[mos6507]

Onward, brave freedom fighters!

A suicide bomber set off an explosive-laden vehicle on a field during a volleyball match in northwestern Pakistan, killing at least 75 people. Authorities say scores of others were wounding and children are among the victims. Friday's attack is the third major militant activity in the country within a week leaving more than 120 people dead.

[eXpat]

Bomber´s daddy was in the Mossad!!! how interesting...

We do know a couple of things. Dad, back in Nigeria, ran the national arms industry (DICON) in partnership with Israel, in particular, the Mossad. He was in daily contact with them. They run everything in Nigeria, from arms production to counter-terrorism. Though Islamic, Muttalab was a close associate of Israel. He has been misrepresented. His "banking" is a cover. Next, what do we know about the two Al Qaeda leaders Bush had released, the ones who planned this?

http://www.veteranstoday.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=9951&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0

[Dreamtwister]

His "banking" is a cover.

It's a little more than a cover. Turns out, Umaru Mutallab is the Chair of the First Bank of Nigeria, and was instrumental in bringing IMF loans to Nigeria. He's one of the wealthiest men in Africa. He got obscenely wealthy by bankrupting his country, and he has ties to Yemen through his wife (The underwear bomber's mother). She's supposedly a Yemeni citizen with ties to the Saleh government AND the brand new $8 billion Yemeni liquid natural gas pipeline, partially funded by long-time Bush family associate, Ray Lee Hunt, and funds funneled from the IMF through the Yemen Gas Company

Yemen Pipeline Shareholders

[Novus]

Bin-Laden came from an extremely rich family as well and was paid by the CIA in the years prior to 9/11.

Underpants bomber is very much a young Bin-laden with powerful monied and political connections. Part of the banking cartel and Mossad et-el.

[Dreamtwister]

I wasn't disagreeing with eXpat. I was just pointing out that the family's involvement in banking was more significant than simply a cover. If anything, I'd say the two are directly linked.

[mos6507]

Bin-Laden came from an extremely rich family as well and was paid by the CIA in the years prior to 9/11.

And Hitler was friends with Stalin at one point. Big deal. Alliances change.

Underpants bomber is very much a young Bin-laden with powerful monied and political connections. Part of the banking cartel and Mossad et-el.

Idle speculation, as usual.

[JJ]

sorry if someone already posted this:

Why are we attacking the people of Yemen? Because some kid is alleged to have sewn a big fire-cracker into his underwear then sat on it in a plane over Detroit? Nope. Not even close. If you want to know what this is all about, follow Daddy’s money all the way to the IMF and Jaiz Bank.



http://willyloman.wordpress.com/2009/12 ... d-aint-it/

[mos6507]

OK, here goes.

I see an endless stream of criticism about how the US is dealing with terrorism.

Some of the rhetoric here implies that the terrorism is all fabricated (the truther argument writ large).

Others seem to be of the "appease them and they'll stop" mentality. You know, give them what they want, even if it means the US basically committing economic suicide in pursuit of the level of isolationism required to do that, which would also probably greatly harm the countries in question as well.

I also see this double-standard where people never blame the perpetrators of terrorism for what they do, even if they are blowing up fellow muslims (including women and children) in their own country. It's always merely a symptom of US imperialism. The devil made 'em do it, basically. But if the US responds, or even if the host country of terrorism responds against terrorism on our behalf, then that's a bad thing. The preferred response appears to be to just let our people die, since even a single casualty due to collateral damage is unacceptable, or that we're supposed to treat these people as innocent until proven guilty, and therefore find some impossible way to apprehend them without a bloody firefight so that they can go through due process of a jury trial.

Let's think for a moment that the goal is not to ascribe blame, but to find a way to deal with terrorism effectively, and in a way that might actually be feasible. What would you do?

