What should we do?

[MichaelUK]

So Mr Bin Laden has said "stop killing the Muslims and we'll stop killing the Christians".

In other words, pull out of Iraq, and the rest of the Middle East, not to mention Afganistan, forget 9/11 and Madrid, and we'll all sit down and talk it over.

Should we pull out? Or should we carry on kicking ass?

[MichaelHarris]

1. do you

define "kicking ass" as waging an illegal war and killing civilians in Iraq who had nothing to do with terrorism?

[LARED]

2. I say carry on

Why? At the heart of the radical Muslim is the belief that Islam is a global nation and that this is God's will to be carried out.

I know some will disagree.

[MichaelHarris]

4. So

to control the RADICAL faction we wage an illegal war on a country who had absolutly nothing to do with Madrid or 9-11? Basically your saying fight um all till we get the bad ones?

[LARED]

7. Control?

I was not talking about controlling them. Although we must do something with them before they infest the rest of the world with their lunacy. Frankly in my view killing them is a suitable option.

Having said that, I am coming from a pragmatic viewpoint. We are there, acquiescing to Bin Laden's demands would not solve anything at this junction. It will only embolden the radicals to fulfill their warped notion of a global Islamic nation. That does not mean we fight them all until we get the bad ones.

What do you suggest we do at this point?

[MichaelHarris]

8. Before or After we impeach bush and fire blair?

Go to the UN, find diplomatic solutions in Iraq. Your debating 2 wars, a war on terrorism against bin laden and the war in Iraq. They are different fights. One is real one is a lie sold to us by a fool. Now on the real war on terror, we fight that war with force and diplomacy with nations who may harbor him. In Iraq we opt for a diplomatic solution involving the UN. I believe once bush is gone terrorism will follow.

[LARED]

15. The problem

at this point, as I see it, is that Bin Laden has already linked the entire ME with terrorism by telling the world terrorism will stop if the West leaves the Middle East.

You and I may agree there are two wars, but I it seems Bin Laden doesn't think so. They have been at war with the west for many years, we just didn't recognize it as war.

Regarding the UN, it seems that that is the process we are presently trying to get in motion.

[MichaelHarris]

16. so

you wanna give them a pass for NOW getting the UN involved? Forget about the build up to war and blowing the UN off, its OK now? All we did was fuel the fire of terrorism and it won't stop until bush is gone.

[LARED]

18. I am coming from a pragmatic viewpoint

and don't want to give anyone a pass, but the horse has left the barn. So unless you really think the ideology that motivates the Bin Ladens of the world will disappear when Bush is gone, there is still a very big problem.

[MichaelHarris]

19. there is a

big problem when you have a madman declaring war on nations who have NOTHING to do with terrorism. Its quaint to say "the horse has left the barn" they left along time ago when reagan, bush sr, and bush jr made illegal deals all over the middle east.

[LARED]

20. Ok

I agree in the ideal world Reagan, Bush I, II are forever dammed to hell.

So?

What do we do about Mr Bin Laden and radical Islam?

[MichaelHarris]

21. We start making diplomatic

allies throughout the middle east without deception or force. We stop arming Isreal with nuclear weapons and hold them accountable for atrocities they have commited. We sit down with world leaders at a summit to solve the palistine/isreal issues. We look hard at the saudi's and their role in terrorism without the protection of the bush/cheney cover stories. The key here, and its NOT anti-semitic, is Isreal and the rest of the middle east.

[LARED]

26. I agree with some of what you say

Although based on your response I am forced to assume you believe the elimination of Israel will stop the radical Muslims?

[MichaelHarris]

29. never said elimination

said they need to be held accountable for their actions in the middle east, thats why I said this IS NOT anti-Semitic. To not think that some of the problem in the middle east is not caused by anger between the 2 factions and the US's fervent support of Israel is naive at best. I knew as soon as I mentioned Israel I would accused in some way. I don't have a racist bone in my body, what I do have is the ability to see everyone shying away from the issue out of fear of being called anti-Semitic. Look, its simple. You have 2 factions in a region in the world who can't sit down and "break bread" together for whatever reasons. There are 2 sides to the story and I think we need to look into the claims made by the Muslim world and see if there is any validity in the claims against Israel, thats all, see if a peace can be worked out between the two.

