Bin Ladens latest speech

[David Jamieson]

I think that one of palestines greatest deficits is in it's so called leadership.

Arafat is not exactly the best choice, but I guess the people like him because they have been reduced to cowering refugees living in squaller and he gives them at least some small shred of pride in being a palestinian.

Hamas and it's leaders also run hospitals and schools along with their other activities which are inclusive of blowing up buses filled with israelis and palestinian day warkers.

Al Aqsa Martyrs brigade...ok, teh name says it all. This is a guerilla warfare group and nothing else.

Hezbollah is also a mixed group like Hamas.

THis situation is strikingly parralelled in the Situation in Northern Ireland.

The problem in my view on teh Israeli side of things and the Palestinian side of things is that tehre is a lot of bad blood amongst teh leaders thatgoes back for wuite a bit of recent history. Sharon and Arafat have to go. Anyone over 40 should be put out of office immediately and the young should be put in a room to negotiate a peace. I really am of the opinion that this would make a huige difference.

As for the "if you aren't with us, you are against us" tirade, well, George W Bush is the King of that nonsense.

I think the American people at the grassroots are quite sane and probably one of the better adjusted peoples of the world. The have the benefits of education and general health, but the politics in that nation right now is truly at a boiiling point.

I don't think I've ever seen the senate more divided in all the time I've had interst in what's going on with our American cousins.

I think the last time it was this bad was during the Kennedy years.

The people appear divided as well. Bush is poison to all that America has been and can be. He has single handedly set back some of the greatest moves forward that were made since the Nixon presidency, yes Nixon! lol.

I mean think about it, from Nixon to Ford, to Carter to Reagan to Bush To Clinton some huge steps were made towards peace in teh area. As soon as Bush junior gets the helm. KABLAM! The whole thing is unraveling at the seams? Why? Maybe it's because he is a militant isolationist? Maybe it's because he probably shouldn't have been elected?

I really don't care much for how he's propping himself up on the deaths of the 911 victims like he helped them or something.

Well, let's hope that come November teh people of teh US will see through this guys clearly greed motivated moves and bumbling ineptness as a statesman and perhaps put a worthy candidate in office.

So far Bush has done little but be a puppet for the neo cons and we all known how dangherous those minds can be.

cheers

[ZIM]

"...To experience any real militancy, today's Left wing activists must attach themselves as pathetic dogs to Islamic causes like the International Solidarity Movement. There, they can indulge their fantasy of advancing world socialism while objectively dying for Osama Bin Laden or Yasser Arafat. The circle is complete. The roles have been reversed. The heirs to moribund Bolshevism have now become the "useful fools", the protective coloration of a dynamic militant Islamism."
-link

Compare with

shorter, non-headache version

[Nick Forrer]

'To experience any real militancy, today's Left wing activists must attach themselves as pathetic dogs to Islamic causes like the International Solidarity Movement.'

Rachel Corrie and Tom Hurndall were both members of the ISM. For the crimes of trying to stop an innocent family's home from being bull dozed and for documenting the corridor of Isreali bullets Palestinian children have to negotiate daily to get to school they were both murdered by the IDF. Personally I would hesitate to describe people who died whilst defending the defenceless as pathetic dogs.....But then maybe thats just me.

[Ultimatewingchun]

jun_erh:

I don't know who Chomsky is - and I don't care.

What I do know is that the only workable solution is to give the Palestinians the same amount of land as they had before the 1967 war...and half of Jerusalem - which is a holy city to three great religions - not just Judaism.

Perhaps a land swap is the way to do it - as a former Israeli general has championed (I don't recall his name right now)...and which has been endorsed by many fair-minded Israeli's and a number of Palestinians - as well as by former president Jimmy Carter (who was the last honest American "broker" to be involved in the peace process - and the only one who ever worked out any kind of reconciliation between Arabs and Jews)...

and in return the Palestinians have to recognize Israel's right to exist and WITHOUT any "right of return."

But I must tell you - your repeated assertions that all this land belongs to the Jews - plain and simple - is nonsense.

God doesn't designate which people get what land...that's a self-serving man-made notion.

People have to work it out amongst themselves - and considering the fact that the Palestinians have been living there for 1,000 years - and the Jews have history that dates back thousands of years as well...

The only solution is a formula to SHARE the land in a FAIR manner; because without such a solution - you now see Palestinian women and children becoming suicide bombers - and we label them terrorists...!!!

