Newsweek on the latest terrorist attack in Egypt in a piece titled “It Can Happen Anywhere”;
At least 88 people died in that and two other coordinated blasts that night. Patel, who was back at the Movenpick pool sunning himself the next day, seems resigned to the new facts of global terror in the 21st century: “We can’t keep running away. It’s life.” Kashmira Patel, on the other hand, has nothing like her husband’s aplomb. “I’m frightened for everyone,” she says. “It can happen to anyone, anywhere.”
That seems to be the message that this latest wave of terrorists badly want to drive home. No one is safe.
Are they just figuring this out now? BBC November, 2002;
At least 15 people have died in a suicide bombing at an Israeli-owned hotel in Mombasa, Kenya, just as two missiles were fired at an Israeli holiday jet that had taken off from the city’s airport.
The missiles narrowly missed the Arkia airline plane – a Boeing 757 carrying 261 passengers – but a large part of the Paradise Hotel was reduced to rubble and the rest is a smouldering shell.
Kenyan police said three suicide bombers were killed, along with nine Kenyans and three Israelis, two of whom were children.
About 80 people, most of them Kenyans, were injured in the attack and many are being treated for burns.
Via Newsbeat1.
Sorry Kate, this is a little OT, I tried responding to lefty “blame the U.S.” comments on E-Blogs, but I can’t get through. Though I’ll be preaching to the converted I’ll post it here:
To the “its because of Iraq and Afghanistan” crowd: of course these conflicts are among the justifications for the latest blasts – do you think the extremists want democracy there? Recall that 9/11 (and many other terrorist attacks) occurred before Iraq. The U.S. RESPONDED to the terrorists by invading Afghanistan and Iraq. The enemy usually doesn’t like when its bases of operations and safe havens are destroyed. Instead of contolling an entire country Bin Laden is sitting in a cave or some secret apartment looking over his shoulder at every turn hoping he won’t be the next Al Qaida leader (the majority have been captured or killed) to be hunted down.
If I was Al Quaida I’d be threatening Western countries to get out of Afghanistan too. What blows my mind is folks on the left blaming the West’s response to 9/11 for further terrorist attacks, as if we should just be nice to them and hope they’ll stop.
Has anyone here read in any detail the long term goals of these terrorists? Has anyone here stopped to listen to what the radical clerics and their followers wished the world to be like? Does anyone here know what hell Taliban style rule brought to the people of Afghanistan?
The terrorists being discontented with the current state of affairs of the world is a GOOD THING. It’s the prospect of these guys being pleased that scares the hell out of me.
Try to imagine living under taliban style rule for one day. Here’s a hint – the religious police wouldn’t be too cool with your blogging on “infidel” sites like this. I’d imagine a public flogging would be the punishment.
But folks on the left don’t seem to like actually contemplating those sorts of things (and the corresponding liberation of millions of Afghans from such tyrannical rule). When messy reality gets in the way of dogma, it’s just tuned out – funny how Afghanistan dissappeared from the liberal dominated media save for the occaisional helicopter being shot down or other highlights of terrorist activity. Funny how the feminist left didn’t cry out in joy with the emancipation of millions of women from tyrannical subjugation. Women couldn’t work, would be stoned to death for having sex out of wedlock – that sort of messy reality stuff.
The next time you folks on the left criticize U.S. policy in the mideast or otherwise blame the West for the terrorist bombings, try for just one eeentsy weentsy second to think of the consequenses of inaction.
John Milton: Paradise Lost, Book 1.
Farewel happy Fields
Where Joy for ever dwells: Hail horrours, hail [ 250 ]
Infernal world, and thou profoundest Hell
Receive thy new Possessor: One who brings
A mind not to be chang’d by Place or Time.
The mind is its own place, and in it self
Can make a Heav’n of Hell, a Hell of Heav’n. [ 255 ]
What matter where, if I be still the same,
And what I should be, all but less then he
Whom Thunder hath made greater? Here at least
We shall be free; th’ Almighty hath not built
Here for his envy, will not drive us hence: [ 260 ]
Here we may reign secure, and in my choyce
To reign is worth ambition though in Hell:
Better to reign in Hell, then serve in Heav’n.
http://www.rapp.org/url/?6VDCR1LU
>>”Better to reign in Hell, them serve in Heav’n.”
A wonderful article in the Washington Post July 24 by Mona Eltahawy, a New York-based columnist for the pan-Arab newspaper Asharq al-Awsat: “After London, Tough Questions for Muslims”.
So much for blame the West etc.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/22/AR2005072201629.html?nav=hcmodule
Excerpts:
‘Sayed Mohammed Musawi, the head of the World Islamic League in London, insisted “there should be a clear distinction between the suicide bombing of those who are trying to defend themselves from occupiers, which is something different from those who kill civilians, which is a big crime.”
