BS: attempt mass murder Christmas

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: CarolC
Date: 13 Jan 10 - 02:02 PM

And by the way, since you have been so free with your opinion about me, if I were to apply a word to describe you, based especially on your last post, the word I would use is "prima donna".

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: CarolC
Date: 13 Jan 10 - 01:57 PM

If you find that I am frequently asking you to show me where I have said whatever thing you are accusing me of saying, and if you cannot do so (and so far, every time I have asked you that question, you have failed to provide the posts of mine that contain what you have accused me of saying), then I think you need to consider that you have consistently failed to "interpret" my meaning.

I would suggest that you spend less time "interpreting" my words for me, and more time paying attention to what I have actually said. Your credentials do you no good whatever if you are interpreting my words incorrectly, which you have consistently done.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 13 Jan 10 - 01:16 PM

===I think constantly mischaracterizing what I've said, and then calling it naive (among other things) is making it personal, MtheGM, and that's precisely what you have persisted in doing.
If you want to have a discussion with me on the issues, please at least have the courtesy to read what I have said and stop trying to get me to defend arguments that I have not made.====

I read what is before me, Carol, and I evaluate it. It is a job in which I am trained and experienced. I am a graduate in English of the University of Cambridge, whose English faculty is universally considered among the leading ones of the world. I have for many years been a professional theatre critic for The Guardian, one of our leading newpapers; Plays & Players, a leading theatrical journal; Early Modern Literary Studies, the distinguished online journal of Shakespeare studies [which can be googled free online]: and a book critic also for The Times, The Educational Supplement, The Teacher, The Bookseller, Literary Review - to name just a few...

I am an experienced reader in other words, Carol. I know how to read what is before me and analyse it. It's my profession. It's my job. It's what they pay me for. Do you think these journals and organisations would have been employing me to do it all these years if I couldn't do it efficiently. It is an offensive personal attack [to adopt for a moment some of your modes of thought] to suggest as you are doing that I don't know my job.

So if someone writes something, and I carry from it, not once but repeatedly, impressions of their meanings which they say are not the ones they intended, I suspect the fault might just be in their expression of their content, not in my reading of it.

It is not, in other words, Carol, that I have failed to comprehend your arguments — it is that you have not made them efficiently and coherently. So it's no use, your constant bleating that I am making personal attacks, or denouncing you for saying things you haven't said. No I haven't. And yes you have. You might think you haven't — but you have.

I leave it to others to go back over the threads and the posts if they have a mind, to find where you have said all those things which you now say you haven't.

I now say that you are a vain, confused, opinionated person, of limited ability in self-expression, who resorts to abuse (accusations of personal attacks when none have been made — until, perhaps, this one!) when her arguments are comprehensively refuted by those who understand what they say — which, I reiterate, is not necessarily the same as what you meant them to say.

Do not rejoin in the hopes that I shall read your rejoinder. I really have done. I shall not even open this thread again to see what you might have to respond, because I don't even care. If anyone else is interested, which I doubt, then they can adjudicate between us if they have a mind.

Adieu.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: CarolC
Date: 13 Jan 10 - 11:32 AM

I think constantly mischaracterizing what I've said, and then calling it naive (among other things) is making it personal, MtheGM, and that's precisely what you have persisted in doing.

If you want to have a discussion with me on the issues, please at least have the courtesy to read what I have said and stop trying to get me to defend arguments that I have not made.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 13 Jan 10 - 11:19 AM

NOW who's getting 'personal', Carol?

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: CarolC
Date: 13 Jan 10 - 10:30 AM

MtheGM, I find myself wondering, yet once again, if you ever even bother to read my posts, or if you only see them as a blank space into which you project your fantasies about what you think I should be saying.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: CarolC
Date: 13 Jan 10 - 10:28 AM

Do you think the 'solution' I somewhat facetiously ascribe to some of your way of thinking would work better than the "let's not stop watching our backs, it isn't going to go away" solution which is the best which those who think like me can come up with? [As I said, if I could think of a better one I'd be President!]

