Article "Bush is marching straight into bin Laden's trap "

leave it to the British to have it all figured out!

http://www.independent.co.uk/
this is where this story came from, right SRJ?

i am really hoping that Bush and his cabinet knows what they are doing...

rH

 

Sounds pretty much like a Communist's take on the Evil US. The Arabs are the victims here, and the US and Israel are the bad guys (they always want that Palestinian-Israeli linkage). We sold the Israelis their weapons (neglect to mention that we have sold more to the Arabs) that were used to kill innocent Palestinians (neglect to mention who used the weapons, or that Mossad only targets leaders)... It's all the US's fault.

But the writer is right about one thing: we are playing right into bin Laden's trap. He wants us to attack the Taliban (and hopefully Iraq, too), because he rightly believes that such an attack will inflame the entire muslim world in anti-US sentiment (like most of it's not there already). He wants a jihad to start, and for all the Western-allied Arab governments to be overthrown in massive civil wars, to be replaced by radical fundamentalist governments. This is his dream. This is WW3. And it might just happen. And there might be no avoiding it.

We can't not strike back against Osama. Getting him and tearing apart Al Qaeda means getting the Taliban. Leaving Saddam in place would be suicidal; either we take him out or he will eventually take us out. He is very patient. If either of these regimes remain in power, the next terrorist attack may be a NBC attack that will make the World Trade Center look like child's play. The threat must be removed.

Osama will get his war. A large portion of the Arab population in the ME is already on his side, and we haven't even done anything yet. A protest in Pakistan today by Taliban supporters had a large banner that read "Stop US Aggression in Afghanistan", and we're the only ones who've been attacked so far. The Palestinians were dancing in the streets the day of the attack, as you all know. I'm not sure if there's any way to calm them all down, any way to assure them that we don't intend to assault all of islam.

But we must do whatever we can to prevent Osama from getting exactly the war he wants. We can put up with regimes we don't like. I personally wouldn't mind having islamic (democratic theocracies) regimes replacing the dictatorships that reign in that world, but that's not likely. The writer doesn't know diddly about ME desires when it comes to politics. The Arab world doesn't care about democracy at all. It cares about freedom of religious expression, and destroying Israel. And kicking the US out of the Persian Gulf, which is why Osama is so popular.

Just think about why Osama is so popular.

I'm not sure the chances are good to avoid his war, no matter what we do. All I know is that if we don't protect ourselves, we're dead.

 

This isn't directed at you SRJ but just at the general assumption that the U.S. was just going to hop right in to this retaliation/revenge/war whatever you want to call it. I mean you hear so many people say we will be doing just what Osama wants by retaliating and that the Arabs will hate us more and they seem to think that the higher ups in the gov't don't understand this also (as if only they-writers- or we-people on message boards- are the only ones with the ability to see through Osama's plan). Like you said, they have not over reacted and I'm sure the government has looked at this from all perspectives and is looking at all possible ways to go about this to produce the most desired results. I'm sure the government isn't just thinking about blowin' stuff up without thinking of the repercussions. I guess they could be, but I'm of the belief that they are not.

 

SRJ:

I dunno if the writer is a Commie, but they're always preaching the same line... US is bad, bad, BAD!

It takes time to move everything into place. The carriers won't all be there for a week to 10 days. It takes time for ground troops to mobilize, and they'll probably want to train some when they do...

Attacks are coming, no doubt. I just hope we can deal with the situation geo-politically. Everyone says they're with us now, but it might be a different story once the bullets start flying.

 

I love it treeman!

You accuse the author of hating the US, then don't dispute any of his arguments.

Tsk tsk tsk...

 

The pro-Taliban faction in Pakistan had organized this demonstration, but the majority of Pakistanis did not participate. I have family there also. They tell me that the majority of Pakistanis are happy that Musharaf is helping the United States.

As for Palestinians celebrating, well yeah alot of them celebrated. There are also alot of them that did not celebrate. Of course the US media does not relate that aspect because it is not as sensational.

 

A Gallup poll in Pakistan showed that over 67% of Pakistanis don't want Pakistan to help the US in this war. I don't know your family, but I know that Gallup does its polls right...