But they are not Al Quaeda...or Bin Laden...

On the other hand - Hamas, Hezbollah, Arafat - and the rest, will have to be tamed or killed.

But Sharon and the ultra right-wingers in Israel will suffer the same fate if they don't wise up also...

It's time for all sides to negotiate in good faith all else they will all wind up in mutual mass destruction.

So they need outside help (both sides)...and outside pressure - by an American president who has the BALLS to stand up to all of them and read them them the riot act.

And he has to be prepared to back it up with action.

And George W. Bush is the absolute wrong man for the job - at the wrong time.

[David Jamieson]

As I see it, AQ has to be totally destroyed

Rogue, I don't think that is possible. Al-Qaeda is a name for a new ideal in hate and rebellion against the current powers in the world.

It doesn't have a headquarters, it doesn't have a roster of names, it doesn't have a membership and it doesn't reside in only one place.

Al Q exists as much in the US as it does in Afghanistan or Pakistan of Britain or Germany or anywhere it's operativces reside, it's not unlike the Nazi movement or the ideals of the Southern Confederacy.

Which brings to mind another point. Did the civil war ever end in the US? I see so many confederate flags waving, the ideal is still pretty strong there. The flag of the confederacy has come to stand for the thoughts that are counter to the sitting government of the US. In fact, the flag of the confederacy has come to stand for an ideal that is perpetuated even in Canada! and elsewhere!

it's like some kind of thinking trend. LOL

Al Q is the same sort of thing, except that people take militant action in the name of it. remember the first Bin Laden tape where he is prasiing those as.s.holes who crashed into the wtc? That tape sounded like he didn't even know those guys! But he was happy that someone pitched into his cause.

Anyway, point being, that no matter what the mainstream is and how the mainstream is, there will always be an opponent. Sometimes that opponent will take the form of a militant action group that commits attrocities in the name of an ideal and other times it will be a peacful and non-violent movement.

Why I think Bush is the wrong man personally is that he completely ignores and minimalizes the peaceful motions and moves to war anyway. remember the millions and millions of people who protested the unilateral actions of the US to invade Iraq? Remember the non-participation of pretty much every and any country that actually had military power and economic power?

this has shown that Bush wanted to be a warmonger and was unwilling to sit down and talk and to resolve the issue. The man ain't anything like Ike was and that will be his downfall. He has further opened the gates to hate and retribution by acting in the same way as the original attackers!

To the Iraqis and the Muslim world, George Bush is their version of Osama Bin Laden. You have exactly the same dynamics as you do in the west where you have people in the west that support the views and actions of Bin Laden, Al Q and it's operatives. In the arab world you have groups that support Bush, THe US and it's army.

Inside of each incidence of yin, there is yang and vice versa.

It is clear to me that the only thing that will calm this is the ousting of the Bush government through the coming elections (my prefered method of ousting a government and thankfully a plausiable way of doing it here in the west) and of course the capture or neutralization of bin laden.

If it can be managed that both these players are not given any more buy in, then that means a period of peace for us all! So long as either still has power, there will be no peace and no hope of resolving the situations that need to be resolved.

cheers

[David Jamieson]

by the way

some of you may be interested in reading this here.

http://wildfirejo.blogspot.com/

warning: some of it is pretty harsh

[jun_erh]

Uwingchun- I totally agree with west bank, gaza and ast jeruselem going to The Palestinians. If you look at what Clinton offered Arafat at camp David, they almost got all of what they wanted. Jews have no problem giving up land for peace. Virtually every US administration has tried to reason with Yassar arafat. remember that stuff with all of them on the white house lawn shaking hands and so forth? The perception of the jews is that the Palestinians don't want peace, they want to destroy Israel. and it's not hard to see why they think that. THe textbooks in many muslim nations don't even recognize that Israel exists. Not to mention the terrorism. Imagine if the day after 9-11 people at the UN told us to sit down and talk with UBL!! There is a vast terrorist infrastructure that is funded by saudi oil, muslim, charities and even narco-trafficking.

Let me reiterate, I totally agree about the division of land.

[Ultimatewingchun]

jun_erh:

Well...perhaps you agree with me - perhaps not. But one thing is for certain:

Sharon and the powers-that-presently-be in Israel sure don't believe in the division of the land the way you just described...

Sharon wants to leave close to 200,000 settlers in the West Bank...some in Gaza...and is now talking quite openly about assasinating Arafat.

Sharon IS Arafat...in a business suit.

