::::::::
A gung-ho prosecutor makes drugs scarce. Crack addicts have to commit more crimes to get enough money for the high prices. When a prosecutor goes after Mafia kingpins, his colleagues are upset that their lives are being put in danger as well. So everyone ends up, some reluctantly, playing around with fighting drugs, or concentrate on marijuana, like Cheney concentrates on Iran, rather than al Qaeda.I must be different from all the other human beings around me, because to me this isn't a casual philosophical discussion. The possibility that stopping al Qaeda may actually be as hopeless as stopping drugs, fills me with fear dread and even panic, especially since as technology advances doomsday weapons might get easier to produce. Once radios and computers were big and clumsy now guns can fit in the palm of your hand. Nuclear proliferation can be slowed not stopped Bin Laden sees the last 1000 years as a war between the Muslims and the West where the Muslims were unable to keep focused, and vows that the next 1000 years, if need be, will be different.
President Bush keeps bragging that, due to him, we are currently fighting al Qaida in Iraq not in America. And I think, in a weird way, this is truth. Al Qaeda currently wants to fight in Iraq, and so does Bush. But is giving al Qaeda the battlefield it wants and putting off a domestic terror attack that could get worse with time, really good news? I am now going to reveal a secret I think I figured out, the surge isn't working. What is working was the propaganda ploy of claiming al Qaeda kingpin Zarqawia fell off the stretcher to try to try to get away from the Americans. Then Bush offered the Sunnis, peace, another good move. But since so many were killed after the last time Sunnis agreed to a ceasefire in Fulujah, al Jeelani demanded 3000 prisoners be released as a good will gesture before he would agree to negotiations. Bush thought he was joking. Tragic move. However if the US were actually winning, or the war was over, then al Qaeda may prefer to switch the battlefield to the US.
The antiwar movement claims that Bush is unwittingly aiding al Qaeda by giving them recruitment opportunities, due to the Iraq war. This seems to be the case. Bush claims the antiwar movement is giving comfort to al Qaeda, to me this has some truth to it as well. And the cheering that Al Qaeda would get from claiming they are victors, is more than the recruiting potential of many weeks of extended war, perhaps months. Of course the US has been given then four years of increased recruitment instead. Some are claiming it's all Israel's fault, and many more are destined to, if under the next President we are still fighting Muslims.
During his trial as the alleged mastermind for 9/11, Moussaoui blamed his Jewish lawyer and urged Americas to join him in blaming the Jews. Daniel Pearl, who was later behead, was lured to Pakistan and tortured into "admitting" on Internet videotape that the Jews were evil conspirators, responsible for the world's woes.
When al Qaida's plans go as clockwork, like in Spain, people are awed and temporarily focus on the long-term fight. Our world is much more interdependent that before the last depression. Winter vegetables come from Argentina not storage. And the hate al Qaeda stirred up between Hindus and Muslims in India, and Christians and Muslims in Africa, even in Denmark (due to the cartoon controversy) could make the depression worse, including a dollar collapse. Will Americans actually patiently stand in long soup lines like they did during the first depression? Isn't anyone else panicky about the possibility that we could be starving like many of our grandparents did during the first great depression? This time, roaches and rats might seem delicious as pets disappear, with starving people dreaming of becoming cannibals.
Al Qaida picked doctors not explosive experts for the latest attack in Britain, giving four months warning with the phrase that "those who heal you will kill you." If everything worked like clockwork for them, it would have been a bloodbath, and the US would have drastically limited skilled immigrants from entering the country. The World Trade Center was supposedly the financial capital of the US, but al Qaida picked the wrong target for economic disruption. But what about the future? Bush is spending like crazy, tourist dollars are being chased away by airport security, as foreign talent almost was, while the administration is going though the motions so as not to be a personal target for an al Qaeda suicide-bomber just like most prosecutors do in the drug war. Most don't like to take personal risks. I have an uneasy feeling that others (besides the President) think it's personally best to stay vague or concentrate on Hezbollah, Hamas or Iran instead of al Qaida. Even Hollywood thinks it's wiser and more prudent to make movies about Mormon terrorists 200 years ago than about al Qaida terrorists.
