War against terror

[Nemesis6 0]

And that's what happened. The Arab countries initiated the hostilities, and Israel took the initiative before it was too late. I don't see why you're bringing that up.

[walker 0]

Hi All

I think there is a middle east thread to discuss Palestine Israel issues. Yes a whole thread just for you! Perhaps those who are interested in that subject can take their discussion there.

Unless of course Ikea open's a new front in Gazza.

Kind regards walker

[Bernadotte 0]

And that's what happened. The Arab countries initiated the hostilities, and Israel took the initiative before it was too late. I don't see why you're bringing that up.

Following 9/11 a majority of world leaders expressed to America that resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was an essential step in defeating Al Qaida in the War on Terrorism.

Denoir doesn't agree.  He thinks, "nobody really gives a damn about the Palestinians" even though their plight was a central issue in most of the wars Israel has fought (regardless of who fired the first shots).  Al Qaida and the Muslim world care very much about the Palestinian situation and say so often.

So the questions are:

If Denoir could successfully secularise the world's 1.8 million Muslims would it stop all of them from ever wanting to do something radical to help the Palestinians?  No.

If I could successfully secularise the 90 million Americans who indirectly believe that the dispossession of the Palestinians is linked to the return of Christ and their salvation, will it help Palestinians get their property back or receive fair compensation for their losses?  Maybe.

And then, maybe, between the just settlement of the Palestinian dispute and the secularisation of Islam, Al Qaida would no longer be in the growth phase it is in today.

Just found this:

<span style='font-size:9pt;line-height:100%'>How Israel Became a Favorite Cause of the Conservative Christian Right</span>  -- Wall Street Journal, May 23, 2002, page 1

[walker 0]

Hi all

Al Qaeda pawns in the Great Game

Al Qaeda is primarily a power play by a bunch of anti Islamic no hope-rs. They are the rejects from the middle east conflict; who are more famous for their attacks on Muslims than any other group. They are rooted in the Muslim Brotherhood famous for killing [edit] Anwar al-Sadat (originaly Said Nasser corrected as per the note from Bernadotte below apologies) [/edit]. Some Muslims say they are run by Mosad. As almost all of their actions have been detrimental to Muslim, Palestinian and Arab causes and most of those they have killed have been Muslims.

They are composed of people who only gained power in Afghanistan because they were supported by the CIA, Pakistan Security services and Saudi Oil money.

Al Qaeda Afghanistan were and are Oil conglomerate operation that went rogue. Maktab al-Khadamat (MAK) were formed for several reasons by several different organisations and have been supported by various major organisations since their inception.

The Great Game players

Firstly they were intiated as a concept by the CIA as a controled form of mujahideen to be used as a weapon against the godless communists, the original mujahideen were too anarchic.

Secondly Saudi Arabia got in on the anti godless commies thing too; and they wanted to export the local Wahhabism an offshoot of Islam with a similar nature to puritanism in English Christianity (Pilgrim fathers for you US citizens out there).

Thirdly the Pakistan Secret service needed to make sure the communism did not come down from its northern border and wanted to set up an anti Shia grouping to combat the Iranians on their Western border. It was also to increase their control of the region.

MAK pawn to king 4

Having decided what they were going to do they then needed a group to do it. That is where MAK came in. Dr. Abdullah Yusuf Azzam a radicalized individual who was paramilitary he was born in the West Bank but hated the PLO for its Marxist ideology, was already working in Pakistan setting up a school for displaced Afghan kids and the more radical local Sunni.

Osama Queens pawn to queen 3

The CIA, Saudi's and Pakistani security services saw him as a useful point to form MAK around and gave him approximately 2 billion dollars over several years to set up and run MAK. They also sent him a bunch of renegade Wahhabi teachers that Saudi Arabia wanted shot of, plus bureaucrats and bankers such as Osama Bin Laden, and terrorists such as Ayman al-Zawahiri as trainers in asymetric warfare.

In Afghanistan during the soviet occupation they were the least successful group.

Osama himself on the occasion he went over the border, while the soviets were there; was laughed at by the mujahideen. A lanky awkward clumsy Arab who few could understand being incapable of speaking the local dialects. He was given to fits of petulance and throwing his teddy when the local mujahideen ignored him, which they did most of the time. He was given to wearing tailored flowing white Arab robes after the style Lawrence of Arabia, which also caused the mujahideen to laugh.

He famously threw a complete fit when he ordered the Local mujahadeen to shoot a western film crew who were their guests. The mujahideen laughed and told him no. He then paid a local lorry driver to run them over. The truck driver took the money and also laughed and said no. Osama then began stamping his feet and gesticulating madly before running off crying and balling his eyes out on his bed like a spoilt 14 year old girl told she cannot buy a new dress.

Osama Bin Laden believes he is the next Caliph the successor to the prophet Muhammad and to a large extent all of the actions of Al Qaeda are along these lines. So the strategy is totaly predictable. It is aimed at placing Osama as Caliph and in the control of Mecca and the other holy shrines of the Islamic world. There are obvious psychological simlarities to Hitler in Osama Bin Ladens psychlogical makeup a form of Napoleon complex.