They both gotta go.

[Christopher M]

Originally posted by Nick Forrer
One could argue that free market capitalism is just as ideologically entrenched in the west and that people are just as blinkered to other cultures, viewpoints and modes of living. I mean how many genuine alternatives to free market capitalism are offered in mainstream US politics?

On the other hand - is 'free market capitalism' the ideology of 'the west'? In the first part of your post, you put forth an argument emphasizing selective protectionist trade and supernationalism as the key points to American policy. Of course, this is explicitly contrary to what 'free market capitalism' endorses. I don't think you can simultaneously chide America for a neo-socialist agenda and a capitalist ideology - seems like you must believe it to be one or the other.

[Christopher M]

Originally posted by Merryprankster
the ideological development of islam in many (read, most) places in the parallels the development of confucian china--no outside ideas are worth looking into and outsiders are second-class. this is as stultifying an attitude as can be, resulting in a stagnant society on all fronts.

another is that islam is not just a spiritual system. it is also a political and economic one. this makes it inherently less adaptable - religious truths cannot be compromised so the framework is stiffer; social, political and economic change is much harder to create and absorb.

another, and the final one i will address here, is the strong fatalistic component of islam as it is practiced in many places.

With this in mind - which is the greater evil, Baathism or extremist Islam?

This is a pertinent question insofar as western foreign policy seems to be emphasizing the 'imposition of democracy' upon states where Baathists hold a 'tyrrany of the minority' by military power; where they would be replaced by semi-theocratic Islamic government were democracy accomplished.

I think there is a strong tendancy to think that democracy is unquestionably benevolent. Even as an isolationist, I frequently find myself thinking that political freedom is worth interventionism. But it seems the situation is, at least, far more complicated than that.

This was brought to my attention most notably by a recent article on Lew Rockwell's site. Consider that Syria, of Baathist and Axis-of-Evil fame, is the finest place in the middle east to be a Christian - the result of the atheist Baathist minority enforcing their policies upon what would otherwise be a much less friendly, semi-theocratic nation.

Our gut feelings about democracy aside, is the world, or even Syria alone, better off having that changed?

Keeping in mind the observations regarding Islam you made above, there is perhaps some reason to believe Baathism shows more promise for effective development. We can consider the recent history of such places as Egypt in example.

this is not to say that the islamic world cannot evolve or modernize, after all, europe overcame the effects of the catholic church

I wonder - is it accurate to note that Europe's political evolution was not from the dark ages straight into liberalism, but rather via a transition of mercantalism and so on. Specifically, would this be an analogy defending the idea of Iraqi-Syrian Baathism as a step forward from theocracy, and against the imposition of democracy upon a theocratic culture?

in other words, it doesn't matter what the United States or the western world does. this is a conflict of ideology, not of policy.

While I gather this isn't exactly your meaning - it seems that the answers to the above problems do have meaningfull consequences for western foreign policy, insofar as that policy has already become involved in the middle east in the first place.

[fa_jing]

"Palestinians have been living there for 1,000 years"

I have no doubt that some Palestinians were living there for this amount of time, but from what I have always heard, most came in this century to take advantage of the roads and infrastructure built by the Jews.

"land grab"

Didn't the Palestinians get all of Jordan, which is much larger than Israel? In fact, I do believe they should get their own State in the West Bank and Gaza, precisely because "the situation on the ground has changed." I don't believe in denying people the right to live where they currently live, especially if they have lived there 50 years or more.

"sadly for the Palestinians they're considered a half step above trash by their so-called Arab brothers"

Yes, I hold the same opinion. When I was in Israel, I walked by human excrement in the streets in the Arab part of Jerusalem. Also, an Arab spit in my hair. I was 5 years old.

"Notice how no Arab country has ever gone to war for them?"

Well Arab countries have certainly made war against Israel, it was quite popular until they got smacked repeatedly.

I am also not happy about the FACT that in the majority of Mosques in Palestine, they preach "Death to the Jews." Kinda ticks me off as I am half-Jewish by descent. It was very kind of the PLO to finally remove the piece in their charter calling for the destruction of Israel, too. I can feel the love now.

BTW, my brother met some very nice Bedouins near one of the borders of Israel (don't remember which), they told him that they like America and smoked him out with some nice hash, about 10 years back. I have a Lebanese friend who I respect greatly, and I feel very sorry for the Palestinians who are kept from socio-economic progress by power-hungry violence mongerers such as Arafat (spits).