[LARED]

34. I did not accuse you of anti-semitism

Looking at Israel is fine. Thinking that radical Islamists will go away if Israel is somehow held accountable (hopefully you include the Arab world in your quest for accountability) is naive. They have been around a lot longer than Israel has been.

In many ways the Israel issue is just a hobbyhorse of the Arab political/clerical class that is a convenient distraction for the people that suits the ends of political nationalism.

In short why do the people of Iran/Iraq/name your Arab state, give a rats rear end about Israelis or Palestinians?

It's a distraction the suits the motives of the radical Islamists. Making it go away will only force them to find another distraction. This in no way means that I think the I/P issue should not attempt to be resolved only that if it was, it won't change the problem we face with the radical Islamists.

[MichaelHarris]

35. Ohhh

I meant to say we hold everyone accountable, even us. America's hands are far from "clean" in the middle east. The deal is the global resource involved. Everyone wants to control that. I'm not preaching a "One World Government" by any means but some kind of "globalization" of the Earths resources could lead to alot of peace, environmental regulation, and prosperity everywhere. Now with that said there will be "rebel" factions who will not hold with such a notion but with time maybe the prosperity in the regions involved would calm any of those fears. It shouldn't be about one nation coming in and "raping" the resources of another nation and moving on. A "One World Government" is a bad thing in my opinion but thinking on a global scale we could organize workers to get competitive wages all over the world, that would slow down the outsourcing of jobs we face today by increasing third world nations wages while making them less attractive to companies leaving the US. What would then occur is not a search for cheap labor and resources but a utilization of who has the better workforce. The world would then compete with skills and technology and not who has the cheapest workforce. With that theory in place you have two rewards: one, better skilled and educated labor throughout the world, and second, raising the living conditions through better pay. All of this is achievable IF we look at ourselves as a global community, caring about each other as a whole. Sounds like hippy babble huh? All John Lennon asked us to do was Imagine, its easy if we try. One world leader could champion the cause of the global workforce and we could achieve this.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

27. We recognize that "terrorism" is not a country that

can be conquered with armies.

Terrorism is a tactic, not an ideology. It is currently being used mostly by radical Islamicists (which Saddam Hussein was not) against Western targets, but it has been used by extremists of both the left and right in dozens of countries within my lifetime.

In my lifetime, I can recall terrorism used by anti-abortionists, extreme right wing anti-government types (Timothy McVeigh), Basque separatists, leftist radicals in the U.S., Germany, Italy, Argentina, and Japan; Algerian nationalists, dueling drug lords in Colombia, the IRA, the Ulster Nationalists, a loony religious cult in Japan, and various Palestinian groups. That's not to mention the state terrorism practiced by rekpressive governments all over the world, the type of thing where the "terrorists" don't use bombs or poison gas but just march unannounced into a town and start slaughtering people.

It is infuriating to hear people talk about "terrorism" as if it is synonymous with radical Islam and as if using military force against an unconnected country will somehow wipe it out forever.

If anything, given the fraternal feeling that Muslims have for one another (the Balkan conflict inspired volunteers from all over the Islamic world to fight for the Bosnian Muslims), the U.S.'s unwarranted attack on Iraq is only going to inspire more disaffected young people in Islamic countries to adopt terrorist tactics.

The Europeans are taking the correct approach. Terrorism is a police problem, not a military problem.

[pissedoff]

24. Zionist Lunies

Maybe if we did something about the fanatic Christian Zionism nation, then you wouldn't have to "fear" the "global Islamic nation"!!! Did ya ever think of that? You mention lunacy, and one particular lunatic comes to my mind. And it AIN'T Osama or Saddam.

[LARED]

25. Please elaborate?

Christian Zionism nation

Which nation(s) are those? And which one of them believes God has ordained them to convert or be considered an infidel. Which Christian Zionism nation espouses theocratic political systems of government.