Please show me where I have advocated that we stop watching our backs.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 13 Jan 10 - 09:55 AM

Indeed & indeed, LH — most cogently and admirably put and who could disagree with a word of it? Oh, if only...

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Little Hawk
Date: 13 Jan 10 - 09:46 AM

It's not possible to do something about all the unstable and fanatical individuals in the world who have some weird idea in their heads that makes them dangerous towards other people.

In another sense, it's not possible to make life perfectly safe for everyone... ;-) (though we keep trying to in various ways)

But it IS possible to adopt a more sensible and moral foreign policy than one that involves:

1. engineering coups with our secret service people to replace a foreign elected government with a dictator of our own choosing...as was done in Iran in the 50s...or in Chile when the Pinochet government was brought in and Allende killed.

2. attacking Afghanistan over a criminal act (allegedly) committed by 19 men who were not even FROM Afghanistan.

3. attacking Iraq over non-existent WMDs!

4. supporting corrupt dictators in places like Saudia Arabia, Egypt and various other states, because they cooperate with our geopolitical ambitions.

5. Always one-sidely backing Israel in its conflicts with the Arab world no matter what Israel does to anyone.

6. Threatening Iran over an (alleged) nuclear weapons project while not saying "boo" to Israel for actually building a couple of 100 nuclear bombs which everyone knows are there, but which no one does anything about.

Etc.....

The reason young Muslims have been radicalized to fight the West is not because they belong to a religion. It's because of terrible geopolitical and social stresses that would have caused ANY population to react in a hostile manner towards the West. The fact that there are some religious fanatics AMONG the Muslims is an issue...yes...but it is not the primary issue.

The primary issue is the aggressive, neo-colonial foreign policy of the USA and the UK and Israel (and sometimes Russia too, although Russia's been very weakened since 1989) with regards to messing around in the affairs of a whole bunch of poor nations in the Middle East. Those neo-colonial foreign policies must be changed to treat the Muslim nations decently and fairly or the conflict will simply go on and on forever...because we cannot kill all the Muslims, and they are not all going to lie down, die, and stop defending themselves either.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 13 Jan 10 - 09:42 AM

Do you think the 'solution' I somewhat facetiously ascribe to some of your way of thinking would work better than the "let's not stop watching our backs, it isn't going to go away" solution which is the best which those who think like me can come up with? [As I said, if I could think of a better one I'd be President!]

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: CarolC
Date: 13 Jan 10 - 09:21 AM

Do I what?

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 13 Jan 10 - 03:57 AM

Of course I disagree, Carol. I really don't want to kill anybody. I just wish they didn't either. Don't come to me for solutions: if I knew the answer I'd be President Of The World, wouldn't I? But I just don't think your [I don't mean you, personally, but all those who think as you do]
'just·take·no·notice·dear·&·perhaps·they·will·all·go·away·and·not·bother·us·after·all:let's·all·worry·about·no·Health·Care·instead;much·more·important'
solution is going to work any better.

So - a question right back to you — DO YOU?

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: CarolC
Date: 13 Jan 10 - 02:07 AM

Do you disagree, MtheGM?

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 13 Jan 10 - 02:05 AM

Now now, dear Carol - mustn't go putting words in my mouth, must we!?

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: CarolC
Date: 13 Jan 10 - 01:03 AM

So I guess we have no other choice, then. We'll just have to kill all of the Muslims.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 13 Jan 10 - 12:57 AM

... & my opening remarks to Carol above are my response also to Mr Porteous' essay linked by 999 — the danger is not that they will succeed, but that THEY WILL GO ON TRYING - enough of them to make things exceedingly disagreeable for the foreseeable future. I mean, just as a really·quite·mini for·instance, look at all the complaints about the security involved in flying anywhere in the world right now. Do you all think this will not all increase exponentially in geometric progression if things even go on as they are now, let alone after they have gained any of their avowed purposes?

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: CarolC
Date: 13 Jan 10 - 12:45 AM

MtheGM, there are all kinds of crazy people in the world who pose a danger. There are murderers, and in my country, there are Christians who want to impose their own form of extremist caliphate, there are extremists of many other religions, there are political crazies who want to spread their own political version of an extremist caliphate. I'll tell you who bothers me the most right now - the people in my country who are trying to prevent me from being able to get access to health care. That's a very real threat to my life and my husband's life. We do not currently have access to health care, and there are people in my country who are trying to keep it that way. 45,000 people in my country die every year from not having access to medical care.