[Nick Forrer]

'I don't think you can simultaneously chide America for a neo-socialist agenda and a capitalist ideology - seems like you must believe it to be one or the other.'

Chris- read my post again more carefully- you may have missed the point where i said (in effect) the essence of US trade policy is 'free trade is okay for you but not for me'.

To expand- The US has in the past and in fact continues to this day to actively pursues co-ercive trade policies through international institutions like the IMF and the world bank which force third world countries to open up their markets to US exports, exports which are subject to 'market distortions' because they are heavily subsidised by the US tax payer and thus undercut domestic produce of the target market, a fact further compounded by those thrid world governments not being allowed under world trade rules to subsidise their own produce.

Further 'socialism' has little to do with it. Protectionist measures do not equate to Socialism (although the converse may not be true- on this point i am unsure). Rather what you are looking at is a long standing and highly sophisticated means of siphoning off public money into private hands. The defense industry is a good example of this- a handful of cherry picked defense contracters (like Lockheed Martin) competing (in the loosest sense of the word) for pieces of a very large tax payer donated pie. Of course to maintain this ruse an ideological facade must be maintained. The 'free market' is one such facade. The pressing need to perpetually defend 'freedom' from a nebuluous ill defined entity like 'terrorism' or 'drugs' is another. This is exactly what Orwell warned against and yet this is what we see unfolding before our eyes.

If there is a contradiction it lies with US economic policy not with me. I am simply reporting the truth as I understand it. If its consistency you're ater look to mathematics- not to extant US gov. policy concerning trade or any other issue as the rest of this thread so amply demonstrates.

[Christopher M]

Originally posted by Nick Forrer
you may have missed the point where i said (in effect) the essence of US trade policy is 'free trade is okay for you but not for me'.

No, I did not miss it. This is not a policy of free trade, right?

Further 'socialism' has little to do with it.

Sure it does. Though in retrospect I should have said post-socialism rather than neo-, as the currently dominating "neoconservative" ideology is explicitly post-socialist (ie. rather than capitalist).

Protectionist measures do not equate to Socialism

No, but they certainly indicate it; and contraindicate (classical) liberalism (ie. 'free market capitalism').

[Ultimatewingchun]

What we have here in the United States now is a"version" of democracy and capitalism that can more accurately be called...

Corporate Socialism.

The government, the laws, and the courts are skewed in favor of supporting large corporations...and the bigger the corporation - the more support from the state (the government) they get.

So small and mid-size businesses and corporations - along with the working-class, and the environment...get the shaft constantly when their interests get in the way of the plans (and the endless quest for bigger and bigger profits, acquisitions, salaries, stock options, and golden parachutes) that the richest corporate owners and CEO's seek.

We need a purer democratic capitalism...more democratic than we've ever had.

What does that mean?

Politicians with BALLS...balls enough to face down these power-brokers and provide small and midsize businesses the opportunity to compete on a more level playing field.

Because corporate socialism leads to plutocracy (the wealth and the power is in the hands of a relative few)...

And the rest of society gets sacrificed to their private individual interests.

Capitalism that is democratic....Economic Democracy to go along with Political Democracy...

The McCain/Feingold bill to overhaul the amount of money that can be contributed to politicians is a step in this direction - but so far a very small step.

[ZIM]

Consider that Syria, of Baathist and Axis-of-Evil fame, is the finest place in the middle east to be a Christian - the result of the atheist Baathist minority enforcing their policies upon what would otherwise be a much less friendly, semi-theocratic nation.

I would have thought that Israel would be the 'finest place'. But you're right- Syria has an ancient tradition for Christianity, going back to the Thomasines, if I have that right. I'm not too sure the Syrians would agree that they're athiests. Deists, maybe.

I haven't read the article in it's entirety yet, but the question you raised is one of the hard ones. Offhand, I'd say extremist Islam is worse- but neither is all that hot and perhaps they are interconnected in some respects, with one correlated strongly with the other [tho again, I'm saying this offhand]. Most philosophies and religions in abstract sound pretty nice- its the real world practice that can do you in.

Another hard question might be: Should Democracies change in light of modern religious Terrorism? And, if they are determined to be uniquely vulnerable to it, how to change?

There could be some effective arguments made to the effect that 'its happened before' and maybe the solutions that were democratically chosen were... less than satisfactory. But the terrorism of the past was more political in essence, yes? What makes this different? What responses will emerge and at what cost?