2004 will be a year of attacks on America

[Mr.Vicchio]

One of the most senior figures in the al Qa'eda terror group has pledged that 2004 will be a year of attacks on America.

The comments appeared on an Islamist website and are believed to have come from Abdulaziz Issa Abdul-Mohsin al-Moqrin.


http://www.thisislondon.com/news/articles/...6856?source=TiL

I do hope this is not legit.

Seriously. The problem here is, that America makes a great scapegoat for the problems in the middle east. It's the same tactic Hitler used, only looking out not in.... and its scary. 9/11 was scary, every attack is scary...

I do not believe that America would be safe if we "just kept our noses out of the middle east" why? We export our culture, its in movies, TV, books, magazines and the web... there are those fanatics that believe america is the source of all evil based completly ont eh fact our society is by thier standards, evil. And that is enough.

The fact that we DO stick our noses in the middle east and support Isreal just makes it easier, but is not, IMHO the only reason.

[dotcoma]

More fear. Compliments of Al-CIAda

[floridian]

I believe that there would be far fewer attacks if we were not engaged in political and military conflict in the Middle East. Bin Ladin started fighting the Soviet Union. When the Soviets pulled out of Afghanistan, there was no reason to fight them. Later, when the Chechen Independence movement started fighting with the Moscow government, there was a reason to target Moscow, or atleast for Islamist movements to express solidarity with the Chechens.

Israel is a real thorn in the psyche of the Arab world. The US should play a neutral role that respects all parties, not that favors Israel's annexation of the West Bank.

There's no guarantee that a change in our foreign policy would prevent all attacks. Some of our enemies are entirely irrational. But for the most part, they don't "hate us for our freedom' as President Bush said - they don't hate Iceland or the Bahamas. Regard for US in the Arab world has dropped dramatically in the past few months as a direct response to the occupation of Iraq, and the support for Sharon's new plans.

[castille]

Most fanatics hate American culture....not just American troops.

So how do you prevent American culture finding its way to strict Islamic countries (where its evil for women to be seen)? You really can't stop a culture from going overseas unless your name is Mao Zhedong, because culture always finds a way. If people want American television and Big Macs....then you can't deny it to them, even if they are Muslims.

[Osborn F Enready]

Im not going to say anything yet....

[commonsense]

I don't entirely disagree with floridian above.

I was watching Charlie Rose with some A-rab who identified the major gripe of Bin Laden as the U.S./Saudi alliance (if you can really call it an alliance)

The thing is, what precipitated all the terrorist attacks? (1st truck bomb of WTC, U.S.S Cole, etc)
They never specifically said it was more than simply a "culture/religious" war.

I said on the very day of the 9/11/01 attack that this would change nothing regarding the general American response toward terrorism.

"Go out and do some shopping" my ass!

At that time I predicted it would take ten terroristic events each surpassing the last in its amount of carnage worse than 9/11 in order to see any unified national feeling against terrorism.

I'll never forget what some squirrel-brained chick with green-dyed hair stood up in class the day after and said
"Yes, the deaths [from 9/11] were tragic, but it would be even more tragic if this was used as an excuse to discriminate against Islamic Americans.

The indoctrination runs deep and wide in America, folks.

The answer isn't using terrorism as as excuse to run far afield, spending money, deploying troops for dubious reasons,

but rather to shake-down every illegal Mohammedan in the U.S. !
---and I hate the agencies that this falls upon, the INS, FBI, stinking cops, etc, but this war situation is the only kind that warrants it. (then we can get to work on disbanding THEM)

Hell! I like the towelhead that makes me my hummus and chwarma, but if he's illegal, his buddies ruined it for him.

Ship'em out, I say.

Sure there's plenty of good arabs here, but we are at war...just in the wrong theater, thanks to Bush (and congress)

I don't have empirical evidence, but i've heard often that all the falafel and shish-kebab stands in lower Manhattan were curiously vacant that day.

Even the good Mohammedans in our country hear things from the ne'er do-wells in the mosque basement get-togethers, overhear disgruntled gas station attendants around the backgammon table, and ignore it, just like white americans ignore our drunk, crotchety old uncles around the Thanksgiving table say stuff like "We oughtta ship 'em all back to Africa" and never give it a serious thought...

The difference is there's been a decade of action on their part!

Even if you want to believe Bush was in-on-it with with Bin Laden,
where's the public outcry? We were attacked on our own soil, and to add insult to injury, with our own planes filled with our fellow citizens!

Go shopping! was the war cry! And we went along with it like sheep.

All the more so if Bush was in-on-it...there's more of us than there is of him....remember "The militia is the whole able-bodied citizenry"

What ever happened to "Polish-up yer shootin' iron"?

Those attacks were conceived, planned, funded, facilitated and executed all from within our own shores, and nothing has been done about it.

[Mr.Vicchio]

When the arabs/muslims of America stand united against terrorist, maybe then things might change. Maybe the threat will be lessoned, but their silence in condemning such acts is more deafening then any supportive cheers they could utter.

