Osama bin Laden has released a new video making reference to Bush and Kerry proving that he did not die at Tora Bora as some had believed. Bin Laden’s message was essentially that if you leave the Muslim world alone, he wouldn’t strike.
Tell that to the Indonesians who were murdered at Bali, or the Iraqis being killed every day in their own country. Bin Laden’s words are as poisonous as his actions. The ideology of radical Islam is the ideology that divides the world between _Dar al-Harb_ (the House of War) and _Dar-al-Islam_ (the House of Submission). If tomorrow we surrendered Israel and allowed a second Holocaust, threw the Iraqi people to the wolves with our withdrawl, and never again bothered the Middle East the war would not end – instead, sensing weakness, al-Qaeda would demand nothing less than our complete surrender to _shari’a_.
Even if we could buy our safety by leaving the Middle East to fall into the same abject poverty and tyranny that was Afghanistan and the Taliban, we would be buying that safety with the blood of millions. It is much like the “truce” that al-Qaeda offered Europe after Madrid – a truce that is tantamount to surrender.
We will never surrender, we will never relent, and sooner or later we will find bin Laden and send him to Hell where he belongs.
I think OBL’s message was actually this: If you leave the Muslim world alone, that will *reduce* the chances of our attacking you again.
Then entire video, with subtitles, is here:
Osama/Kerry Video
A partial transcript is available here.
I wonder what would happen if we supported Palestinian rights as much as we support Israeli rights, so that both have safe, prosperous homelands? It is our entirely lopsided support of radical Israeli policies that has Muslims everywhere, even moderate and liberal ones, furious with us. Yet we keep feeding the fire and the hatred directed at us grows.
“(T)hrew the Iraqi people to the wolves with our withdrawl” That’s interesting. Surveys in Iraq show the vast majority of Iraqis want the American occupiers out of their country. Maybe they don’t know what’s best for them. Oops, isn’t that what democracy is about, deciding your own fate?
You conveniently forget that we created the Taliban. We supported the most radical and unsavory elements of radical Islam to defeat the Soviets in Afghanistan. They received American weapons and training. Classic blowback. Just like in Iraq where not only were there no WMDs before we invaded, there was no Al Qaeda. Now there is. Blowback, part II.
The solution is simple, though it conflicts with US business interests and the powerful Israeli lobby. We should invest economically in moderate Islamic countries. We should do what it takes to create a viable and prosperous Palestinian state, rather than forcing those people to continue living in poverty in camps. We should invest in alternative sources of energy so the message to the rest of the world would be clear: we do not need oil from oppressive countries (doesn’t it make you at least a little uncomfortable that we import oil from Saudi Arabia, a conservative, un-democraticm, misogynistic country that houses some of the most radical Islamists–though the rulers are close to the Bush family?). We should stop bombing and invading countries around the world, something that has encouraged N. Korea and Iran to develop nuclear weapons as much for leverage in negotiations as for deterrence an potential aggressive use.
Islamic and Arabic people are not stupid. Once those populations see that America is fair, that her foreign policies are based on principle as much as dollars, and that nations with progressive policies will benefit while the others will be ignored, then no dictators or Mullahs will be able to prevent the will of the people from rising against them. But if we continue to do what we’ve been doing, which obviously is not working, more and more Arab and Islamic people will be lured by the messages put forth by the radical and dangerous corners of those societies.
We’ll always get more by building a factory in a country than by bombing one.
While you point out some things that may be smart to do in the long run in regards to the middle east Reality, try to remember that the policies that you think will marginalize the fringe element of Islam, probably wont succeed at that goal.
You talk about taking equal sides with regards to the Palestinian and Israeli crisis. That may be well and good, but you have to understand, radical Islam does not want EQUAL, they want an end to Israel. They are pushing for the right of return ( which is something most rational people just take off the table as being impossible at this point).
Supporting moderate regimes… That grows difficult because what is moderate? Secular turkey, a nation that sees itself more European then middle eastern I think would be pretty fair to classify as a moderate country. But how many countries are their like that? Egypt is a near dictatorship in which the only outlet of anger the people can hold is one against the Us and Israel, not their own government ( which is rather corrupt). That standard is embraced by many other middle eastern states. Also the more moderate ones like Kuwait are often viewed as dens of sin by the sexual repressing radicals.
The radicals would see a retreat of the us as a victory, and they might follow it with a reprieve in action, but I’m willing to bet soon afterwards more attacks would commence, as the Radicals return to focusing on western imperial influence in their society.