Please fill me in.

[Devils Advocate NZ]

23. Got some EVIDENCE for that claim?

Surely you must have at least one source where say Bin Laden or someone like him calls for the US to become an Islamic nation...

The only thing I have ever seen is the equivalent of "let us live the way we want, and we will let you live the way you want".

Show me one source where an Islamist calls for the expansion of Islam into non-Islamic nations. Just one.

[LARED]

28. OK

The radical Islamist does not recognize the notion of sovereignty. The world is Allah's and the "true believers" jihad is to convert the world.


Show me one source where an Islamist calls for the expansion of Islam into non-Islamic nations. Just one.

Heres one.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2001/1018/p1s2-wogi.html

PESHAWAR, PAKISTAN - Hailing from the pancake-flat terrain of Punjab in east Pakistan, Hasan Ali dreams of a Muslim Utopia.
The Islamic law student would like to create - through a holy war, if necessary - an Islamic state that spans the globe. All nations would be under the control of sharia (Islamic law), with the locus of authority in Saudi Arabia, "the center of Islam." And for the first act, he looks to Osama bin Laden, "our hero No. 1, our religious leader, our model, our general."

Here more;

http://hnn.us/articles/1439.html

To judge from the terminology employed by Islamist radicals such as Osama bin Laden, one would assume that the current terrorist campaign against the United States and its allies is part of a religious war with roots reaching back to the distant past. Bin Laden and his associates speak of America as the most recent incarnation of "Crusaderism" and conflate Israeli policies in the West Bank and Gaza Strip with the calumny of the Medina Jews in the time of the Prophet Muhammad. They compare regimes such the Saudis with the "hypocrites" who "stabbed Muhammad in the back" during his struggle with the pagan Meccans. Viewing their individual struggles as episodes in an on-going zero sum contest, these radical Islamists justify terrorist violence against "infidel" powers such as the United States with reference to a fixed Qur'anic worldview that incorporates all efforts to create an ideal Islamic State regardless of time or place. As is clear from much post 9/11 rhetoric in the United States, many Americans, influenced variously by Orientalist, religious or political notions, have been quick to oblige this kind of essentialism.

To name just one egregious example, a key postulate of Wahhab's teaching asserts that Muslims who do not believe in his doctrines are ipso facto non-believers and apostates against whom violence and Jihad were not only permissible, but obligatory. This postulate alone transgresses against two fundamental tenets of the Quran - that invoking Jihad against fellow-Muslims is prohibited and that a Muslim's profession of faith should be taken at face value until God judges his/hers sincerity at judgment day. This extreme reactionary creed was then used as the religious justification for military conquest and violence against Muslim neighbors of the House of Saud. Already in 1746, just two years after Wahhabism became Saud's religion, the new Saudi-Wahhabi state proclaimed Jihad against all neighboring Muslim tribes that refused to subscribe to it. Indeed, well into the 1920s the history of the House of Saud is replete with violent campaigns to force other Muslims to submit politically and theologically, violating yet another fundamental Quranic principle that prohibits the use of compulsion in religion.

http://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/index.jsp?section=static&page=alexievtestimony

Today, the Wahhabi ideology continues to be characterized by a set of doctrinal beliefs and behavior prescriptions that are often inimical to the values and interests of the vast majority of Muslims in the world to say nothing about those of non-Muslims. Non-Wahhabi Sunni Muslims (syncretic Muslims, Sufis, Barelvis, Bahai, Ahmadis, etc) are still considered illegitimate, at best, while the Shia religion is particularly despised as a "Jewish conspiracy" against Islam.6 The Wahhabis continue to believe and preach violence and Jihad as a pillar of Islamic virtue, rigid conformism of religious practice, institutionalized oppression of women, wholesale rejection of modernity, secularism and democracy as antithetical to Islam and militant proselytism. This jihadist ideology par excellence, is by and large, also the worldview of radical Islam and it is not at all an exaggeration to argue that Wahhabism has become the prototype ideology of all extremist and terrorist groups, even those that despise the House of Saud.