Near the start of the Iraq war I and a friend were watching, on TV, the largest peace demonstration in England, in awe of the huge crowd and intricate puppets and floats. Suddenly it was cut off the air by a bulletin on terror bombs in Turkey. My friend's gut comment was, "Why don't they protest that?" Claiming that the war in Iraq had nothing to due with fighting terror became difficult to explain after bin Laden went on the Internet demanding that Iraqis not vote. George President Bush apologized for Abu Ghraib abuse in front of the King of Jordan. Then Bill Frist who was the Republican Leader was planning to call for bipartisan detention reform. Unfortunately he waited to make the announcement, during a grim speech on the additional Abu Ghraib photos Congress privately viewed, and was cut off the air by a news bulletin of al Qaida posting Nick Berg being beheaded
Today some Arab-Americans, who appreciate the US, try to send aid to Hezbollah or Hamas are equally called aiding terrorists. Barack Obama seems to be the only critic of al Qaeda, who has qualms about insulting Muslims in general. During World War II, a lot of America Nazi types like Charles Lindbergh, hated Tojo of Japan while still loving Hitler, A secret about World War II, is that the lies about the small isolated Japanese-American community, was war propaganda not a mistake. German and Italian Nazis Americans (who weren't successfully wooed by anti-Japanese hysteria) feared their children being put in Interment camp if they dared do such things as slash tires, during a severe rubber shortage. I believe instead of financial retribution all camp members including children should be given salaries for time severed and back Veteran's benefits. My theory is the Japanese-Americans served in Interment camps the way draftees served in Europe and the Pacific theater. Image was a critical part of the war effort.
Perception is important. Doing things to improve the US image is a critical part of the war against terror. Obama, due to prejudice, would have an easier time changing the image of the US as a big bully than someone like Edwards or even Hilary being a woman, especially if she keeps going around proving she can be tough.
A bin Laden inspired attack (2001) on the Indian Parliament was plunging nuclear-armed India and Pakistan toward war, which then Secretary of State Colin Powell helped mediate. Now that India and Pakistan seem heading toward permanent peace, al Qaeda is picking emotional targets like funerals and religious processions.
I'd like to see mass panic like in a movie about an asteroid hitting the earth. Some will say panic is ineffectual, but panic makes far more sense than the antiwar movement blaming the President and the President blaming the antiwar movement
Even if this is 90% exaggeration, there is good reason for panic, and a panic response was sometimes necessary for our ancestor's survival.
PS before bin Laden, Elijah Muhammad, helped start what was later called the Black Muslims, tried to change the world around in a less violent way, with compacted Islam, and at first he was very successful, at getting Black Americans to join, and the Black Muslims even managed to get many White Americans to side with Israel, rather than the Palestinians. Others also make changes as they claim to honor Prophet Mohammad's traditions. Early Muslims never even used woman as war nurses, or children as lookouts and spies, much less combatants, there were no Joan of Arcs in the Muslim world. And Prophet Muhammad would be unhappy about someone getting drunk before a battle assignment, like the 9/11 hijackers did. And as far as the newly invigorated Taliban taxing rather than outlawing drugs, he wouldn't have approved of it any more than if the new Taliban was taxing brothels, something that a win at all cost philosophy plus anything near like 1000 years of future warfare that bin Laden dreams of will surely bring. So I have trouble understanding why Elijah is considered a heretic. He never recruited real Muslims, only non-believers. He never twisted Islam in any way to insult Muhammad, only to make it more appealing to non-Muslim Blacks. He never recruited true Muslims who he respected. One might think tradition Muslims would appreciate the West being turned on the watered down distorted Islam rather than not knowing any Islam at all. The changes bin Laden is making in the traditional Muslim faith, in favor of victory at all costs, he wants to make for all Muslims not just for former nonbelievers, and if he plants spies who start infiltrating and preparing years for the ideal jihad moment, starting from young childhood, they would have to be taught less of the real tenants of the faith than Black Muslims are.
The west sponsored religious fanaticism, by sabotaging the secular hope of Communism or working class solidarity, and helped sponsor more violent effort to change world politics by helping sabotage the Back Muslims. This can to a certain extent be undone, instead of a future of ever more "I'm not going to take it any more" Columbines and Virginia Techs and bin Ladens. As science makes (as the years and decades go by) nuclear weapons ever simpler to produce and designer germs ever more powerful.
I think a frantic panic is necessary for out survival.
RichardKanePA (with) aol . com 215-563-2866 blog: Rambling from the Hornets Nest
http//ramblingsfromthehornetsnest.blogspot.com/
22 S 22nd St Apt305 Phila PA 19103