The end of MAK a pawn sacrificed

After the mujahideen won the war with the soviets MAK had a typical major ideological split. Dr. Abdullah Azzam wanted pure Islamic government in post-war Afghanistan and Osama Bin Laden wanted to use the cash to fund world wide Jihad.

There was a major split over the future of MAK resulting in one of the usual Muslim Brotherhood traits of killing fellow Muslims in this case a Car Bomb that killed Dr. Abdullah Azzam.

In America MAK was run by Mustafa Shalabi, a close associate of MAK’s co-founder Abdullah Azzam. As a consequence he too was mudered by supporters of Bin Laden who followed Omar Abdel-Rahman (the Blind Shiekh). Yet another fellow Muslim killed by this rather anti-Muslim Muslim Brotherhood.

They then conducted some rather unprofesional and infective attacks in New York before being removed from the City after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Various offshoots continued to raise cash in the US and sleeper cells remained in other parts of the US and were the support network on which the 9/11 attacks were made.

Al Qaida stays put

After the Afghan war Al qaida continued to have the major say in the pakistan based madrassas and that is where many of their recruits came from but they had at this time no control over Afghanistan, which spent the next half decade in civil war and warlordism.

During and after Gulf War I. Osama railed against the infedels comming into Saudi Arabia (off throwing his teddy and into another 14 year old Girly fit about his dress) He cheesed the Saudi Government off and they exiled him and removed his citizenship.

Al Qaida remained for the next half decade an inefectual organisation with more attacks on other muslims particularly in Sudan and Algeria. The attacks also included the failed attempt on another Egyptian President; Hosni Mubarak. As a Result Osama was thrown out of another Muslim country Sudan.

Unocal the black bishop moves

At this point people in the Oil business became aware that the vast oil reserves in the former Soviet republics around the Caspian sea actualy dwarfed those in Saudi Arabia.

They had one big problem though how to get it.

Iran would have nothing to do with them and had its own caspian oil pipeline to build and make cash for them. The money for the operation was largely Saudi and US based. Both countries for different reasons consider Iran an enemy.

The oil could go up through Russia but there was no way for the Saudi and American grouping to make cash there either.

The next was the long way down through the Caucuses into Turkey. A rough build and it would cost a lot more to build and run. With each country it went through taking a cut too all the time the cash was getting smaller for the Saudi American group.

Then in 1995 Unocal anounced its brilliant idea of down through Afghanistan into Pakistan and out through the Rahn of Kush. Only two stops so less of a cut for the locals.

Knight takes Knight

One thing to do was sort out a deal with Pakistan this was easily done as the government changed over from Benazir Bhutto who suddenly found herself tied up in a lot of corruption scandals that came to nothing and the government of Nawaz Sharif took power.

Taliban The pawn storm

The other thing to do was stabalise Afghanistan. There was no chance of doing a deal with the main warlords in control Afghanistan at the time they would have wanted a better cut. What they wanted was a small group they could control.

Enter The Taliban a group of Students (that is what Taliban means) they were the result of all those years of training the sons of mujahideen in a peculiar form of Islam the indoctrinated people the CIA, Saudis and the Pakistani security services had spent all that time and money on. An instant Army.

Suddenly an Army from no where consisting of the Children of mujahideen and an awful lot of non Afghans from pakistan and lead by Arabs became very well equipped.

One of the saddest things about this period is that the very Children of the mujahideen who had driven out the soviets killed their own heroic mujahideen fathers. For Al Qaeda founded in those muderers of Muslims the Muslim Brotherhood it was back to there old stomping ground they were killing muslims again.

Unocal takes the center only to loose it

By 1996 Unocal had their puppet government and along with the US state department promptly welcomed the new regime only to have to back pedal sharpish when The White House under Bill Clinton reminded them that the Taliban were not exactly liked by America; as they harboring Osama and Al Qaeda who were involved in the attempt on kill the Egyptian president and anti American activities in Saudi Arabia at the time of and subsequent to GW I.

You can guess which others were involved in the pipe line project were by looking which countries recognised the Taliban regime they were: Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.

Unocal then spent next few years grooming and making doe eyes at the Taliban with an eye to the post Clinton Government.

In the mean time Al Qaeda went on to bomb the US embassies in East Africa. Clinton started using Cruise missiles against Al Qaeda's bases in Afghanistan and Unocal was forced to stop wooing the Taliban and anounced the deal was off.

For those interested in this time line you can look here http://www.ringnebula.com/Oil/Timeline.htm

Al Qaida bombed the USS Cole.

TBA's Oil barons: A rook enters the fray

As soon as TBA got into power the deal was back on all problems with bombing US embasies was swept under the carpet and TBA invited the Taliban over for Tea and biscuits.

The problem for TBA's Oil business people was the Taliban wanted too much.

So  U.S. Official delivered this ultimatum to the Taliban (via the Pakistani delegation acting as their interlocutors): "Either you accept our offer of a carpet of gold, or we bury you under a carpet of bombs."

The Taliban came over to TBA for more tea and biscuits and more pressure was applied. An october deadline was set.