In a classic example of laying blame everywhere but at our own door, Musawi actually criticized the Western media (for supposedly confusing frustrated young Muslims) rather than those scholars who had blessed suicide bombings as long as they targeted Israelis…
I never bought the explanation that U.S. foreign policy had “brought on” the Sept. 11 attacks, and I certainly don’t buy the idea that the Iraq war is behind the attacks in London. Many people across the world have opposed U.S. and British foreign policy, but that doesn’t mean they are rushing to fly planes into buildings or to blow up buses and Underground trains in London…
And what about assimilation? It is not bigoted to ask Muslims if they are integrating into the societies they are living in. Just as the British government has responsibilities toward its citizens, immigrants included, so too do those immigrants. Muslims ask for time off work for prayer, for example, and they often get it. But are they truly living in Britain or are they perpetuating an existence that even their relatives “back home” long ago left behind? Domestic policy is too often ignored by many Muslims who are more concerned with Palestine, Iraq or any other place where Muslims are believed to have suffered injustice.”
Mark
Ottawa
jeff, the US/UK/Canadian et al troops did not invade Afghanistan. We were invited by the northern alliance after they’d overturned the Taliban. That’s not an invasion, that’s supporting a fledgling government.
Bin Laden was fully supported by the Taliban, which is why he’d like us all out of there.
Iraq, on the other hand, was invaded. Big difference.
Candace: Thanks for making the point about the non-invasion of Afghanistan. It is indeed a big difference from Iraq. My letter to the Ottawa Sun today:
‘Eric Margolis, in his article “War of Words” (July 24), writes of “…Britain’s invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.”
But, as Mr Margolis well knows, there was no “invasion” of Afghanistan. Before the fall of Kabul to the insurgent Afghan Northern Alliance in November 2001, and the consequent collapse of the Taliban regime, there were no foreign regular combat formations in Afghanistan. The Northern Alliance did receive air support and assistance from special forces (both U.S. and British); that however is not an invasion. Substantial foreign ground combat forces–including Canadian– only entered the country after the Taliban had been deposed by indigenous Afghan forces, and those forces entered with the agreement of the Northern Alliance.
This is no mere semantic quibble. Describing what the U.S. and U.K. did in Afghanistan as an “invasion” tends to equate those actions in people’s minds with the real invasion of Iraq. As indeed Mr Margolis does in his article. That equation implicitly and wrongly calls into question the legitimacy of American and British actions in Afghanistan.
Such writing is either very sloppy, or deliberately meant to mislead. Perhaps Mr Margolis could let us know which it is in his case.’
It is fast becoming the case that the media invariably refer to the “invasion” of Afghanistan; they must be called on it.
Mark
Ottawa
Jeff, You made me think and this hard fisted comment is your doing.
Liberals and lefties say pull out of Iraq and maybe the deadly fundamentalist killers will go away.
WAKE UP! Any retreat will simply fuel their mad determination. It will add fuel to the fire.
Pressure must be increased not lessened.
Pull-out will condemn citizens to suffer under the iron grip of Al-Qaida where meek behaviour is enforced by weekly hangings in the public square.
Women will be forced back to silent slavery wrapped from head to toe in fabric and not permitted to hold a job.
Children will be mind programmed through constant daily rote to hate democracy, commerce and constructive work.
Woe to us if we allow fundamentalist robot training of children who then grow into robot adult enforcers of the mean iron fisted Osama Bin Laden lifestyle.
Rather than retreat, it seems reasonable to penetrate and deflate their evil cause by stealth in Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Morocco, Egypt, Turkey and a dozen other places.
I am a peacenik. Anyone who can think must realize that a safe and free community to live in must be paid for. Otherwise there are greedy bullies who will take over. They prefer to live in palaces of luxury while enslaving us peaceniks under the rule of terror by the bullet.
Simply put, those who are running Al-Qaida training camps are producing killer robots without any values reference of their own. This production of unthinking killers is the worst possible crime against all humanity.
These factories must be stopped at all costs. There will be no future for a free world if Killer camps are allowed to produce an endless supply of chaos robots.
No, the war to stop Al-Qaida killer camps is just beginning and it can not end anytime soon. There can be no pull-out if freedom is to survive.
If Liberals and Lefties know a short cut to stopping Al-Qaida Killer Camps, they have a moral duty to make it known. 73s TG
Well, I hate to invoke Vietnam as if I were no better than a lefty, but here goes:
The Americans were also urged to cut their losses and pull out of Vietnam.
They did.
What did it get them?
Well, accused of losing the war, accused of cowardice and incompetence, by the very people who had screamed at them to do it.
Do you think pulling out of Iraq would accomplish anything more?
Who is to blame for the police shooting of an *innocent* Al-Qaida suspect in London?
Mainly the Brazilian environment the man came from. Previous governments in Brazil created an aura of fear where young men who dealt with the police would often vanish.
The young engineer fled the police either because he was guilty or because of his conditioning in Brazil. Panic never pays. When someone has a gun, police or otherwise, it is usually best to obey instructions.
The British Bobby saw an Al-Qaida suspect with a heavy jacket who tried to escape on the order to *Stop*.
