-Qaida," Baker said.

"That's a plus for this place, and we're going to try to exploit that," he said. "We're not making allies with anybody ... but we are monitoring what's going on."

American officers say the clashes have weakened the insurgency. In the last month in Diyala, 1920 Revolution Brigades fighters eased up attacks on Americans, largely turning their guns on al-Qaida, Baker said.

What makes men kill each other over tomatoes and cucumbers? What makes people kill each other at all? In the last few hours a gunman at the Houston space center took fellow employees hostage, then killed one before killing himself. Over the past few days the US has experienced an epidemic of threats on schools by Cho wannabees, each swearing to break some kind of sick record for psychosis. The spike in these incidents is interesting because they resemble the outcome of a controlled experiment. The numbers of guns out there has not varied much in the last week, but the media coverage of such deranged acts has. The one factor has been held constant while the other has been varied. And the results are strongly suggestive of what my childhood confessors used to emphasize: that bad thoughts have consequences.

As a child I was taught one could "sin through thought, word and deed". Somewhere in the intervening years society seems to have forgotten about the "sins" of thought and word largely because it refused to believe in taboos. There were, the school chaplains used to say, dark doors beyond which it was dangerous for the mind to go. There were thoughts you could not think -- unless you were strong enough to wrestle with what you would find beyond the portal.

Pedophilia, bestiality, extreme cruelty, monstrous behavior -- these are no longer ideas which we dare not entertain or cast out of our minds should they fleet through our consciousness out of the fear of "sin". No.Pedophilia has itself become a cause for enlightened people. The North American Man-Boy Love Association argues children must have sex with adults "before eight or it's too late". Instead we have cast out the idea of sin itself and made the conception of sin as sin our only societal taboo.

But maybe we can "sin through thought and word" after all. Perhaps the school chaplains were right; or at least correct in giving warning about what lay beyond the portal or the "Confirm before you click" warnings on websites. Personally I have gone back to confessing to evil thoughts during Lent; they are sins once again; I am wary anew of the dangers of standing before demons. There may be some beyond my strength.

Malevolence lives in the mind much more than it does in inamate things. Recently the quarter-century crime statistics of two towns, one in Georgia and the other in Illinois were compared. One had forbidden the ownership of guns and the other had made their possession mandatory. The results as you may or may not have guessed, are that crimes in Guntown had dropped while crimes, especially violent crimes in the Gunfree-zone had soared. Like the Virginia Tech incident, people will debate the meaning of these statistics. But like the Virginia Tech case it ought to raise the question of whether, in regulating things, we are regulating the wrong object.

It may be just be possible that bloodlust, the exhortation to cruelty, the legitimization of barbarous violence eventually corrodes and then corrupts completely. The Middle East Times tells us that the Christian evangelists who were recently killed by suspected Islamists in Turkey were savagely tortured. With only knives too, but with the idea to drive it.

Dr. Murat Ugras, a spokesman for the Turgut Ozal Medical center, told the daily Hurriyet of hospital surgeons' fruitless efforts to save Ugur Yuksel, one of the three victims of the massacre at the Zirve (summit) publishing house, which distributed Christian literature.

"He had scores of knife cuts on his thighs, his testicles, his rectum, and his back," Ugras said. "His fingers were sliced to the bone.

"It is obvious that these wounds had been inflicted to torture him," he said.

The two others who were killed, Necati Aydin, pastor of Malatya's tiny Protestant community, and German Tilmann Geske, a Malatya resident with his wife and three children since 2003, were also tortured, press reports said.

The abuse lasted for three hours as the five men detained at the crime scene interrogated the three on their missionary activities, they said.

What made these men torture those evangelists? It was more than the knives in their hands. If one didn't know better, it would be possible to imagine the conflict among terrorists in Anbar as a scene from the squabbling imps of hell. In the end, nothing protects us so much as our sensibilities. A healthy culture instills in its members guideposts, as orderly societies put up highway signs, not in order to block the roads, but to guide us in our freedom.

posted by wretchard at 4/20/2007 04:32:00 PM

http://fallbackbelmont.blogspot.com/...from-evil.html

I don't know, I'm pretty sure not always fucking with other people's lives for our personal gain is a damn good approach. In fact, most of the terrorism is from our "lets fuck with other people's lives for our personal gain" approach.

So what you are saying is that radical Muslim extremist violence is caused by something we (the United States) did? You need to study more about their ideas of the Caliphate.

And you need to study more about the West's involvement in muslim countries.

I have, I am not talking about the West in general. I am well aware of our history and much of yours as well. The aims of the Muslim extremist groups have little to do with us and more to do with their aims against all ideology which does not fit the model they understand to be true.

9/11/2001, They started it.

I think it goes back a long way before that.

From conservative sources? Both sides are at fault, to think it is only their fault or our fault is just stupid. The world isn't black and white Merc, both sides have many faults.