October came and went.

then 9/11

The rest as they say is history

A whole bunch of former Unocal people now run Afghanistan and the Pipeline is now hapily back on the go.

Al Qaida continues to kill muslims round the world their prefered game Their best little spot being the thousands they kill in Iraq but they do the same in Turkey, Saudi Arabia Egypt and yes even London where they killed people of all faiths including muslims.

Check but not Mate

The price of oil goes up and TBA is happy.

The game is The War For Oil

What this is all about. What is has always be about ladies and gentlemen is Oil. it is the great Game once more writ large across the world.

http://www.newgreatgame.com/excerpts.htm

Kind Regards Walker

[billybob2002 0]

Quote[/b] ]The game is The War For Oil

What this is all about. What is has always be about ladies and gentlemen is Oil. it is the great Game once more writ large across the world.

http://www.newgreatgame.com/excerpts.htm

Kind Regards Walker

Are you implying that Unocal wants to start up a pipeline in Afghanistan still, correct? Well, in 2002, Unocal Chairman Charles R. Williamson told Unocal stockholders today that Unocal has no plans or interest in becoming involved in any projects in Afghanistan, including natural gas or crude oil pipelines (source: http://www.unocal.com/uclnews/98news/centgas.htm and http://www.unocal.com/uclnews/2004news/063004.htm ). Furthermore, have you turned on a television in last couple of months? If you haven't turn one on, there was a big fight on whether or not Unocal will accept CNOOC (Chinese govt. backed company) bid over taking over their company. The bid fell through because Chervon made a bigger offer and so, Unocal accpeted Chervon's bid. With accpeting the bid, Uncocal is now going to merge with Chervon. The only thing done by Chervon in Afghanistan is marketing (source: http://www.chevron.com/operations/eurasia/countries.asp ). Also, from http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/afghan.html

Quote[/b] ]Afghanistan as an Energy Transit Route

Due to its location between the oil and natural gas reserves of the Caspian Basin and the Indian Ocean, Afghanistan has long been mentioned as a potential pipeline route, though in the near term, several obstacles will likely prevent Afghanistan from becoming an energy transit corridor. During the mid-1990s, Unocal had pursued a possible natural gas pipeline from Turkmenistan's Dauletabad-Donmez gas basin via Afghanistan to Pakistan, but pulled out after the U.S. missile strikes against Afghanistan in August 1998. The Afghan government under President Karzai has tried to revive the Trans-Afghan Pipeline (TAP) plan, with periodic talks held between the governments of Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Turkmenistan on the issue, but little progress appears to have been made as of early June 2004 (despite the signature on December 9, 2003, of a protocol on the pipeline by the governments of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Turkmenistan). President Karzai has stated his belief that the project could generate $100-$300 million per year in transit fees for Afghanistan, while creating thousands of jobs in the country.

Given the obstacles to development of a natural gas pipeline across Afghanistan, it seems unlikely that such an idea will make any progress in the near future, and no major Western companies have expressed interest in reviving the project. The security situation in Afghanistan remains an obvious problem, while tensions between India and Pakistan make it unlikely that such a pipeline could be extended into India and its large (and growing) gas market. Financial problems in the utility sector in India, which would be the major consumer of the natural gas, also could pose a problem for construction of the TAP line. Finally, the pipeline's $2.5-$3.5 billion estimated cost poses a significant obstacle to its construction.

.....

Quote[/b] ]Check but not Mate

The price of oil goes up and TBA is happy.

What about the bubble you used to pump around... Jeez, your trying to turn Bush in to Dr. Evil...

[walker 0]

Hi billybob2002

In fact the Pipeline Deal was approved in 2002.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/2017044.stm

it was then a question of who would get the gas and oil.

But you are right about Unocal it is no longer in on the deal.

All though they and several other US companies want to be involved.

http://www.energybulletin.net/4089.html

http://216.239.59.104/search?....5&hl=en

http://216.239.59.104/search?....5&hl=en

The problem is they tipped their hand and the locals realised how much the shorter pipeline through Afghanistan and Pakistan was worth (around half the length of the pipeline to Turkey so half the construction and running costs). Also feelings toward the US in the region have declined because of Iraq and fears of US involvement in destabilisation of the region.

Things started to tilt last month with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) - which includes Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, China and Russia coming down hard on the US

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/GG28Ag01.html

Instead an Asian group offered a better deal and has cherry picked the contracts.

http://www.newscentralasia.com/modules....id=1353

Essentially the oil and Gas will be going to China, India, Pakistan and other east Asian markets. Also Russia has secured its position and the US base in Uzbekistan has apparently been told it has to go.

http://indiamonitor.com/news/readNews.jsp?ni=8176

Hence I said but not Checkmate. Rather a counter check.

As to the Oil price bubble.

There are two distinct groups: tradition oil barons and speculators.

TBA make money if the oil price goes up they are almost to a man and woman oil barons. Their profits doubled this year.

For the speculator who does not own oil companies but rather bets on the price going up or down there is a coincidence of benefits to members of TBA by their current action of raising the price of a barrel of oil. You must remember these people go to the same business lunches and parties as members of TBA and the management of oil companies TBA own.