The Policeman�s first thought was to stop the suspect from triggering explosives that he thought were layered under the heavy jacket.
If one is near the scene of a recent terrorist bombing and is ordered to stop by police. Taking off in a dead run [pun], is not only unwise but downright suicidal.
The policeman has been tried and given a life sentence. He will have to live with the *Mistake* for the rest of his life.
I thank him for doing a risky job many of us can not do.
73s TG
Candace, that may apply to Canadian troops -coming in after being “invited” – but to suggest that Afghanistan wasn’t an American led campaign (something I fully support BTW) is a tad revisionist. Yes the bulk of the ground work was done by the Northern Alliance, but it was coordinated by the U.S., there were a whole bunch of U.S. special forces coordinating and fighting, and more importantly, significant American air power provided both close in air support and strategic bombing. Indeed it seemed any time the Taliban gathered to any significant troop strength countering the NA they were bombed into oblivion by US planes and AC 130 gunships.
Jeff: All true but still not an “invasion”. Not D-Day, not Operation Barbarossa, etc. The point is that by calling both Afstan and Iraq “invasions” the reader in encouraged to believe the actions in Afstan were wrong in international law, morality, and outcome. None of those is true. The equation of the two is propaganda at its most insidious and effective.
Mark
Ottawa
Mark,
I see your point. However the need to distinquish is premised on Iraq being illigitimate while Afghanistan was not. In both cases ruthless, dangerous totalitarian regimes were replaced by democracies. The mideast is a very different place today and it continues to change for the better, primarily due to U.S. policy. I appeciate that many Canadians dissagree with me. Unfortunately, for most this seems more to do with base anti-Americanism than on a genuine understanding of the global fight on terror.
I think the liberation of Afganistan & Iraq and the subsequent attempts to foster citizen government there, in order to poision the festering rot that was straddling the principal east-west islamismists’ logistics routes, was and remains a worthwhile and even noble experiment.
We shall likely know the results of this experiment in less than 20 years.
In case anyone wants to know more about Mr Marolis:
His biography, from:
http://eric-margolis.biography.ms/
‘Eric Margolis is an author, columnist, and broadcaster. He was born in New York City and is a graduate of Georgetown and New York Universities…
Though his domestic political persuasion is moderately conservative, he is a bitter opponent of neoconservatism and is considered by some a paleoconservative. During the Soviet-Afghan war he travelled with the Afghan mujahideen, and developed close relationships with them and their Pakistani military and intelligence handlers – this is perhaps the reason why his articles frequently champion Islamic causes such as Palestine, Chechnya, and Kashmir…
Margolis is also owner of Canadian alternative medicine manufacturer, Jamieson Laboratories which exports worldwide. His mother, Nexhmie Zaimi, was one of the first American female foreign correspondents to cover the Middle East and was one of the few Western journalists in the 1950s to focus on the issue of Palestinian refugees.’
In his columns Mr Margolis has stated that he served in the US military.
His columns are available here:
http://www.bigeye.com/fcorrlst.htm
Mark
Ottawa
OK I’m a lefty liberal or whatever name we are this week. This is how I see it:
1) Invading Afganistan was the right thing to do no matter how you slice it.
2) Invading Iraq was based on lies/misinformation, pointless and yes inflamatory to some Muslims….. It’s the right thing to do but it’s still wrong. (We’d all like to put the smack down on Child molesters and murderers but… It’s still wrong to kick his door down and choke him).
3) Our mere breathing is inflamatory to some muslims so pulling out of Iraq wont make difference.
So now what….?
the thing I like about christianity and democracy is the drive, the strive to get it right. Yes Christians in the name of your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Enslaved and killed many people and cultures, stole land , justified racism and sexism….. ( as did Islam ) but…. There was always a voice of reason .. a voice of levity trying to get it right.
Where is this voice in islam ? It is too Often silent or silenced.
I dont believe for an instant that America can change the Islamic ideology or voice. Invading Iraq is a certainly an interesting experiment but remember…. ‘State ways dont change folk ways’ … Look how long it’s taking to to ‘fix’ the simple racial and gender issues in the west, regardless of the laws and governments.
ISLAM HAS TO FIX ITSELF and stop lying to it’s followers. It must stop tolerating violence against the infidels and others. This means ostrasizing clerics and others who advocate blowing up infidels . Just imagine the scandal and outrage among christians if Billy Graham or even the far-right Pat Robertson advocated the blowing up muslims. Islam needs to reach that point too.
In the mean time …
We have two choices
– Kill em ‘all.
– Bear it , pray that Islam wakes up quick and drive on.
I do occasionally think Kill ’em all. But realistically We’ve gotta grin ,bear it and pray.
Brian
Brian observed:”ISLAM HAS TO FIX ITSELF…”
Yeah, that’s gonna happen. Sure. Maybe we need to give muslims a little incentive to fix islam, like say, oh I don’t know, bombing them UP TO the stone age?