Look at all the terrorist/resistance groups against Israel. All of them I have seen have been started because of Israeli occupation. I am sure that most of these terrorists groups are the same.

Without any reason? I find that hard to believe. I'm pretty sure that they attacked us because of our occupation in the Middle Eastern countries and us raping them of their natural resources keeping them in poverty. I know that 9/11 was a reactionary attack because of what we did. Does it justify it? No, absolutely not. But is there is reason? Yes, yes there is.

Hardly.

Can't really disagree with that.

The occupation has now become an excuse. Most of the groups are not the same. The enemy is the same.

Raping them of their resources! Ha. Ever hear of OPEC? We are not raping anything. If anyone is keeping them in poverty it is not the West, it is their governments. Ever been to Saudi, Kuwait, Bahrain, UAE? Money is not a problem for the oil rich countries of the world. We are not responsible for 9/11, if you believe that you have been brainwashed by the leftist views of the world. Poor terrorists, maybe you think we should pay them some reparations for having the need to come over here and kill themselves in those big bad bird like symbols of Western greed.

They created the monster nevertheless. Israel and the US does nothing to help the people of these countries so the people will do nothing to combat these groups. I have said it before, if we really want to fight this terrorism we will have to help out the people in these countries.

Ever heard of Operation Ajax? Yes, a lot of the problem is the governments of those countries but we are to blame too. We also have done nothing to help these people either.

Who are we? The American people aren't but the American government is partially responsible. It is cause and effect. If we do one thing, they will react in a certain way. I am not brainwashed because I can look at both sides to an issue, I have just picked my side on this issue.

Ok, I just think you understanding is a bit confused. Whatever.

Of course, but that is one small blip on the history of intervention of Western nations in third world countries, at the time, where we had global interests. Persia was but one small front at that time in history. It was not somehow the grand spark for the current hatred of Muslims against Western society. Hell the Arabs and Persian's hate each other. How would that one event explain all of the other problems or the desires of Wahhabism and its goal of expansionist thinking? It cannot.

There are others like it.

Why do you like to try to force me to an extremist view when I don't have that?

I don't have an extremist view either. I am not forcing you into anything.

Al-Qaeda ‘planning big British attack’

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle1687360.ece

Merc, al-Qaeda are always planning something or another. It is up to the US, England and others to counter them, or eliminate the threat entirely in a way that doesn't create more terrorists in turn. I must say that Bush is the biggest recruiter of terrorists.

The only way the americans would not recruit terrorists is to surrender and kill themselves.

No, there are more effective ways, better than what America is doing and certainly better than what Russia is doing re Chechyans.

Like what?

Such as

1) not attacking another country, diluting resorces in the process, and in so doing creating a vacuum filled by the enemy.

2) Not attacking schools, then crying why the terrorists are attacking your schools in return.

How many muslim nations and schools did america invade that caused the 9/11 attacks?

Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan, Egypt, Iraq Mk. I (actually that probably didnt piss them off a whole lot, they didn't like Saddam any more than we did)...

Osama used to be our friend against the Reds in Afghanistan. Then he asked us nicely if we could kinda pull out of some musilm holy land, like in saudi arabia.

We said "FUCK YOU COCKSUCKER!" and ignored him.
He got pissed.


I'm not saying he's right, but theres the motivation right there.

When did the americans invade saudi arabia, pakistan and egypt?

Sort through this. A timeline of US intervention in other countries since 1945.

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Bl...ns_WBlumZ.html

Edit- This is at 1999 so it won't have post 9/11 interventions.

Some of the language used in that articles suggests a bit of biased from the author. So I wonder how much of it is true or embellished.

And there have been US troops stationed in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Pakistan, all over the place for a long time. If you ask Al-Qaeda, they arent invited guests - theyre invading occupiers taking their hospitality at gunpoint.

The intention of the author is obviously anti-american -- but the facts are all straight. This author doesnt love america -- because of the very facts that he tells here.

Like I said before I doubt the authenticity of that site because the author is obviously has issue with the americans. I really love the part where he says the americans were shooting down libya planes and blaming terrorists acts on him because the was "uppity" lol

And any american troops that are in saudia arabia, pakistan or egypt are there because those governments allowed them to be there. Just because a terrorist organization like al qaeda says the americans forced themselves there doesn't make it true.

So you deny that America prettymuch does what they want and tells these countries to give them free reign to live, fight, and train there?

Yes I do because I haven't seen anything yet that proves otherwise.

bin Laden was offended by the slow decline of Arabic civilization, particularly in Saudi Arabia, and felt that the only road to fixing that would be to implement sharia law and the hardest of hard line pure Islamism.

You may recognize the "ugly foreigners are the cause of all our problems" concept. It's taken up by such groups as the National Front, and here in the US by the KKK, and by morons everywhere around the world.