Forgive me if I find that to be the far greater threat to my well being. But there is nothing that can be done to insure that there will be no crazy people who want to do harm to others, short of killing everyone. So we just have to do whatever we can to not give people an incentive to kill us, protect our borders, and hope for the best. But one thing I guarantee to you - if we continue to do things as we have been doing things, we will increase the number of people who want to kill us, no decrease it.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 13 Jan 10 - 12:38 AM

Carol, once again, I have not said I think they COULD; I say I think they would go on trying — surely you can see that that is where the danger lies? The 'dividend' they will have got is the knowledge that their methods have worked thus far. There will surely be more than a mere insignificant minority who will wish to go on to the next stage (which, as others have pointed out above, COULD just work via chronic disruptions &c, tho I tend to agree with you here that it is not v likely to have permanent FX in the long term). How can you be so sure that there won't, but that they will all [or even significantly most] turn all their energies away from us to consolidation of their own parts of the world? & small, sideline disruptions, like the persecution of Rushdie & his publishers & the Danish cartoonist & the recent Luton demos,, which all surely part of same ultimate gestalt, will continue, will they not?, to make the world a less agreeable & more dangerous place in which to continue living — despite the efforts of their own well-intentioned majority like the Canadian fatwa-ists. I honestly can't see an end to it all.

I am glad, Carol, if you see I really didn't mean anything personal in any of my responses to you. I am truly sorry if it appeared so. But I really am alarmed at what I see as the prospect opening up.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: GUEST,999
Date: 13 Jan 10 - 12:29 AM

Excellent essay on this subject here.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: CarolC
Date: 13 Jan 10 - 12:22 AM

And I am still interested in knowing how you think they could possibly impose their caliphate on Western countries. If you think it's such a strong likelihood, please explain to me how it would be possible. How would they do it, MtheGM? How would they impose that order on all of the people in all of the countries in the world?

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: CarolC
Date: 13 Jan 10 - 12:18 AM

But, Carol, whenever I have pointed out that just one determined Caliphater, if just a bit more efficient than the shoe-bomber or the Xmas day underpanter, could be enough to cause a lot of damage & grief - let alone a smallish cell like the 9/11 lot, who DID! - in ♠♠♠ & can you deny it? - your response has always, consistently, been, no, once we've pulled out of their bit of the world we can stop worrying about them, they will just be marginalised.

MtheGM, I do appreciate that you have expressed the desire to discuss this issue without making it personal. I would also appreciate it if you would make an effort to know what I have said before you respond to it. If you can find any post of mine in which I have said that there are no Muslims who say they want a universal caliphate, or that there are some, but they will be marginalized, I invite you to post it for me to see.

What I have said, and if you were really familiar with my posts, you would know this, is that if there are any who are saying that they want a universal caliphate, once the Western governments cease their interference in Muslim countries, all of their energies will be focused on what is being done in the Muslim countries. It will be a whole new ballgame in the Muslim countries, and suddenly, messing with Western countries will become very boring, and those who are now zealous about spreading Islam to the West will lose interest in that, and will be far more interested in what is going on in the Muslim countries. The zealots will be more interested in trying to influence what goes on in the Muslim countries than they will be in what people on the Western countries do or don't do.


why have you such faith in the bona fides of Bin Laden & his Al Quaeda followers as to believe implicitly their asseverations that 'the West out of their bit' is all they want, thank you, and when they have achieved that they will just get on with establishing their Faith in their own part of the world and leave ours alone

Because their track record has shown that this is what they do. When bin Laden was leading the Mujahideen in Afghanistan, he said that his goal was to end Soviet imperialism in Afghanistan. After the Soviets left that country, the Mujahideen did not follow them to Russia. They accomplished their objective and turned their attentions to their next goal, which was to end Western Imperialism in Muslim countries. Once that goal is met, the next goal will be to try to influence what happens in Muslim countries in the absence of Western imperialism. They'll have a whole new world to create in their part of the globe. It's going to be a big job, and it will occupy all of their energies and attention.


when the fact of our having done so will so clearly have demonstrated to them that their way of insidiously annoying us into collaboration with their will has paid off such dividends? Won't the Caliphaters among them [at least you seem now to have withdrawn your point that there are not any such] whisper into Osama's ear "Why stop there, Os-me-old-dear!"...?

