Al-Qaida: Wrong answers to real problems

[illbill]

<snip>Once again I watched the nauseous devastation and massacre, this time in the heart of my city, near the universities and libraries, where I have spent much of my adult life.

Madrid and Bali, Casablanca and Riyadh, I have come to predict al-Qaida's responsibility for a given criminal act through the following test. If I find myself at a loss for an answer to the questions: "Why the innocent?" and "For what purpose?", then, in all likelihood, the crime is of al-Qaida's doing...<snip>


Full story: http://www.realopinion.com/realboards/showthread.php?t=5289

[Maple]

1. Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan etc

The devastation is unbelievable.

Much of world history is gone, not to mention all the innocent human beings.

[illbill]

2. kick

[bemildred]

3. Eh, I blow hot and cold on this.

It is true, there is only the lex talionis at work, and eye for an eye, and so on, but these are tribal people, not statist as we are used to, and so it's to be expected that they will see "justice" in this way, and that's how the maunderings of al Qaeda put the matter if you read with care. It is done for deterrence, revenge, retaliation.

And we do the same, witness Fallujah for example. The entire war on Afghanistan was an act of retaliation, based on the most tenuous evidence of compliticity in the offending act (albeit Taliban made excellent bad guys, but then so did our "allies" in the war.)

I certainly have no objection to hunting down al Qaeda and killing them if we can, but if you want the moral high ground you have to be more moral than they are, not just have more firepower used with even less precision.

[CJCRANE]

4. But they didn't even finish

the job because the neocons saw Afghanistan as just a sideshow anyway. They had their sights set on Iraq from the beginning.

[bemildred]

5. Competence is a different issue, but you are correct, they are fools. nt

[K-W]

6. "If I find myself at a loss... the crime is of al-Qaida"

I am no more a fan of militants of any variety than the next guy, but this statement is absolutely rediculous.

I am getting tired of the boogeyman.