Obviously George W Bush's approach was overkill, but Obama clearly has made steps to ratchet down the war on terrorism without just throwing in the towel. This isn't enough to please the extreme pacifists on this board, but it's been enough to, let's say, win the guy a Nobel Peace Prize. I don't really expect people here to be particularly good at visualizing foreign policy in a way that has any chance of being implemented, but try, because asking for things that clearly are impossible is useless.

[efarmer]

To me a key is the fact that we have not learned how to deal with tribal
people. We persist in the notion that tribal people belong under a
cohesive central government that can be negotiated with or held responsible, and this model does not fit well. Tribal people can
be held hostage under a strong man or dictator via brute force
or they can be left to form an uneasy but workable coalition and
detente of tribes that scuffle but network into fabric to cover the
countryside, as in the Hindu Kush.

Tribal peoples look at how other similar people's made out when they
dealt with us, and they see that we typically locate or install a regional
or national grand poobah and cut all sorts of treaties and deals and
the upshot is that the tribal folks lose their land, minerals, or way of
life. When we figure out how to address this, the pressure will come
away from people doing the form of warfare we know as terrorism.

Can we deal with tribal peoples in a way that respects them and
keeps them intact in the transaction or do we crush them to get at
whatever tyrant they suffer under, desired resource they have in proximity, and essentially approach it from the viewpoint of
our lifestyle being superior and valid, and theirs not.

There Mos, you have my 2 cents.

[Jotapay]

A logical first step would be for our government to stop supporting the terrorists.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/7/31/63124/3823

Bombshell: Bin Laden worked for US till 9/11

http://rawstory.com/2009/2009/12/kucini ... n-attacks/

Kucinich: US tax dollars help fund Taliban attacks

Ohio's Democratic Congressman Dennis Kucinich, a strident anti-war crusader, cited a report on the floor of the House of Representatives Tuesday which claims that US tax dollars used by defense contractors to bribe the Taliban in Afghanistan ultimately help fund attacks "on our troops."

[Jotapay]

This is a really complex situation. How do you have security and still maintain American-style civil liberties and freedoms? This debate will rage for decades.

I grew up on military bases overseas. I'm used to tight security, being searched when entering a base or embassy, having bombs blow up nightclubs or other locations frequented by military personnel.

However, the military personnel overseas handling security were respectful of our rights and were not $10-hour high school drop-out goons that treat everyone like they are a felon.

I am all for good security. I am also all for the Bill of Rights. I definitely think we have gone too far by eliminating the inalienable rights recognized in the 1st, 4th and 5th amendments. We can still deal with terrorism without resorting to permanent detention without trial and legalized torture of American citizens and other ridiculousness as dreamed up by Alberto Gonzales and John Yoo.

[SeaGypsy]

Just because i can live with the label 'Truther' does not mean I am a denialist. I hate the kind of thought which goes into terrorism. There is real terrorism by real terrorists under the lie of Jihad on a regulare basis. It is not about to stop. Nothing the USA is doing is decreasing the likelihood of terrorism in the future; more likely the reverse. The tagging of big name Al Quaeda leaders, as if when they are all got the activity will cease is at best a self deception, at worst a cover for alterior motives.

I have some very close friends who fought in Fallujah. American and Australian. Same objective, very different tactics. One friend was on a raider team. They went door to door in certain areas. They would operate in a group of ten. Bash the door in, demand surrender of everyone in the house, shoot anyone who pointed anything at them. My friend did 3 tours before having half his face blown off as he kicked the door into a house almost at random. He was medivaced out and only barely survived. Everyone in that house died in seconds. On the other hand the Aussies would rely heavily on intelligence and seige. Their target success was equal to the best of the American units whilst they lost less than 1% of the soldiers the USA did.

There aint no easy answers here Mos. I think you know that.

[mos6507]

Can we deal with tribal peoples in a way that respects them and
keeps them intact in the transaction or do we crush them to get at
whatever tyrant they suffer under, desired resource they have in proximity, and essentially approach it from the viewpoint of
our lifestyle being superior and valid, and theirs not.