What dividends? The only dividend they will get is to be free of Western interference in their countries. They will have no incentive to waste the opportunity to get on with rebuilding their part of the world just so they can create devilment in other people's countries. That makes no sense at all.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 12 Jan 10 - 11:31 PM

Very reasonably and moderately argued, LH. I just wish I had your optimism as to the smallness of the 'Jihad4Caliphate' ideal: but many have pointed it out as a Koranic injunction and duty. Osama & his followers are among them. They are not a mini-group with no influence, but demonstrably [9/11 &c] determined & with the power to make good[!] on their threats. They at least are more than just one guy holding up an "Islam will dominate the world" banner in Luton.   They are also politicians, so they are not going to proclaim all their aims at once and alert us all to the ultimate ones, but go on assuring us (as CarolC so naively persists in believing — at least, she hasn't come back to me on my last query yet as to why she so determinedly takes their word for it); but are going to tell us that they just want us out & that will be it, rather than saying, what I still persist is obvious to me, that that will just be Stage 1, & then it will be time for Stage 2: Caliphate-time.

Do at least, Carol & LH, admit this as a possible scenario. I have no real personal interest in it. I am 78 and have no children & the biggie showdown is not likely in my lifetime. But you younger people, + your children & grandchildren, are the ones who are going to have to live with the consequences of, what I still see, as your resolute complacency as to the bona-fides & trustworthiness to put their whole agenda on the table at once of Osama & his like.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Little Hawk
Date: 12 Jan 10 - 05:47 PM

Let me be more succinct. ;-)

The West is not sending armies into Islamic nations because we have a few ignorant religious nuts here who believe in the Rapture and the End of Days.

The Islamic populations are not striking voilently back against the Western occupiers because they have a few nuts who believe in establishing a Universal Caliphate.

Such nuts do exist. Yes. And they cause much harm. But they are not the primary source of the "War on Terror", they're merely reacting to it in various ways and getting involved in it according to their own prejudices.

Without the primary geopolitical causes of this war already being in place to drive the conflict, those few nuts on either side would find very little backing or support for their wild ideas and their influence on the situation would dwindle away to virtually nothing.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Little Hawk
Date: 12 Jan 10 - 05:32 PM

There are clearly some individual Muslims who are ignorant enough, fanatical enough, and unrealistic enough to want to establish a "Universal Caliphate" on Planet Earth. ;-) Why not? There are a few complete idiots and lunatics in any cultural group of people you can name.

And so what? The ongoing conflict between Anglo-America and Islam does not have its origins in a few totally unrealistic religious fanatics who want to establish a Universal Caliphate...a completely impossible notion that can never happen.

The conflict has its origins in western intervention in the affairs of Muslim nations going right back to the colonial era and ever since. The primary western concern has been to control oil and trade and to politically and militarily dominate the regions where that oil is found.

Is there danger from a few moronic religious fanatics who wish to blow up our airplanes, etc? Yes, there is. There is far greater danger, however, to Muslim populations in general from western foreign policy as practiced by the USA, the UK, Israel, etc.

For each one of ours that dies, hundreds or thousands of Muslims die, and that is the primary issue that is sending young Muslims out to fight the West...not a scheme to create a fairy tale like a Universal Caliphate. They want us out of their societies. And why would they not want us out? We'd want "us" out if we were them!

For each Muslim lunatic who wants to establish a Universal Caliphate, you can find a fundamentalist Christian lunatic over here who believes in stuff like the Rapture and who thinks that all non-Christians are going to hell. So what? What difference does it make? There are always a few complete lunatics on both extreme ends of an issue, but they do not represent the main and essential real matters that drive the issue. They're a bunch of noise on the periphery of the issue. Are they dangerous? Yes, sometimes they are...but they are secondary symptoms of a much larger problem.