Let me know if you want more

[Devils Advocate NZ]

36. Interesting - but not quite

The first one says:

The Islamic law student would like to create - through a holy war, if necessary - an Islamic state that spans the globe. All nations would be under the control of sharia (Islamic law), with the locus of authority in Saudi Arabia, "the center of Islam."

Notice that the ONLY actual quote is "the center of Islam". For all I know he may have never said anything like what The CHRISTIAN Science Monitor claims he said.

When quotes appear like this (not even complete sentences) there is NO WAY of determining whether they are acurate or not, nor of the context in which they are said.

So this doesn't count as far as I am concerned - there is too much chance of it being a complete fabrication.

Here is a good example:

Unlike the West, religion and politics are the same thing in Islam," he says. "The mosque is the place where one worships, where government, legal and military decisions are made." Saudi Arabia, "the center of Islam," is the place where the authority for a single Islamic state - starting in the Middle East, moving to Central Asia, and then throughout the world - should be. Osama, he says, understands the "problems of the Muslims. If America is going to attack us, it will result in America's death," Ali says.

Notice how there is extensive use of quotes on either side of the important bit - yet the most important part of this discussion is NOT QUOTED. Why? The quotes that are there talk of differences between the Islamic world and the west, and then goes on to say that If America is going to attack them it will be destroyed.

The two parts that are quoted are quite obvious and quite innocuous, but the sensational claim is NOT quoted. Sorry, I don't buy it.

Now for the second article. First of all, there is NO claim in the article that Islamist want to spread Islam to non-Islamic nations. Second, John Calvert is not an Islamist and as such does not qualify as a "Islamist call(ing) for the expansion of Islam into non-Islamic nations" as I asked for.

The third article is much the same - however the author is far more likely to lie:

Dr. Alex Alexiev, Vice President for Research. Dr. Alexiev is a former Senior Analyst and Project Director, National Security Division, Rand Corporation; UCLA graduate faculty member; consultant to DOD and CIA; expert in ethnic, religious and nationalities conflict with specific experience in Central & South Asia and the former Soviet Union including during the Afghan conflict of the 1980's.
http://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/index.jsp?section=static&page=staff

I am supposed to believe a CIA consultant? Not bloody likely.

Now, as I said before, have you got any sources where an actual Islamist says that they want to force non-Muslim nations to become Islamic.

Remember, just having an Islamist say he wants to spread the word (so to speak) doesn't count as you can find Christians who would like to convert all Muslims to Christianity.

What I am after is basically a call for a Muslim "crusade". I have never seen such a call - I have only seen calls for the protection of Muslim lands against Infidels. Which is no different to what Alex Alexiev means when he says

Yet the evidence of conscious Saudi subversion of our societies and values as partly detailed above is so overwhelming that to tolerate it further would be unconscionable. Failure to confront it now will assure that we will not win the war on terror anytime soon.

In that article.

[LARED]

37. This is really the meat of the issue

Remember, just having an Islamist say he wants to spread the word (so to speak) doesn't count as you can find Christians who would like to convert all Muslims to Christianity.

Both fundamental Christians and Islamists both want to convert the world to the one true God. I assume you agree with that statement.

Frankly, there is nothing wrong if one wants to attempt to do that. The problem is the most fundie whacked out Christian will tell you are going to hell and they will pray for you if you say thanks but no thanks. The whacked out radical Islamist believes you are an infidel and in fact feel obligated to kill you. In fact they think they get rewarded for it.

[Quetzal]

3. Maybe not Afghanistan

I am still undecided on Iraq. I am leaning towards pulling out.

[MichaelUK]

5. Defining "Kicking ass" as

"Letting hundreds of your own soldiers die in an attempt to create a new Middle East American Base, with the local populace under 'American Democracy'."

Didn't Bush learn anything during Vietnam? It can't be done. You can't change a people's viewpoint overnight unless you do it by force. And if they've got guns, then force breeds force.

