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Hi every one i thought i start this tread so that anyone that wants to post any new's about what is going on with terrorist attack. A post there thought and links. i want to keep track of the terrorist attack in one location for all to keep updated anytime something is discover by anyone.

Al Qaeda Builds a Euro Army

on Tuesday, February 24,04

British interior secretary David Blunkett, .said a terrorist attack on Britain was “inevitable.” al Qaeda is discovered to be recruiting manpower in Europe at a brisk pace in a push into the continent personally advocated by Osama bin Laden.

The British domestic intelligence agency MI5 estimates 10,000 faithful have joined up in Britain, providing Blunkett with more than ample cause for concern.

According to French counter-intelligence, al Qaeda has recruited in France alone between 35,000 and 45,000 men and is organizing them into military-style units.In Germany, Al Qaeda has recruited 25,000 to 30,000 men.Al Qaeda is a lot less active in Italy where counter-terrorist agencies hunt its cells to earth relentlessly.

The new campaign is styled “the white recruitment drive” or “coffee shop conscription”. Operational cells and recruiting agents patronize ordinary cafes on the high streets of Europe’s major cities where they blend into the crowds

fastword to Sunday night, Nov. 6,05 France’s Ramadan Uprising - a Ticking Bomb for Europe

French counter-terror sources are willing to admit, albeit on the quiet and not for attribution, that those clandestine terrorist cells may well be at the bottom of the current riots. They note the history of the Palestinian uprising, which kicked off in 1987 with stones and petrol bombs, only to evolve into a suicidal terrorist war by the late nineties. They fear this process may be beginning - not just in France but in the rest of Europe too, that the covert nucleus of trained and indoctrinated Islamic terrorists al Qaeda buried inside Europe is being turned against the continent, starting in France.

December 11, 2005, 11:33 AM (GMT+02:00)

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Police report around 36 casualties, 4 in serious condition, from at least four unexplained blasts at Buncefield oil depot and refinery, the fifth largest in UK, which sent a huge fireball shooting 200ft into the sky early Sunday.

December 11, 2005, 11:33 AM (GMT+02:00)

Thousands of people are being evacuated from the surrounding towns and suburbs outside, which is engulfed in flames and black smoke. An industrial state was badly damaged, windows blown out miles away. Nearby Hemel Hempstead, St. Albans and Leverstock Green are under a dense cloud of polluted smoke which poses a major environmental threat. The shocks of the blasts were felt across SE England. Police are trying to stop panic buying of petrol. The M1 intercity highway is closed until further notice.

The Hertfordshire police rule out external causes although many witnesses report an aircraft in the area at the time of the blasts. Defense minister John Reid said cagily: The police still believe the disaster was accidental but do not exclude alternatives. No investigation can be held until the big oil depot cools enough for access. This will take days if not weeks. Main fuel installations of this size are routinely equipped with systems for shutting down sections to curb the spread of fire or blasts. The magnitude of the explosions that engulfed the entire installation indicate an unusual catastrophe of some kind. Witnesses reported heavy rumbles before the explosion, much as though an aircraft had crashed into the oil installations.

On Dec. 7, an Islamic website ran an excerpt of an earlier videotape in which bin Laden’s No. 2, Ayman Zawahiri called on “holy warriors” to concentrate their attacks on oil targets.

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  • 2 months later...

Hunting cells is not the way to destroy terrorism. Terrorism must be fought ideologically and financially. Individual terrorists are too easily replaced. Trying to defeat terrorism by hunting down each individual terrorist cell is somewhat akin to a dog trying to cure his flea problem by individually biting each one to death.

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Hunting cells is not the way to destroy terrorism. Terrorism must be fought ideologically and financially. Individual terrorists are too easily replaced. Trying to defeat terrorism by hunting down each individual terrorist cell is somewhat akin to a dog trying to cure his flea problem by individually biting each one to death.

So, what's your solution?

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So, what's your solution?

Well, there is one thing we're doing right. Freezing terrorist assets. So, we need to continue to do that.