Their current idea is to boost the price to $105.00 a barrel by the end of this year so expect them to be do everything in their power to achieve it. Interestingly some of them supported the current Afghanistan Asia Deal I wonder why?

Never the less one day when the bubble has reached its max they will burst it and they will bet on the fall of the oil price. My Guess would be somewhere around $90.00. On that day TBA will be shifting shares swiftly out of the oil business.

The great game is truly afoot.

Kind Regards Walker

[Bernadotte 0]

What is your source of info, Walker?  

They are rooted in the Muslim Brotherhood famous for killing Nasser.

Nasser died of a heart attack.

Quote[/b] ]...one of the usual Muslim Brotherhood traits of killing fellow Muslims in this case a Car Bomb that killed Dr. Abdullah Azzam.

Azzam was killed in Pakistan, probably by competing Afghan militia leaders.  Muslim Brotherhood is mostly active in Egypt with some dealings in Jordan, Syria and possibly the occupied territories.

Quote[/b] ]In America MAK was run by Mustafa Shalabi, a close associate of MAK’s co-founder Abdullah Azzam. As a consequence he too was mudered by supporters of Bin Laden who followed Omar Abdel-Rahman (the Blind Shiekh). Yet another fellow Muslim killed by this rather anti-Muslim Muslim Brotherhood.

Shalabi was murdered in NYC by Rahman followers who wanted money from his organisation.  The Muslim Brotherhood had nothing to do with it.

Quote[/b] ]For Al Qaeda founded in those muderers of Muslims the Muslim Brotherhood...

You are probably thinking of the extremist group Egyptian Islamic Jihad, that split off from the Muslim Brotherhood around 30 years ago and later helped to form Al Qaida.

For what it's worth, here's what our friends at Wikipedia say about the Muslim Brotherhood:

Quote[/b] ]During Nasser's rule, many members of the Brotherhood were held for years in prisons and concentration camps, where they were systematically tortured. One of these was the writer Sayyid Qutb, who became the Brotherhood's most influential thinker for a time; he argued for a gradual preparation for violent revolution, to overthrow a state that he viewed as anti-Muslim. Qutb was sentenced to death in 1966. Over the next few years, the Brotherhood's leadership distanced itself from his revolutionary ideology, adhering instead to a nonviolent reformist strategy, to which it has remained strongly committed ever since.

During the presidency of Anwar al-Sadat, the imprisoned Brothers were gradually released; since then, the organisation has been tolerated to an extent, but remains illegal and is subjected to periodic crackdowns. In the 1970s, a large student Islamic activist movement took shape, independently from the Brotherhood. In the 1980s, during Hosni Mubarak's presidency, many of these activists joined the Brotherhood, enabling it to win a number of elections to the executive boards of prominent professional associations. In order to quell the Brotherhood's renewed influence, the government again resorted to harsh repressive measures starting in 1992. Despite mass arrests, police harassment and an essentially closed political system, Brotherhood candidates have made strong showings in several parliamentary elections. In the past decade, the Brotherhood has made repeated calls for a more democratic political system, and in 2005 it has participated in pro-democracy demonstrations with the Kifaya movement.

[walker 0]

What is your source of info, Walker?  

They are rooted in the Muslim Brotherhood famous for killing Nasser.

Nasser died of a heart attack.

Hi Bernadotte

Corrected it should have said  Anwar al-Sadat and not Nasser. Nasser of course executed Sayyed Qutb Leader of the Muslim brotherhood. Some how I transposed the two Egyptian Presidents Names a moments aberant thought at two thirty in the morning.

My Apologies

As to Offshoots of the Muslim botherhood it is Franchise just the same as Al Qaeda which is derived from it. Whether the tail wags the dog is irelevant.

What is important is that Muslim Brotherhood Franchise is by its actions anti muslim and has killed more muslims than Mosad; hence why many Muslims when they commit such acts as the recent attack in Egypt say it is controled by them. other obvious examples of the franchises anti Muslim actions are the thousands killed by Al Qaeda Iraq. The Taliban's targeting of muslim Clerics in Afghanistan http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn....37.html is just another example of the primarily anti Islamic and anti Muslim nature of this group of franchises.

The philosophy is essential suicidal and thus self defeating as it was Algeria. I would expect nothing less from organisations run by a suposedly grown man who throws a hissy fit because Mujhadeen wont kill one of their guest for him.

Like many organisations it proffess to be one thing but acts in a completely oposite way. Like TBA talking about being pro free trade and then giving the worlds biggest social security cheque to that failed business of Dodgy Dick Cheyney Haliburton.

As to  Dr. Abdullah Yusuf Azzam he had fallen out with Osama bin Laden over the future targets of Jihad. The Attack took place when he was on his way to friday prayers in Peshwar the then MAK and Al Qaeda heartland.

Kind Regards walker

[Bernadotte 0]

As to Offshoots of the Muslim botherhood it is Franchise just the same as Al Qaeda which is derived from it. Whether the tail wags the dog is irelevant.

Irrelevant?  If a dog bites you should cut off its head.  If you cut off its tail it will bite you harder.  