You're speaking in generalizations and platitudes. I'm asking for something more specific.

[mos6507]

There aint no easy answers here Mos. I think you know that.

What I don't appreciate is this (to coin a Rush Limbaugh phrase) drive-by approach to the headlines that goes on here in which every new plot-point on the narrative flow of terrorism is used as a cheap excuse to bash the US.

There is a tunnel vision at work that has been honed through 8 years of BushCo that seeks to frame the terrorism situation solely in terms of the US as the black hat and the terrorists as either illusory manufactured villains or the valiant freedom fighters, symbolic of the 3rd world rebelling against US hegemony.

This is insulting to those who lose their loved ones to these deliberate acts of murder and mayhem, for their loss to be exploited in order to make a cheap political point.

It just seems that many people here have kind of developed their own pseudo-religion about the world that resolves around the US being the great satan, and no matter what the problem is, it can be explained away with some convenient self-hating flagellation.

I find this filter on reality to be much too simplistic and frankly, intellectually lazy.

[lonewolf]

ALL religion is evil
Religion is terrorism
Terrorism is religion.
... including yours

PERIOD

Declare 'open season' on all moronic monkeys and most problems are solved in an immediate sense.

Make Rapture happen.

[SeaGypsy]

There aint no easy answers here Mos. I think you know that.

What I don't appreciate is this (to coin a Rush Limbaugh phrase) drive-by approach to the headlines that goes on here in which every new plot-point on the narrative flow of terrorism is used as a cheap excuse to bash the US.

There is a tunnel vision at work that has been honed through 8 years of BushCo that seeks to frame the terrorism situation solely in terms of the US as the black hat and the terrorists as either illusory manufactured villains or the valiant freedom fighters, symbolic of the 3rd world rebelling against US hegemony.

This is insulting to those who lose their loved ones to these deliberate acts of murder and mayhem, for their loss to be exploited in order to make a cheap political point.

It just seems that many people here have kind of developed their own pseudo-religion about the world that resolves around the US being the great satan, and no matter what the problem is, it can be explained away with some convenient self-hating flagellation.

I find this filter on reality to be much too simplistic and frankly, intellectually lazy.

I agree completely and compliment your way of putting it.

My view on this is the USA has to get it's own house in order before throwing itself out as propoganda fodder.

[efarmer]

Brute force and eternal vigilance and doing resource acquisition
in a manner that keeps indigenous people whole or improved.
Sending out corporate whores as statesmen to deal with
installed puppets or existing tyrants will insure that the
brute force and eternal vigilance side of the equation stays
lucrative for corporations and will probably prevail.

This is why many foreign nationals I have spoke with love
the people and nation and hate what it's government morphed
into by being for sale.

[Roy]

To really combat 'terrorism' I think one needs to understand the motive of the enemy. IE what makes them want to attack America or Americans?

You don't think it could be our constant meddling in the internal affairs of middle Eastern countries and our unconditional support of Israel, do you?

One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.

The US current method of combating the terrorists is in my opinion creating more terrorists everyday.

What do I mean? Imagine if you will, that the US were occupied by a foreign country. And that someone in your apartment building or neighborhood was involved with resisting the occupiers (a terrorist in the occupier's terminology). Then the occupiers called in an air strike on your apartment or on your block and killed your wife, children, and other members of your family or friends who had absolutely nothing to do with the resistance. The occupier would call it collateral damage.

You or I would call it, if it were our loved ones, murder.

I know if that happened to me, I would have nothing left to lose, and would dedicate my life to the destruction of the occupier.

Flip that around and you see what is going on. Every drone strike on a Pakistani urban area creates new enemies I don't care how you spin it.

Some relevant quotes from Sun Tzu's The Art of War:

For to win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill.

If you know the enemy and know yourself you need not fear the results of a hundred battles.

There has never been a protracted war from which a country has benefited.