[MichaelHarris]

6. I

didn't let um die, bush and blair did that. Your operating on the premise this war was about democracy. Thats not the advertising they gave us. They gave us WMD's and terrorist connections. These men and women died for a lie. Thats a harsh reality but thats what we have.

[MichaelUK]

9. Bush has let them die

HE sends them in. HE doesn't find any WMDs. HE keeps them there to "Americanize" the place. They die.

As for Blair - the man is seemlingly untouchable. Basra (admittedly not as big as the rest of Iraq, nor containing as many soldiers or Iraqis) has had it's share of deaths of British soldiers. Blair has said "Sorry, but they're there to do a job, they have to stay" and the British people have just rolled over and said "Ok Tony..."

Still, I'd rather have him than anyone else.

[MichaelHarris]

11. your the

one promoting the "keep kicking ass" idea. A doctor cuts open a patient and realizes he cut in the wrong place. Does he keep cutting in hopes of getting to the right place or does he close the wound and regroup and start over?

[MichaelUK]

13. No, I'm not promoting anything

I'm just asking for opinions.

Unless you mean "you = Tony Blair", in which case I wash my hands of the issue. The man needs a better friend than chimp-boy.

[Name removed]

14. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[mmonk]

10. Stop waging wars

and isolate him in world opinion. In my estimation, we'll never completely be out of the middle east and certainly won't leave at his request (there will at least be bases in the middle east no matter what the fate of Iraq).

[Name removed]

12. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[MichaelHarris]

22. dang

I always miss the deleted messages. I never get to see the fools show their ass

[doni_georgia]

17. Turn this over to the UN

Let the UN monitor elections and send in peace keeping forces. We are causing more harm than good. We are making new enemies in Iraq daily. We are not seen as liberators; we are only seen as a new type of dictatorship that has come in to control and kill. We need to work with the UN. We need to beg forgiveness for our arogance following 9/11, admit that we were wrong about WMD, and if we are serious about helping the Iraqi people self-govern - get the UN to handle it.

[MAlibdem]

30. Continue.

Human Rights issues in the greater middle east are far worse with us engaged and eventually victorious than otherwise (in the long run).

That part of the world needs to be forcibly removed from the Middle Ages.

[Hell Hath No Fury]

32. What our own State Department said...

about our possible "engagment" with Iraq and it's impact on the Middle East, from the LA Times:

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0314-06.htm

Democracy Domino Theory 'Not Credible'
A State Department report disputes Bush's claim that ousting Hussein will spur reforms in the Mideast, intelligence officials say

by Greg Miller

WASHINGTON -- A classified State Department report expresses doubt that installing a new regime in Iraq will foster the spread of democracy in the Middle East, a claim President Bush has made in trying to build support for a war, according to intelligence officials familiar with the document.

...The report, which has been distributed to a small group of top government officials but not publicly disclosed, says that daunting economic and social problems are likely to undermine basic stability in the region for years, let alone prospects for democratic reform.

Even if some version of democracy took root -- an event the report casts as unlikely -- anti-American sentiment is so pervasive that elections in the short term could lead to the rise of Islamic-controlled governments hostile to the United States.

The thrust of the document, the source said, "is that this idea that you're going to transform the Middle East and fundamentally alter its trajectory is not credible."

Even the document's title appears to dismiss the administration argument. The report is labeled "Iraq, the Middle East and Change: No Dominoes."

more...

[Hell Hath No Fury]

33. "...needs to be forcibly removed from the Middle Ages.

"forcibly"???

And how do you define that? Democracy and change at the end of an American gun?

WHO MADE YOU GOD.

[bigtree]

31. Terrorists get support when their targets retaliate by killing innocents

The random exercise of our military strength and destructive power will not serve as a deterrent to these rouge, radical terrorist organizations who claim no permanent base of operations. The wanton, collateral bombing and killing undoubtably alienates any fringe of moderates who might join in a unified effort against terrorism which respects our own democratic values of justice and due process.

Our oppressive posture has pushed the citizens of these sovereign nations to a forced expression of their nationalism in defense of basic prerogatives of liberty and self-determination, which our false authority disregards as threats to our consolidation of power.