[Nemesis6 0]

Bernadotte, do you really think violence and terrorism will stop if the so-called "Palestinians" are left in a situation in which they feel comfortable? Also, do you really think the Arabs care about the Palestinians? If they did, they could have established a Palestinian state about 2 times now, but they didn't. Instead of answering the question I gave to you myself, I refer you to this picture -

[Bernadotte 0]

Bernadotte, do you really think violence and terrorism will stop if the so-called "Palestinians" are left in a situation in which they feel comfortable?

Didn't you read my opinion at the top of this page?  I said, that maybe between a just settlement of the Palestinian dispute and the secularisation of Islam, Al Qaida will no longer be in the growth phase it is in today.

Now let me use your own arrogant style to ask you a similar question:  Do you think the so-called "Israelis" will ever be in a situation in which they feel comfortable as long as they leave the Palestinians in a situation in which they feel extremely uncomfortable?  And, unless your answer addresses the global war on terror, please respond in the Middle East thread.

Also, do you really think the Arabs care about the Palestinians?

From Al Qaida's latest message to America/Britain:  "...you will not dream of security until we live it as a reality in Palestine..."

If they did, they could have established a Palestinian state about 2 times now, but they didn't.

Please ask me about this in the Middle East thread, not here.

[Panda-PL- 0]

Quote[/b] ]From Al Qaida's latest message to America/Britain:

Why are You so sure that:

1) It was trully Al Qaida? (propably it was)

2) They speak for entire Al Quida? (they surely don't)

3) They speak truth? (actually you shouldn't trust terrorists)

And finally

4) What good did 9/11 do to Palestine?

Sorry, I see NO connection.

Middle east terror started long before AQ and will least much longer if Palestinians and Israeli don't come to terms with each other. Palestinians might have little contribution for global terrorism (and that's the reasoning behind this AQ's declarations), but AQ has absolutely no bussines helping them.

[Bernadotte 0]

@ Aug. 05 2005,14:22)]...AQ has absolutely no bussines helping them.

The question was not about whether AQ has any business helping them. It was about whether or not "the Arabs" care about them.

[Guest The Cobra]

14 US marine corps were killed today in the worst carbomb in Iraq. All victims were from the same neighbourhood, so everyone knew eachother and the relatives also know eachother.

When a dad talked about a phonecall he recived from his son before he was killed (he had said that he couldn't wait to come home and play pool with his parents), tears came in my eyes... When the hell is this gonna stop??

Bush talked about a timetable too withdraw US forces out of Iraq, thouhg no straight answer were given.

I think it's like this; They doesn't have a plan. At all. Just get the troops back home!

May victims rest in peace

[red oct 2]

all i've ever heard was his broken record speaches of "staying the course" maybe when fatalities reach 2000, there can be some plans for impeachment... not as if there isn't enough dirt on him:

1.criminal history were talking about real felonies here not some parking tickets

2. possibility of being AWOL during his military service. he managed to worm his way out that one when Sadam was caught

3.lying about WMD in Iraq

4.Prison Abuse scandal

5.CIA leak

6.Social Security plan

7.Imigration Policy

8.Eviromental Policy

9.CAFTA

10.Eminent Domain. probaly my favorite... he abused eminent domain himself back when he was running the Texas Rangers when he was supposed to be running the state he was governer of. claimed his $191 million stadium in Arlington was a "Public use" like highways, schools ect..

11. he hasn't provided any of the internal documents on John Roberts

12.Stem Cell research policy,he doesn't have any objection to sending 1800 soldiers to their deaths, but heaven forbid using some embro to cure diseases. real compasionate conservative.

13. appointing Bolton as UN Ambassador when congress was out

[Bernadotte 0]

all i've ever heard was his broken record speaches of "staying the course" maybe when fatalities reach 2000, there can be some plans for impeachment...

Impeachment?  No way.  He would have to be guilty of something much more serious.

Like having sex with a Whitehouse intern.

[walker 0]

Hi all

A very interesting article about Al Qaeda' s web and DVD based tactics.

Quote[/b] ]Terrorists Turn to the Web as Base of Operations

By Steve Coll and Susan B. Glasser

Washington Post Staff Writers

Sunday, August 7, 2005; Page A01

In the snow-draped mountains near Jalalabad in November 2001, as the Taliban collapsed and al Qaeda lost its Afghan sanctuary, Osama bin Laden biographer Hamid Mir watched "every second al Qaeda member carrying a laptop computer along with a Kalashnikov" as they prepared to scatter into hiding and exile. On the screens were photographs of Sept. 11 hijacker Mohamed Atta.

Nearly four years later, al Qaeda has become the first guerrilla movement in history to migrate from physical space to cyberspace. With laptops and DVDs, in secret hideouts and at neighborhood Internet cafes, young code-writing jihadists have sought to replicate the training, communication, planning and preaching facilities they lost in Afghanistan with countless new locations on the Internet.

Al Qaeda suicide bombers and ambush units in Iraq routinely depend on the Web for training and tactical support, relying on the Internet's anonymity and flexibility to operate with near impunity in cyberspace. In Qatar, Egypt and Europe, cells affiliated with al Qaeda that have recently carried out or seriously planned bombings have relied heavily on the Internet.