To identify your "enemy" by quoting a few utterly ignorant and unrealistic individuals who are among the ranks of your enemy is simply to avoid talking about the real issues while inflating other bizarre matters out of all proportion.

There will always be some crazy Muslim fanatics and some crazy Christian fanatics, but they are NOT the source of the Middle East conflict. Huge and longrunning pragmatic geopolitical strategies are the source of that conflict, and until those strategies are changed radically or abandoned, the conflict will go on and on.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 12 Jan 10 - 03:39 PM

... and furthermore {I seem to have got into a sort of Damon Runyon set of locutions for some reason — a good man for emphases, perhaps?} — why have you such faith in the bona fides of Bin Laden & his Al Quaeda followers as to believe implicitly their asseverations that 'the West out of their bit' is all they want, thank you, and when they have achieved that they will just get on with establishing their Faith in their own part of the world and leave ours alone; when the fact of our having done so will so clearly have demonstrated to them that their way of insidiously annoying us into collaboration with their will has paid off such dividends? Won't the Caliphaters among them [at least you seem now to have withdrawn your point that there are not any such] whisper into Osama's ear "Why stop there, Os-me-old-dear!"...?

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 12 Jan 10 - 03:25 PM

I withdraw the word 'all' - not sure how it crept in at that.

But, Carol, whenever I have pointed out that just one determined Caliphater, if just a bit more efficient than the shoe-bomber or the Xmas day underpanter, could be enough to cause a lot of damage & grief - let alone a smallish cell like the 9/11 lot, who DID! - in ♠♠♠ & can you deny it? - your response has always, consistently, been, no, once we've pulled out of their bit of the world we can stop worrying about them, they will just be marginalised. But my point is, that it is their very marginality that makes them such a threat. Can you not even come along this far with me? It isn't racism - it's just an assessment of the probabilities, in view of examples like the banner in Luton I quoted 2 posts back in support of 7 men [2 were acquitted thru lack of evidence] who had enough bottle and faith in the rightness of their "Islam will dominate the world" message to demonstrate where they knew they would not be welcome. They've got guts, I will say for them. Derived from faith in their Caliphate and a determination to bring it about. And if they have also got explosives... And if you persist that they are still no threat,and will be even less so when we are out of their hair, then it is an opinion, not meant as a personal attack, honest, if I say it seems to me you are being more than somewhat complacent.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: CarolC
Date: 12 Jan 10 - 01:49 PM

not, you will understand, that I unquestioningly accept your accusation that all my replies were in fact ad hominem rather than intellectually based

Please show me where I said that ALL of your replies were ad hominem.


And please show me where I said that there are NO Muslims who say they want a universal caliphate.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 12 Jan 10 - 10:59 AM

CarolC: at the end of our last exchange a day or two ago, you said graciously that you would give me one more chance to see if I could reply to you without indulging in what you were pleased to call 'personal attacks' when I doubted the validity of some of your arguments — not, you will understand, that I unquestioningly accept your accusation that all my replies were in fact ad hominem rather than intellectually based; but thank you anyhow.

In response, let me quote the end of a report in 'The Times' this morning of the verdict in the trial of 5 Muslim demonstrators who were convicted of threatening behaviour at a parade in Luton of members of the Anglian regiment returning from a tour of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, all five of whom received conditional discharges from the court. —

"Outside court the defendants responded defiantly to the verdict ... under a banner held by a supporter saying, 'Islam will dominate the world. Freedom can go to Hell'..."

I simply ask, Carol - do you STILL insist that there are NO Muslims anywhere whose agenda is the Universal Caliphate, as distinct from what you assert repeatedly to be their sole objective, the desire to remove Western influences from the Muslim world - so that once these influences are removed we can all sit back and relax? I repeat - I simply ask...

Michael

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Ron Davies
Date: 09 Jan 10 - 05:16 PM

Why the charge did not go off:   It is actually not that easy to ignite it, given the conditions. Does not mean it could not be done. Just not easy to do--might need several tries.