But why attack? When the US withdrew from Lebanon and Somalia, they gave hardass Islamists a roadmap to getting the US out of Saudi Arabia: just hit 'em hard, and they'll fold like paper tigers.

bin Laden said so quite directly, in his 1996 fatwa:

This, in turn, is why it's now vitally important for Iraq not to be seen as a US defeat.

http://afghangovernment.com/briefhistory.htm

I'm not going to search for American intervention in Afghanistan because it is pretty common knowledge. Just because something is bias doesn't mean that the facts don't check out.

His facts are not facts. They are riddled with opinion. I don't think you like this country either.

"The engine of American foreign policy has been fueled not by a devotion to any kind of morality, but rather by the necessity to serve other imperatives, which can be summarized as follows:
* making the world safe for American corporations;
* enhancing the financial statements of defense contractors at home who have contributed generously to members of congress;
* preventing the rise of any society that might serve as a successful example of an alternative to the capitalist model;
* extending political and economic hegemony over as wide an area as possible, as befits a "great power."
This in the name of fighting a supposed moral crusade against what cold warriors convinced themselves, and the American people, was the existence of an evil International Communist Conspiracy, which in fact never existed, evil or not."

These initial statement are so littered with anti-American opinion they could have come from a site like anti-war.com.

"Blum founded Washington Free Press and is the author of a monthly newsletter titled "The Anti-Empire Report."

In January 2006, Osama bin Laden released an audio tape threatening the U.S. and quoting William Blum while recommending that Americans read Blum's Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower. This 'free advertisement' caused a huge increase in sales of "Rogue State.""

I bet he was proud to be quoted by his friend Osama.

Just because Osama recommended The Rogue State shouldn't mean anything to Blum or his credibility.

Those quotes you gave, they are biased against America but that doesn’t mean they are false. You have to look at the base of capitalism. The whole point of capitalism is to make as much money as possible and there is no room for morals. Why is it so hard to believe that our rulers would attack a country so our companies can make more money? I am not proposing NWO or anything like that but those quotes work perfectly with capitalism.

Right now we are getting edgy with Venezuela and they are starting to get back on there feet without the use of capitalism.

And that is the problem with them. These quotes fall into a quasi-conspiracy theory mode. The person capitalizing on capitalism is the author. Blum made a history of himself by writing expose's a long time ago. He is well known for his sensationalism and he is an expert at blending hard facts with enough conjecture to make what he writes sound perfectly believable to those who are already of the mindset to be fed off of the hype. I have read a number of places where some of his expose's lead directly to the death of CIA agents.

Capitalism is the most successful system ever devised. The whole point of capitalism is economic freedom but like any system invented by people it can be abused. I'm not sure I buy into the conspiracy theories that americans invade nations for the sole purpose of corporate gain.

Yeah, cause if you can look at your country's history and spot where it has acted aggressively, immorally, selfishly or ineffectively you clearly dont like your country. If you can read through propoganda against your country and separate facts from extraneous opinions, then you don't like your country.

I can do all of those things and I still love this country....:D

I dont do those things because I hate my country; I hate my country because I do those things.

Your country most likely still loves you. Even when you hate it and react with your teen hormones towards the love it shows for you...

God-fucking-DAMMIT merc, fuckin' shut up about me being a teenager already. I dont give you shit about being an old half-senile coot; dont give me shit about being young, tough, and still smarter than you.
At least keep it in the one thread already poisoned by your shit.

Spoken like a true teen with years of experience behind him... miles of world travel... years of job experience... years of relationships with women... years of experience as a parent... years of parenting teens... yep...

You go boy! ;)

Merc, a teenager can have just as a valid argument as a 60 year old can. While it helps, most arguments have nothing to do with experience but knowing the facts and history of the topic. Age has nothing to do with that.

UT, seriously dude, I'm waiting for that ban...

By the way, merc, how many times have you circled the earth?

Based on?????


Some esoteric understanding of the world of 16 years of experience around them???

Please...:headshake

You keep wanting me to be banned. You have mentioned it over and over.

I have no ill will toward you, teen. Relax.

I have more brown T-shirts in my bottom drawer that represent my trots across the globe than you have fantasies of worldly experience....

Chill out teen.

Yes, cause I'm sure you lived in three countries (and visited over 18) before your sixteenth birthday.

You're a joke, merc. A sick, twisted, dispicable, humourless joke.

Nope.

I am an adult. You are a teen.

Trumps your hand each and every time.... :D

Once you mature (early teens usually) you have just as much logic and reasoning as you do when you are 60. That is a fact. I'm not going to get into an argument about age, I am stopping it here.

HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!

I would love to see you back that one up! :driving:

The funny thing about, you know, facts, reality, life, and all that, Merc, is that it sometimes exists contrary to one's bigotrys and prejudices.

For some, it runs contrary much more often than others.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_...ve_development
http://www.childdevelopmentinfo.com/...t/piaget.shtml
http://psychology.about.com/od/piage...loperation.htm

will you please shut up now, merc?