Such cases have led Western intelligence agencies and outside terrorism specialists to conclude that the "global jihad movement," sometimes led by al Qaeda fugitives but increasingly made up of diverse "groups and ad hoc cells," has become a "Web-directed" phenomenon, as a presentation for U.S. government terrorism analysts by longtime State Department expert Dennis Pluchinsky put it. Hampered by the nature of the Internet itself, the government has proven ineffective at blocking or even hindering significantly this vast online presence...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn....38.html

Well worth a full read if you follow the link to the article it is quite long

kind regards Walker

[red oct 2]

Iran has broken the UN seals at their plant.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4136662.stm

i think its safe to say that talks have failed. so, what do we do now?

[Panda-PL- 0]

Iran has broken the UN seals at their plant.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4136662.stm

i think its safe to say that talks have failed. so, what do we do now?

The US invasion limit is used up already, so I'd say it's up to UN now... This is bad.

But propably Iran is just trying to make another round of negotiations easier using its program as a triumph card, so they won't have to promiss any reforms or anything.

With AT-coalition trapped in Iraq and Afghanistan Iran does feel it is the right moment to start to push at UN.

[Bernadotte 0]

Iran has a long history of doing things without telling the world's nuclear authorities.  Now that they are finally doing everything according to the rules, the world is telling them to stop doing it.  Why?  Because they used to break the rules.

EDIT:  Today, the Islamic Republic of Pakistan test launched its first cruise missile without warning.

Quote[/b] ]PAKISTAN has test-fired its first cruise missile, with President Musharraf heralding the event as a success in the country’s arms race with nuclear rival India.

From Wikipedia:

Quote[/b] ]Pakistan covertly developed its nuclear weapons over many decades, with active Chinese assistance, begining in the late 1970's, and tested its first fission devices in 1998. It seems to have been motivated primarily in creating a deterrence against India. The country's proliferation record is gravely suspect. The chief scientist who worked on the Pakistani bomb, A.Q. Khan, confessed in 2004 to illicitly distributing nuclear-enabling technology to many other countries, including Iran, Libya and North Korea.

But as long as they are allies of the US then there's no need for sanctions or UN Security Council resolutions, right?

[Sophion-Black 0]

all i've ever heard was his broken record speaches of "staying the course" maybe when fatalities reach 2000, there can be some plans for impeachment... not as if there isn't enough dirt on him:

man do you have a dream and a half...

1) I'd really like to see the the records before i start on this

2) possibility

3) Sometimes the President lies... so what? all pres did.

4) Link that with Pres Bush... nice try

5) (don't know too much about the story to talk about it)

6) you're grasping at staws at this one...

7) I'm sure its not his policy were following

8) Whats he doing wrong? haven't heard about this one before

9)

10) look at the deffinition of ED

11) that ties in with the pres how?

12) War is War, i can go on and on about how War is inevitable and why peace is non-existant. but the truth is: you won't listen to anything i would say but the big point "A nation has to do what a nation has to do"

13) (...been under a rock for a while   )

basicly you have nothing on Pres Bush to even put him up for impeachment. The only thing that might get by is the Iraqi War but the Governtment would not impeach him because there's a LOT that the public doesn't know and thats mainly because of the FAR left wing filling the pubics head's with junk. Lets just say F(never could spell it) 9/11 put out a lot of crap. Some is right, but the stuf that is... its not told in Full. Example: The one man border patrol in California is right but its to keep immigrints out. Pluse mostly the navy and Coast Guard spots any unidentified ships that make it to US waters. take a  guess on what happends to the boat if it doen't respond to the Navy if the Coast Guard failes to establish communication or can't search the vessle... BOOM! bye bye boat.

so you guys really need to be carefull about this stuff, always ALWAYS check up on it. but the dirt you have about fatalities going up... Its WAR what do you expect? people to give out cookies? PICK UP YOUR SKIRT!!! people are going to die. that happends. but men dying all around the country is a HUGE contrast on how many people are still there. DAMN! if the pres pulls out because a few brainwashed citizens say "theres people dying alot, were lossing, withdraw". you people make me sick! people like that are nothing more that ignorant fools! if thats the way were going to portray future wars then the US will not exsist in 5 years. I personally would move to a differant country, you whant to know why? I would not live in a coutry the runs away from a fight. The US has lost its best and most powerfull trait. to be honest, i think Patton was the last American. now all we've got is a bunch of weaklings  

(you can tell i had a bad day today )

[Balschoiw 0]

Sophion Black, you might want to do a reality check before you fullmouthly support a chimp and his staff for his doings.

All that war is war nonsense comes out of my ears right now.

THE question you need to ask your funny president now is:

Was war ever justified ? Were the reasons correct ? Why do US soldiers have to die there ? For what reasons again ? Why did he lie to the ENTIRE World ? Why does he betray hie OWN people ?

Why has he NOT made the world a safer place ? Why is he responsible for AQ rising ?

Why is Rumsie still in his office? Why is Condi still in her office ?

That are the questions you need to ask when talking about your presidents responsibility for your people and the rest of the world.