[Mia]

It's not just Arab's who's oppinion of us has dropped - it's global.

As far as the fanatics - I wish you guys had watched Prince Faisal. It is not just America.

He said these people think everyone who is not exactly like them is an infidel - they are bombing in KSA regularly and this is the most oppressive regime in the ME! It is not enough for the fanatics.

They will bomb you if you use a different brand of toilet paper than they do and they do it in the ME and arab nations don't like it anymore than we do.

Now they're starting on Syria again too.

[jose]

Of course the people don't want war. But after all, it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger. It works the same way in any country.

-- Herman Goering at the Nuremberg trials, 18 April 1946

[Osborn F Enready]

"Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind.

And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded by patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader and gladly so.

How do I know? For this is what I have done. And I am Caesar." - Julius Caesar

[VXerick]

But of course, they DO want war. Iraq is irrelevant to the Muslim extremists, ie: fundamentalists; terrorists. Whether we had invaded Iraq or not, those extremists and the acquiesence of the large majority of Muslims everywhere, who are not themselves terrorists, means they will continue to plan attacks and carry them out when they have them perfected. Many will fail, but enough will succeed, to mean there will be continuing threats to the US.

But that's not going to leave other nations off the terrorist lists. The terrorist's believe if they can isolate the US, that will mean the end to us. And they could be right because there are too many US citizens who either don't care about the US enough to fight to keep it free, or they want the US to fail.

It will come down to a test of wills. Power and might are also a factor. As long as the US remains strong militarily and has the backing of the American people, there isn't a lot of damage the terrorists can do. But every little crack in the ship of state, will leave a entry way for a terrorist attack.

I think perhaps one of the tools the terrorists mean to employ, is to terrorize other nations who trade with us. If they can get enough trade interupted, it could isolate the US and we would be held hostage without any actual shots being fired on our land. We would be in the same situation as Iraq was before the US invaded. Or Cuba is now. Except the terrorists would be likely to refuse even humanitarian aid to be allowed through.

They do have the will to do this. We have already seen what happened in Spain. They have capitulated to the terrorists. Other countries will follow. The initial demand to Spain was take your troops out of Iraq. That won't be the end of it. They will continue making demands now that Spain is in their clutches.

[Osborn F Enready]

You mean the terrorists are going to affect trade, as we did with all third world countries who had opposing beliefs to ours, that we sanctioned? Hmmmm, I can't imagine why they would do that..... LOL

[jose]

Here in spain the people i've spoken to don't think spain has capitulated to terrorists{ people who use terror to influence public opinion} but rather the government has been changed to reflect public opinion against what 90% of the people saw as an illigal and unjust war on the people of Iraq organized by the neocons {remember saddam hussain was sending $25,000 to the familys of suicide bombers} to advance Israels goals in the region and george bushs reward was the OIL
to keep the people of america fearful you have constant alerts orange, yellow ETC i won't call you brainwashed because your here, at least i hope your here to find out the truth lets keep the debate going

[Mia]

Jose, the problem is that it was done right after the attack, making it look like it was in response to it.

I thought he should have help off on announcing he'd be withdrawing the troops to avoid such a perception.

I fear you will have more because they believe they got their way on that one.

[Zeebadee]

Every innocent citizen that is killed by U.S. actions in Iraq is going to generate an entire family of people that will resent and oppose us as best they can. Bush may succeed in beating down any semblance of organized resistance by the overwhelming force of arms at his disposal, but we will be occupying a nation that hates us by the time he's done. Iraq will therefore be a very controlled society, with very limited freedoms available to it's citizens. What better incentive is there to attack here in the U.S., where freedom of movement (at least for now) is easily available to anyone that walks north from Mexico?? Of course, this will be used for reasons to further limit the rights we have here. As bad as Patriot I and II will be, you better start getting ready for Patriot III.

[GreatWyrm of Babylon]

Originally posted by Zeebadee, Every innocent citizen that is killed by U.S. actions in Iraq is going to generate an entire family of people that will resent and oppose us as best they can.

Sadam killed too many innocents for that claim to be believable, or was it just dandy for him?

[Zeebadee]

I realize that some contributors in here think that if you oppose Bush, you must be an admirer of saddam. Similar, I guess, to the belief that if you disagree with ANY Bush policies, you must be a liberal leftist democrat that adores Kerry.

Do you think it might be possible that the average Iraqi citizen could actually hate BOTH saddam and the U.S.?? Do you really think that Iraqi families are going to be happy that we are doing the killing instead of saddam??

[Mia]

Patriot act X won't do any good - it's not really aimed at terrorists. If it were, why do we let so many come into the country to begin with?

The Muslim Brotherhood, a known fundamentalist terror group, has been run out of Egypt, Syria, Jordan, and other Arab nations. But we give them cover here.

Why is that?

[Impenitent]

because we have too many members of the party of the impeached liar entrenched in the bureaucracy... they won't let us defend our borders either...

[Mia]

Zeebadee, you are exactly right. They hate Saddam AND the US. We need to ask Arab nations to come in to keep the peace.