Al-Qaeda already here

Until about a year ago, IDF Intelligence estimated that "Israel was not being targeted by al-Qaeda". Since these estimates were made public, reality has hit Israeli intelligence in the face. The global arena vis-à-vis Israel turned out to be rife with activity and al-Qaeda recently announced that Israel is one of their primary targets.

http://www.ict.org.il/apage/3491.php

Bin Laden's Declaration of War

"By God's grace," bin Laden says on the tape, "we have formed with many other Islamic groups and organizations in the Islamic world a front called the International Islamic Front to do jihad against the crusaders and Jews."

"And by God's grace," he says at another point in the tape, "the men ... are going to have a successful result in killing Americans and getting rid of them."

CNN terrorism analyst Peter Bergen, who interviewed bin Laden a year earlier, believes the tape depicts a key moment for al Qaeda.

"They're going public," Bergen said. "They're saying, 'We're having this war against the United States.'"

CNN.com - Previously unseen tape shows bin Laden's declaration of war

Consequence of Poverty

I agree that terrorism is in no way a consequence of poverty. The individuals I was referring to are far from poor.

They feel they are justified in causing terror and destroying their neighborhoods. They blame this type of behavior on poverty.

Killing of Americans, both civilian and military

The following link has a statement from Osama bin Laden and his associates purports to be a religious ruling (fatwa) requiring the killing of Americans, both civilian and military. This document is part of the evidence that links the bin Laden network to the September 11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.

http://www.fas.org/irp/world/para/docs/980223-fatwa.htm

The US had a task force of FBI agents dedicated to investigating Osama bin Laden

The US had a task force of FBI agents dedicated to investigating Osama bin Laden. For years they warned us he was going to attack America. Their reports were ignored.

10 years before 9/11 Bin made declaration of war against America and Saudi. He had been thrown out of Saudi. He took refuge in Sudan. He then hand picked Saudi's for 9/11. He wanted the Americans to think Saudi's had done it. He wanted us to go to war with Saudi. Killing two birds with one stone. It is about hate.

We knew he would attack us one day. We just did not know when or where.

UNDERSTANDING

Marcus B. said:

Hi Tom, many of are still waiting for a complete investigation of 9/11, which, as yet, has not been done in order to find out who, exactly, "they" are.

It is interesting that the Bush administration has done everything it could to resist, forestall, white-wash and minimize 9/11 investigation.

Since our freedoms are, essentially, derived from our constitution, I also find it interesting that the greatest threats to our freedoms are the PATRIOT act and the MILITARY COMMISSIONS act, in terms of eroding constitutionally guaranteed rights. We know exactly who pushed those acts through Congress.

What if Bush revealed the correct motivation for 9/11 (They hate our freedom), but misidentified the perpetraitors?

Tom Braddock said:

We need to start with UNDERSTANDING why they decided to to take this course of action. What is it that we are doing as a nation that has them so riled up against us?

Answering the question, "WHY do they hate us so much that they would take this course of action (9/11)?", would be the best thing we could do as a nation. We need to check OURSELVES, before we wreck ourselves.

Absolutely. The "They hate our freedoms" canard is total BS. If you want to know why they hate us, read their statements. I recently bought a translations of all of Bin Laden's public statements and have read some of them. He says absolutely not one word about "our freedoms". By contrast, he has one hell of a lot to say about our policies. I'm not saying we should retract every foreign policy we have, but we should consider how we can secure our country and our interests without totally pissing off the entire Muslim world.

Sheldon Greaves

Kennedy was absolutely excoriated by the press for not going to war

Jeff Mowatt said:

Last night here in England on the primary BBC channel, they screened '13 days' an account of the Cuba crisis starring Kevin Costner. How much resemblance it bore to actual events , I'm not in a position to judge, but it painted a terrifying picture of the Kennedys trying to hold back the hawks who were itching to escalate to a full scale conflict.

Seeding thought perhaps, that GW might be sitting in the place of JFK and could be found wanting when it came to the crunch?

Glad you brought this up. What isn't generally remembered is that following the crisis, Kennedy was absolutely excoriated by the press for not going to war over this. Now considering that most of our naval assets were at various times being tracked by a Soviet sub armed with a nuclear torpedo that could have taken out entire squadrons, plus the whole nuclear missile thing... whatever you think of Kennedy, he earned his pay during those two weeks.

Sheldon Greaves

Psychology of poor people

By Martín Rizzi


Other people are like you; they do not want to harm anybody.


Terrorism is synthetic violence; terrorism is focused fear


for the purpose of forcing people to change and to accept


conditions of globalization. I simply do not see evidence


that terrorism flows out from the psychology of poor people


thus IMO it were futile to address the scourge of terrorism


by speculation what motives or justifications poor people


might have to commit terrorism ?¿ IMO terror is NOT coming


from the poor people at all, it is authored by rich people,


police and intelligence agencies, mafias, and covert players


of dirty power games for the purposes of money, drugs, and power.


That terrorism is an exponent of a popular condition, i seriously doubt.

Accepting people's differences

Both of you make some very good points. I have never understood the whole concept of killing in the name of the lord.

I fear that if we all think and act exactly the same, life would become boring. I believe our differences are what make life interesting. Personally I have never wanted to harm anybody because of their POV. The only way I could hurt anybody would be in self defense.

Words have never hurt me, but people do.

Terrosism - Can it be eliminated? If so, how? What is your plan?

Munnu Morrish said:

Terrosism is human and terrorism on the globe is based on religious lines.I think lets have asingle religion and see what would be the outcome.

I agree; a single religion for humanity would be ideal.

Terror is, i believe, based on religious lines because

the British Empire's Great Game and War of Civilizations

Thee is certainly no natural contradiction between Islam

and Mosaic Christianity. The three are continuous, all

of these religious furthered the One God idea that Moses

got from the priest scientists at Egypt's Temple of Ammon.

To this, we get into what? Dictatorships? Tyrrany? Oppression? Annihilation of those who won't convert? Been there, done that. One time, we called it the Holocaust. Another time we called it the Inquisition.

And since a single religion is best, maybe we also need a single race, culture, economic status, and eduction level. Of course, we'll need to burn books and forcibly take people's money away from them, but it'll be for the greater good--like it was in Russia, right? That surely worked out for the best.

Forcing people to assimilate is not the answer. Accepting people's differences is.

Kim Edwards