I just can´t believe that the US people as a whole are that stupid, and I DO hope that they´re not alltogether sailing that stupid nutshell of ultimate democracy to spread which is the greatest nonsense of all times, like his "creator" - theory is...

[breaker44 0]

balls-

Mebbe it's the other way around. When I was in Berlin this summer, I discovered that German citizens could not listen in or even watch proceedings in the Reichstag.

Kinda like when the commies were running things and had their parliament with the copper windows i.e. we can see you but you can't see us...

I think the world view (including the US) view on the war on terror is pretty skewed, as it is always seen through some sort of journalistic filter. Now I know you are gonna deny it up and down, but positive steps are being made towards progress in this conflict, and we will win it, with or without un help.

Now I know the general European view (if not world view) of Americans is that we are all stupid, fat, lazy cowboys who drive SUV's, but i tell you this. If we had not acted on our own we would not have our independance, we would not have the nation we do today, we would not have the standard of living we have today, and colonialism would still be the norm. To reinforce this point, I'll leave you with a quote by one of my heroes, Gen. George S. Patton-

"If everybody is thinking the same way, then nobody is thinking."

Break away from the UN platform of bobbing heads and shaking fists and let your own brainstem do the bulk of the thinking! You are a very intellegent induvidual, and I trust that you can do it.

-Breaker Out (im going to bed.)

[Albert Schweitzer 10]

Quote[/b] ]Mebbe it's the other way around. When I was in Berlin this summer, I discovered that German citizens could not listen in or even watch proceedings in the Reichstag.

Are you sure you were in the Reichstag?  See in the picture above, the blue chairs on first floor are for the politicians, those black ones on the second are for visitors.  There are not even bullet proof windows in between. I live in Berlin but I must admit I never took the opportunity to visit a discussion. The relevant discussions in the Reichstag are also broadcasted by several TV stations. I am realy wondering where you got that information from.

http://www2.thgwf.de/fahrten....al5.jpg

So you must come to Berlin once again and have a look

[Balschoiw 0]

Quote[/b] ] I discovered that German citizens could not listen in or even watch proceedings in the Reichstag.

Plain wrong as Albert already said. I don´t know where you´ve been but I guess not at the Reichstag.

For sure there are closed parliament sessions. That´s nothing unusual when security matters are discussed or things that are not to be brought to broad public. I am sure you have the same over there.

Quote[/b] ]To reinforce this point, I'll leave you with a quote by one of my heroes, Gen. George S. Patton-

"If everybody is thinking the same way, then nobody is thinking."

I guess that´s what´s actually happening in the US right now as Bush´s support dwindeled down to 39 percent. People have worn the "all is terror" glasses too long and now realize that they were cheated. Cheated by your government.

So yes, it´s a good quote. And people in the US actually begin to think on their own again and don´t buy the White house shit anymore.

Anyway, good read on the Bush dilemma:

Frank Rich: Someone tell the president the war is over

Quote[/b] ]Like the Japanese soldier marooned on an island for years after V-J Day, President George W. Bush may be the last person in the United States to learn that for Americans, if not Iraqis, the war in Iraq is over. "We will stay the course," he insistently tells us from his Texas ranch. What do you mean we, white man?

A president can't stay the course when his own citizens (let alone his own allies) won't stay with him. The approval rate for Bush's handling of Iraq plunged to 34 percent in last weekend's Newsweek poll - a match for the 32 percent that approved President Lyndon Johnson's handling of Vietnam in early March 1968. (The two presidents' overall approval ratings have also converged: 41 percent for Johnson then, 42 percent for Bush now.) On March 31, 1968, as LBJ's ratings plummeted further, he announced he wouldn't seek re-election, commencing America's long extrication from that quagmire.

But the current Texas president has even outdone his predecessor; Bush has lost not only the country but also his army. Neither bonuses nor fudged standards nor the faking of high school diplomas has solved the recruitment shortfall. Now Jake Tapper of ABC News reports that the armed forces are so eager for bodies they will flout "don't ask, don't tell" and hang on to gay soldiers who tell, even if they tell the press.

The president's cable cadre is in disarray as well. At Fox News, Bill O'Reilly is trashing Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld for his incompetence, and Ann Coulter is chiding O'Reilly for being a defeatist. In an emblematic gesture akin to waving a white flag, Robert Novak walked off a CNN set and possibly out of a job rather than answer questions about his role in smearing the man who helped expose the administration's prewar inflation of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. (On this sinking ship, it's hard to know which rat to root for.)

As if the right-wing pundit crackup isn't unsettling enough, Bush's top war strategists, starting with Rumsfeld and General Richard Myers, have of late tried to rebrand the war in Iraq as what the defense secretary calls "a global struggle against violent extremism." A struggle is what you have with your landlord. When the war's uber-managers start using euphemisms for a conflict this lethal, it's a clear sign that the battle to keep the Iraq war afloat with the American public is lost.

That battle crashed past the tipping point this month in Ohio. There's historical symmetry in that. It was in Cincinnati on Oct. 7, 2002, that Bush gave the fateful address that sped congressional ratification of the war just days later. The speech was a miasma of self-delusion, half-truths and hype. The president said that "we know that Iraq and Al Qaeda have had high-level contacts that go back a decade," an exaggeration based on evidence that the Senate Intelligence Committee would later find far from conclusive.