Also, the handwringing about obvious signals missed is not justified.   All sorts of noise in intelligence operations. Sounds very like the favorite topic of some lefties that either FDR knew about Pearl Harbor in advance--- or it should have been detected by intelligence.   It ain't necessarily so.

I'd still like a direct quote by the father that his son would be involved in an al-Qaeda operation.    Have never seen one.   Father's main concern appears to be son hanging around with undesirables, and father wanted assistance in bringing son home.   Not a smoking gun.

Closest I've seen to smoking gun is the UK refusal to let him land there, since he was applying to a non-existent school.   Possible idea:   anybody who applies to a non-existent school should have to prove the school does exist--or lose all flying privileges anywhere in the world. This obviously would require close contact between intelligence operations of various countries.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 09 Jan 10 - 04:49 PM

No good in the bathroom.
You have to return to seat before descent, and he wanted people on the ground to die too.
The trick with the blanket worked. No one suspected anything. He was left to get on with trying to detonate his bomb.
We will hear sometime what went wrong with the charge.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: CarolC
Date: 09 Jan 10 - 02:36 PM

It doesn't matter whether they are stupid or not, Bobert. Sometimes stupid people get lucky. You were right that we need to remove the causes whereby such people get motivated to do what they do in the first place.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Bobert
Date: 09 Jan 10 - 08:50 AM

Yo, Keith-A,

Nah, I am not deluding nuthin' here... Lets do a little review here:

The guy goes to college and amjors in engineering
The guy goes to Yemen for al qeada training
The guy gets on an airplane with a 2 part explosive
The guy isn't smart enough to figure out how to make it explode in the bathroom so...
The guy goes back to his seat, pulls a blanket over him (now that's not gonna raise an suspicion, is irt???) and then...
The guy procedes to try to mix two (not 202, not 4002 but ***two***) powders together in his lap and can't even do that????

??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

Yeah, real Menza stuff we have here...

Friggin retard as far as I can see...

Now here's another thought... The right wing wants everyone to think that all the systems failed, that the billions of dots weren't connected because Obama is the president and all that rightie crap...

Well, the one system that did work was the folks on the plane who wrestled the dummie down and held him until the plane landed...

(But, Boberdz... That ain't a system...)

Yes it is a system... Unlike the Dick O'Burner people have since 9/11 had their awarenesses jacked way the heck up and there will be times when that awareness and courage to act will be the last line of defense... I mean, face it... You could connect every dot known to mankind and still have something happen... That is human nature... Nothin' is 100%... Not even a vacuum chamber... So, yeah, the system worked and...

...didn't even have to go thru engineering school and 6 months worth of al qeada trainin', either...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: CarolC
Date: 09 Jan 10 - 05:05 AM

I should also say that the women in Afghanistan are no better off under the people the Western governments support than they were under the Taliban, and as Lizzie pointed out in another thread, they were actually better off. With the Taliban, they were kept hidden away, but they were not being raped and they were provided with some security and stability. The warlords that the Western governments are supporting are just as repressive in terms of the form of Islam they impose on the women, and they are raping the women and their children, and have no rules or laws beyond what they decide from moment to moment.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: CarolC
Date: 09 Jan 10 - 04:54 AM

What I know is that the women of Afghanistan don't want foreign troops in their country. That's all I kneed to know or care about.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: CarolC
Date: 09 Jan 10 - 04:52 AM

It should also be pointed out that women in Iraq have suffered major setbacks in gender equality as a direct result of the US and UK invasion and occupation of that country.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Smedley
Date: 09 Jan 10 - 04:39 AM

CarolC, do you think Afghan women would have a better chance of asserting themselves and defending their interests under a Taliban regime ? Please answer that precise question and not swerve into another denunciation of US/UK intervention.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: CarolC
Date: 09 Jan 10 - 04:02 AM

As I've said over and again, until the women of the Middle East themselves get into positions of power and start to change the laws, the rules, they ain't going anywhere, really.