Now, here's a list of things we should do that we aren't:

  • Hang bombs over Mecca, Medina, Riyadh, Tehran, and Damascus...and Sana'a, just for good measure. Tell the Saudis, Iranians, Syrians, and Yemenis that if they don't stop financing terrorist groups and spreading Wahhabism, we will drop them. Then follow through on the threat if they do not comply.
  • Have our leaders start identifying the enemy as it is: Islamic terrorists. They are not "insurgents" or "gunmen." They are Islamic terrorists. Have Bush, Rice, Blair, etc. speak of Islamic extremism the way that Reagan and Thatcher spoke of Communism.
  • Stop capitulating to terrorist demands. Stop worrying about the feelings of people who try to kill us. Express solidarity with Denmark and condemnation of Norway for caving in to pressure.
  • Tactical control over the information received by the media. I believe in a free press, but there is no reason that the media should have been allowed to receive pictures of Abu Ghraib or the beheading of Nick Berg. Abu Ghraib just incites violence. The media attention received by Berg's execution served as a reinforcer...they wanted attention, and they got it. Tell Al Jazeera that if they do not quit serving as a propagnada tool for the terrorists, we will investigate them to find out what their terror links are. WHEN the links are found, shut it down.

Of course it's still necessary to physically combat terrorists, but that is not how the war will be won. Terrorists are far too easily replaced. The groups are not hierarchically structured, as is commonly believed. Al Qaeda is an ideology, not a group. It must be fought ideologically and those who subscribe to it must be fought financially. I recommend the movie The Battle of Algiers. Excellent movie about the French occupation of Algeria, and it shows why fighting a cellular terrorist organization is futile if you rely on nothing but superior military strength.

Edited by Moose
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I agree with pretty much all you listed there Moose (I'm a bit hesitant on the bombs over Mecca and such thing, maybe as a last measure...IMO). I still think having a counter-terrorism unit, similar to Italy's that not only helps prevent recruiment, but also prevents individual attacks from PRIVATELY funded terrorists. Unfortunately, not all Terrorists are state funded, and I can't see bombing a nation over a mis-guided moron from one nation. Proof of state funding would have to be there.

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Iran and Syria are pretty conclusively proven. Saudi Arabia is a little tougher. They actively fight Al Qaeda and wage their own war against terrorist finances...they've done a decent job at it too. Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has been almost completely dismantled. Saudi Arabia's problem is that it is actively involved in exporting the violent brand of Wahhabism that gives rise to Islamic terrorism. I really don't know that much about Yemen...just seems like an awfully shady country to me. Not to mention, 23 Al Qaeda prisoners, including the man responsible for the USS Cole bombing, recently "escaped" from prison there.

Edited by Moose
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  • 4 weeks later...
Tactical control over the information received by the media. I believe in a free press, but there is no reason that the media should have been allowed to receive pictures of Abu Ghraib or the beheading of Nick Berg. Abu Ghraib just incites violence. The media attention received by Berg's execution served as a reinforcer...they wanted attention, and they got it. Tell Al Jazeera that if they do not quit serving as a propagnada tool for the terrorists, we will investigate them to find out what their terror links are. WHEN the links are found, shut it down.

In other words, we should censor the media for things that might make our military look bad, things that might incite crazy fanatics to violence, and we should destroy foreign media sources when they make us look bad?

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[*]Tactical control over the information received by the media. I believe in a free press, but there is no reason that the media should have been allowed to receive pictures of Abu Ghraib or the beheading of Nick Berg. Abu Ghraib just incites violence. The media attention received by Berg's execution served as a reinforcer...they wanted attention, and they got it. Tell Al Jazeera that if they do not quit serving as a propagnada tool for the terrorists, we will investigate them to find out what their terror links are. WHEN the links are found, shut it down.
I doubt you believe in a free-press, but it doesnt really matter since its pretty much impossible to censor information these days due to the internet. I suppose you could ban the US press from reporting it, but that wouldnt help you much when its the main story on every non-US media agencies website, and being featured on every political blog on the internet. I suppose you could always threaten to hand out 15 year jail sentences to everyone who talks about it like your government is currently proposing to do to those who report on the Bush administrations (ab)use of domestic surveillence (source: here), but this is around the point where claims to believe in a free press become laughable. The game is pretty much over for those who believe in controlling the free flow of information, and its unlikely that autocratic techniques can achieve more than simply delaying the inevitable.

Also, why do you think that Al Jazeera is any more of a propaganda tool than, say, Fox News? I doubt its less biased at any rate; have you ever watched it? You are aware that Islamic regimes have been known to ban it on account of (eg) its being too pro-Israel, yes?

Edited by Hal
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In other words, we should censor the media for things that might make our military look bad, things that might incite crazy fanatics to violence, and we should destroy foreign media sources when they make us look bad?

This isn't what I said. If the media gets the pictures, then we obviously can't do anything about it. But why was the media allowed to get the pictures in the first place? They were taken by soldies private cameras and there is no good reason why they should have been given to anyone other than the proper authorities.