The only thing the radicals want is to be left alone to rule the middle east. The US has a moral obligation to oppose that, whether its better to use bombs or bonds, I don’t know, but letting Osama bin Ladin truly become a sheik is far too scary a concept to not prevent.
“radical Islam does not want EQUAL, they want an end to Israel.”
That’s precisely why we should support moderates!! By supporting the extrem right wing of Israel, you create an opposite force >extremists
“They are pushing for the right of return which is something most rational people just take off the table as being impossible at this point.”
Who are those rational people? Those who considered it possible to return after 2000 years? The US are discusing with only one side (the other side has been banned by Sharon). This is just something one does expect from a judge that he talks with both sides in a conflict!
The point is to minimize or end the influence of radical Islam. I think most of us would agree on that point. My contention is the stick only approach has failed to work, in fact it has backfired (in Isreal as well), so maybe we should turn more to incentives.
Truthado, I think you’re pessimistic attitude about taking this approach is unwarranted. The fact is Turkey can be considered successful largely because of significant foreign investment that keeps people employed. Have you seen the tremendous strides Turkey has made in the last few years, which were based solely on the possibility it might join the EU? We should repeat the approach in other nations as well.
Radical Islam succeeds largely because the people in many Middle Eastern countries are destitute, so recruiting them is easy. When ordinary people there see images of wealthy Westerners (and Israelis) benefiting greatly from their oil, while they themselves have no work, it is logical to expect them to become angry. Making it worse is that we talk about democracy but we have no problem cozying up to repressive, un-democractic nations that have oil, i.e., Saudi Arabia. How do we expect to be viewed given such hypocrisy?
In my opinion it would be far more productive to invest the immense resources we are using for war into helping putting people there to work. We import things from all over Asia and Latin America, why not the Middle East? How many people could we put to work for the $200B we’ve spent destroying things? If people in the Middle East could earn a livable wage by, say, working at a Ford auto plant in Cairo, Damascus or Tripoli, then the radicals would have a very hard time recruiting anyone or even obtaining support to fight America. Hungry men are most willing to fight, especially those with nothing to lose–but not so for those who can live a decent life.
Instead of helping to pull up the people of the Middle East we show them bombs, no-fly zones, embargos, invasions, one-sided support of Israel, propping up corrupt and undemocratic rulers in oil producing nations and many other actions that have reinforced the notion that America is hypocritical when we say one thing but do another. Recruitment grows. Invading Iraq was the best thing we could have done to send more volunteers to al Qaeda.
America has the power to tell the leaders of these nations that we will buy your oil and build factories that will put people to work, but only if you adopt democratic principles (even communist China has become more and more capitalist because it has benefitted from Western investment). If the corrup rulers refuse, I’d suspect the desperate people in many of those nations would get rid of those leaders by themselves.
So we have a choice: we can do what we’ve done in Turkey and China or we can keep destroying these poor countries.
“So we have a choice: we can do what we’ve done in Turkey and China or we can keep destroying these poor countries.”
Great idea. Might work in Iran, where the young generation is relatively pro-American. Too bad the Arab world sees what’s become of countries like Turkey and China- secularist and capitalist- and wants no part of it.
While you are correct Reality, that investment has helped turn around such nations as turkey and china, that investment was not possible without a shift in the ways the government worked ( the secularization of turkey in the early 20th century and the capitalist turn that china made back in the 80’s). However, the solution that partially worked in those countries may not work in the others.
Consider the attacks that are made on American business within middle eastern countries, here is a good example, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2921463.stm . The people in these countries who work with the radicals want an end to both American political and economical influence. They see our culture as bankrupt, and putting up factories to build CD players and Barbie dolls will probably piss them off more, being this hurts the productive capabilities of their own companies.
Also your point about how poverty creates terrorism is not completely correct. Osama bin Ladin and many others like him come from middle class to wealthy families. Poverty does not make a terrorist; if that was the case terrorism would run rampant in this country. Fanaticism and an acceptance of violence make terrorists.
And your assumption that the people will rebel against their leaders who by their oppressive tactics and corruption don’t allow American investment, completely denies examples like Iran. Massive western influence created a backlash, that gave birth to a radical theocracy. WE must be careful in how we treat the middle east, a broad brush solution ( which is what sounds like your suggesting) is most likely the wrong solution for much of the area.
And Vincent- I’m not opposed to supporting Palestinian causes, I think we should be fair, and I think israel does get too many free passes, but we cannot just switch sides to a radical degree. The right of return is not a “fair” idea. If implemented it would most likely destroy israel, and that would not be equal treatment of the situation.