He said that Saddam "could have a nuclear weapon in less than a year" were he able to secure "an amount of highly enriched uranium a little larger than a single softball." America's own National Intelligence Estimate of Oct. 1 quoted State Department findings that claims of Iraqi pursuit of uranium in Africa were "highly dubious."

It was on these false premises - that Iraq was both a collaborator on Sept. 11, 2001, and about to inflict mushroom clouds on America - that honorable and brave young Americans were sent off to fight. Among them were the 19 Marine reservists from a single suburban Cleveland battalion slaughtered in just three days at the start of this month. As they perished, another Ohio Marine reservist who had served in Iraq came close to winning a congressional election in southern Ohio. Paul Hackett, a Democrat who called the president a "chicken hawk," received 48 percent of the vote in exactly the kind of bedrock conservative Ohio district that decided the 2004 election for Bush.

These are the tea leaves that all Republicans, not just Chuck Hagel, are reading now. Newt Gingrich called the Hackett near-victory "a wake-up call." The resolutely pro-war New York Post editorial page begged Bush (to no avail) to "show some leadership" by showing up in Ohio to salute the fallen and their families. A Bush loyalist, Senator George Allen of Virginia, instructed the president to meet with Cindy Sheehan, the mother camping out in Crawford, as "a matter of courtesy and decency." Or, to translate his Washingtonese, as a matter of politics. Only someone as adrift from reality as Bush would need to be told that a vacationing president can't win a standoff with a grief-stricken parent commandeering television cameras and the blogosphere round the clock.

Such political imperatives are rapidly bringing about the war's end. That's inevitable for a war of choice, not necessity, that was conceived in politics from the start. Iraq was a Bush administration idée fixe before there was a 9/11. Within hours of that horrible trauma, according to Richard Clarke's "Against All Enemies," Rumsfeld was proposing Iraq as a battlefield, not because the enemy that attacked America was there, but because it offered "better targets" than the shadowy terrorist redoubts of Afghanistan. It was easier to take out Saddam - and burnish Bush's credentials as a slam-dunk "war president," suitable for a "Top Gun" victory jig - than to shut down Al Qaeda and smoke out its leader "dead or alive."

But just as politics are a bad motive for choosing a war, so they can be a doomed engine for running a war. Early last year, Bush said, "The thing about the Vietnam War that troubles me, as I look back, was it was a political war," adding that the "essential" lesson he learned from Vietnam was to not have "politicians making military decisions." But by then Bush had disastrously ignored that very lesson; he had let Rumsfeld publicly rebuke the army's chief of staff, Eric Shinseki, after the general dared tell the truth: that several hundred thousand troops would be required to secure Iraq. To this day it's America's failure to provide that security that has turned Iraq into the terrorist haven it hadn't been before 9/11 - "the central front in the war on terror," as Bush keeps reminding us, as if that might make us forget he's the one who recklessly created it.

The endgame for U.S. involvement in Iraq will be of a piece with the rest of this sorry history. "It makes no sense for the commander in chief to put out a timetable" for withdrawal, Bush declared on the same day that 14 of those Ohio troops were killed by a roadside bomb in Haditha. But even as he spoke, the war's actual commander, General George Casey, had already publicly set a timetable for "some fairly substantial reductions" to start next spring.

Officially this calendar is tied to the next round of Iraqi elections, but it's quite another election this administration has in mind. The priority now is less to save Iraqi democracy than to save Rick Santorum and every other endangered Republican facing voters in November 2006. Nothing that happens on the ground in Iraq can turn around the fate of this war in America: not a shotgun constitution rushed to meet an arbitrary deadline, not another Iraqi election, not higher terrorist body counts, not another battle for Falluja (where insurgents may again regroup, The Los Angeles Times reported last week). An American citizenry that was asked to accept tax cuts, not sacrifice, at the war's inception is hardly in the mood to start sacrificing now. There will be neither the volunteers nor the money required to field the wholesale additional U.S. troops that might bolster the security situation in Iraq.

What lies ahead now in Iraq instead is not victory, which Bush has never clearly defined anyway, but an exit (or triage) strategy that may echo Johnson's March 1968 plan for retreat from Vietnam: some kind of negotiations (in this case, with Sunni elements of the insurgency), followed by more inflated claims about the readiness of the local troops-in-training, whom America will then throw to the wolves. Such an outcome may lead to even greater disaster, but this administration long ago squandered the credibility needed to make the difficult case that more human and financial resources might prevent Iraq from continuing its descent into civil war and its devolution into jihad central.

Thus the president's claim on Thursday that "no decision has been made yet" about withdrawing troops from Iraq can be taken exactly as seriously as the vice president's preceding fantasy that the insurgency is in its "last throes." Americans have already made the decision for Bush. We're outta there. Now comes the hard task of identifying the leaders who can pick up the pieces of the fiasco that has made America more vulnerable, not less, to the terrorists who struck us four years ago next month.