Also, why do you think that Al Jazeera is any more of a propaganda tool than, say, Fox News? I doubt its less biased at any rate; have you ever watched it? You are aware that Islamic regimes have been known to ban it on account of (eg) its being too pro-Israel, yes?

Watching it won't do me much good since I don't speak Arabic, but I read the website every day at work. Do I know for certain that they have terrorist ties? No. But I think that upon investigation, we would find a few. Al Jazeera frequently reports information that could only come from a contact on the inside.

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I agree with Moose's proposal for "Tactical control over the information received by the media." Does anyone realistically think that in a theatre of war we should read people their Miranda rights, or get a judicial warrant before searching a house, or give enemy populations an eviction notice before deploying ordnance?

The purpose of a war is not to protect the rights of the enemy population, but to protect the rights of the invading country's citizens. As Ayn Rand and others have observed, if the enemy's subjects had really been interested in their rights they would have overthrown their rulers or left the dictatorship for greener pastures.

Protecting the flow of wartime information is simple, moral, rational and essential. Bad news can be distorted by liberals to make it appear that the greatest country on earth is a helpless giant when confronted by foreign insects. This makes our own population irrationally suspicious of the competence of our government to achieve its stated goals.

Let's put an end to this. When the U.S. invades a country, all it has to do is declare exclusive intellectual property rights over all of its operations there. Just as a film production company can legally control the distribution of images from its shooting location, so the United States of America should be entitled to forbid any unauthorized images from its shooting location.

If this war had been run in a logical, self-interested way, any media or internet outlet that showed negative (i.e. officially unapproved) images of the war zone would soon find its employees in Guantánamo.

Edited by Daedalus
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Good defense of my point. I'd like to point out, however, that once the media has information, I do not believe that it should be censored. But the pictures of Abu Ghraib should not have been handed over to the media the way they were.

The Nick Berg situation is a little trickier, since it was given to the media and posted on the internet, directly, by the terrorists. However, if we somehow managed to intercept the video before it was made public, then there would be nothing wrong with preventing it from going public.

If you don't think we should engage in tactical control of what information the media receives, then it would logically follow that CNN should have been permitted into the Oval Office to videotape Monica Lewinsky going down on Clinton.

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Good defense of my point. I'd like to point out, however, that once the media has information, I do not believe that it should be censored. But the pictures of Abu Ghraib should not have been handed over to the media the way they were.

Agreed. But if all images were protected intellectual property, then those who took unfair advantage of such property would belong in the same Guantánamo cages as the Islamic terrorists.

The Nick Berg situation is a little trickier, since it was given to the media and posted on the internet, directly, by the terrorists. However, if we somehow managed to intercept the video before it was made public, then there would be nothing wrong with preventing it from going public.

If it's in the theatre of war, we have the right to protect it from distribution. Bring down the long arm of the US Attorney General on all violators.

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I agree that one does not read people "miranda rights" in a war zone, and that one can follow different rules for searches. It obvious that a lot of military information should be kept secret.

However, why would the US want the Abu Ghraib prison photos suppressed?

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...why would the US want them released? ...
Because, in absence of any reason keep it secret, one has two possibilities:

  • the photos depict acceptable action; so, the government should proudly announce it and stand by its troops; or
  • they photos depict unacceptable actions; making it public helps ensure that the right corrective actions take place

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But do the benefits of corrective actions outweigh the costs on the ground?

The real crime of Abu Ghraib was that the soldiers acted in an unprofessional manner. There were no "rights" abuses in Abu Ghraib, because the detainees forfeited their rights by fighting against US forces. Do we now make national headlines out of all instances where soldiers behave in an unprofessional manner?

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I agree that one does not read people "miranda rights" in a war zone, and that one can follow different rules for searches. It obvious that a lot of military information should be kept secret.

However, why would the US want the Abu Ghraib prison photos suppressed?

What went on in Abu Ghraib is a trade secret. Would Coke want Pepsi to see how it manufactures its syrup?

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What went on in Abu Ghraib is a trade secret.
Leaving aside the facts of the case, whether what was being done was on purpose or not. However, I addressed this above, when I said, that if "the photos depict acceptable action; so, the government should proudly announce it and stand by its troops". Since the government did not stand by its troops, I assume that the government or its troops did something wrong.

As to the facts of the case, wartime means one can do things one does not do in peacetime. It does not mean one can do, willy nilly, whatever one wishes; it does not mean the government has unlimited powers with no principles attached, as our current government seems to wish.

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