I highly doubt that every single Palestinian was happy about what happened. I'm sure many Arabs don't want what's about to happen to actually happen. But there is no denying that there is a solid base of hatred for the US in many islamic corners.

 

haven:

What, am I supposed to argue against the fact that he points out that Hellfires were used to attack PA strongholds? They were. So what? How exactly are we culpable for that?

I suppose that when a robbery ends in a shooting (in self-defense - the robber gets shot), you'd like to represent the robber's family and sue the gun dealer for selling the defender the gun?

Or was it his take on Putin's action in Chechnya? That he's practically evil incarnate? What would you do if the Chechens (who are essentially drug-running, murderous, kidnapping terrorists) kept bombing apartment buildings in your capitol city? The Russians screwed up in their first invasion there (the author neglects to mention that that was Yeltsin's debacle), but the second time around they took care of the problem. Putin's a bad guy for facing down terrorists?

Anyway, I did take issue with a couple of the guy's assertions - most importantly, his assertion that Arabs want democracy. Anyone who's studied the ME knows that that's just BS. Western wishful-thinking. They want the US out, and they want to destroy Israel. And they want all Western-supported regimes to be overthrown - they want caliphs back, and the Americans gone.

Do you have any idea how popular bin Laden is right now in the middle eastern world?

Take your liberal blinders off for this one. I have. We're at war whether you like it or not. And if we don't all wake up to that fact as a people, then we're all going to be bleeding out of our a*sholes before it's too late.

 

Huh. I don't feel any different...

 

And to think I have lived much of my adult life as a "commie" and didn't even realize it.

Are than any other posters, in your opinion, who could be in a similar predicament?

 

This is more of the "big bad United States going after the poor Taliban and his group" article. I see tons of articles talking about how it's the United States fault, or they are causing trouble, they have TERRORIST! They will keep killing innocent people while people blame the United States. The US isn't going to just go in and bomb the place. It's like they didn't even hear Bush's speech. This is going to be political, financial, cutting off trade routes, and strategic attacks. I think people are giving bin Laden to much credit. It's like he's the smartest man in the world or something, and we can't hope to match up with him. Everything that could potentially go bad is "bin Laden's plan". On one side people are saying that he wants the U.S. hated over there, but then they say he wants the U.S. out of there. If bin Laden had this planned he wouldn't be running. The U.S. isn't a Johnny come lately, they've been there before. They'll know what to do.

 

treeman: That Gallup poll was called a "quick" poll in reports I read. It was a survey of a limited number of people and the margin for error was like 15% or something. I work with a girl whose entire family is from Pakistan and she said that everyone her family knows there is happy that they are helping the US, mainly because it will likely get sanctions lifted. Many of them are, in fact, afraid of the radical Islamic groups because they live so close. They worry that they might end up in civil war but they prefer it to nuclear holocaust with India or continued heavy economic sanctions from the US or an all-out invasion of allied troops.

I always find it funny that the news reporters cover the protests but never bother to talk others. They make it look like Pakistan is a bunch of America-hating terrorists, which, of course, they are not. In the CNN report I read, they said that observers said they were surprised that the protests weren't larger. They assumed that more people would turn out than did and they were very encouraged by it.

 

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010921/wl/attack_pakistan_protests_dc.html

also another amazing article ....

http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,555380,00.html


I apologize if either of these have been posted. I searched and could not find them.

 

Recipe:
1. Throw in some admittedly horrible facts from the Region;
2. Be certain to blame ALL #1 events ENTIRELY on your target;
3. Ignore all positive things your target has done;
4. Apply simplified, self-serving logic;
5. Ignore own country's complicity in the Region;

Don't need to cook or bake, because you already made a batch of crap.

Personally, I don't trust such biased idiots; it is apparent that they hate us too. I am more likely to accept constructive criticism from balanced articles, such as from the Vanity Fair writer (thks. stringthing).

 

Excerpt From: http://www.dailytelegraph.co.uk/dt?...=rQ9QDtaX&atmo=YbA37bYp&pg=/01/9/22/do02.html

 

impressive.