Precisely so. And no amount of intervention by countries like the US and the UK will change that. That's why the women in Afghanistan are no better off today, despite our nine years of fighting there, than they were before we went in there. And the women in those countries have said over and over that they want to do that work themselves rather than having the governments of other countries attacking their countries and waging war in them.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 09 Jan 10 - 03:56 AM

We are infidels....and were long before Russia invaded. If you are not a Muslim, then basically, you're not really to be trusted. Many crackpots within Islam won't rest until they have tried to turn the entire world to Allah.

Sorry, I wouldn't put up with that crap from any religion. It stinks.

We in the West are incredibly tolerant. In the Middle East, they ain't...and it's why their way of life has stayed the same for so many centuries, because it is built on fear, lack of education and a totally male dominated society.

As I've said over and again, until the women of the Middle East themselves get into positions of power and start to change the laws, the rules, they ain't going anywhere, really. They need to rise, together...

It will happen...it's already starting to over here, with women speaking out against arranged marriages and honour killings. I watched a TV award ceremony recently, and one of the actresses came out and spoke about that very subject, saying how wrong it all was and how women were no longer going to put up with it...

Until Mrs. Bin Laden is an equal to Mr. things won't change out there, because the men have been living in this highly odd world for so long that they're not even aware of how odd it is.

Good to see Mr. Exploding Underpants has pleaded Not Guilty! Ha, I knew this would happen..Now there'll be a huge, long, highly expensive trial...and appeals...

People who deliberately choose to blow up others should lose their right to life.

Period.

Bring on the Sheikhesses!

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: CarolC
Date: 09 Jan 10 - 03:51 AM

MtheGM, if you can't tell the difference between this...

you strike me as an agenda-driven gross *over-simplifier*;

and this...

failure uncritically to believe every syllable he has ever uttered, or to take your word for it that there are no others who just might be aiming for the Global Caliphate, is occasioned by no more than a desire to get at you, personally


..then there probably is no hope for your arguments at all. But in one last attempt to give you the benefit of the doubt about your abilities, I will try one more time.

When you discuss ME, rather than the topic, you are not making valid arguments. If you use your posts to point out what you regard as my flaws, as you have been doing, you are not making arguments, you are making personal attacks. When you say things like "you strike me as", and then you follow those words with character assassinations like, "an agenda-driven gross *over-simplifier*", you are not making an argument. You are making a personal attack. If you persist in making such attacks, I will continue to point them out to you. If you don't like that, I suggest keeping your posts about the subject rather than about me.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 09 Jan 10 - 03:32 AM

Very well, Carol; have it your way. Persist in your disingenuous insistence that the words of Bin Laden & his like are infinitely trustworthy; & that my failure uncritically to believe every syllable he has ever uttered, or to take your word for it that there are no others who just might be aiming for the Global Caliphate, is occasioned by no more than a desire to get at you, personally.

[I avoid the word 'paranoia'; please observe that I have not used it — but it was a near thing!].

I have done. Goodbye, and I hope it keeps fine for you.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: CarolC
Date: 09 Jan 10 - 03:08 AM

MtheGM, you made it personal with this...

you strike me as an agenda-driven gross *over-simplifier*; appearing to believe that becoz many Islamists have one main purpose, none can hold two or more purposes in mind simultaneously, and that no others can possibly exist anywhere at all whose purposes might just differ from those of this mainstream

Resent my saying so if you want to, but you keep making it personal by making it about ME and not about the subject. Every time you do that, you are making a personal attack. If you can't discuss the subject without discussing me, then you must not have any valid arguments at all.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 09 Jan 10 - 03:03 AM

I am not attacking you personally, Carol; I should not dream of doing any such thing, and I greatly resent such an accusation as a personal attack on me and on my integrity. What I am doing is contradicting what seem to me erroneous assertions which you are making, and which nobody else is. How, please, can I do that if I do not address my responses to you? If you regard such opposition, not to you but to your arguments as "personal attacks", then I think this a kitchen you might do well to stay out of as you clearly cannot stand its heat.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 09 Jan 10 - 02:59 AM

bobert, you are deluding yourself if you believe these people are just morons.
This one was described as a dream student by one of his British teachers.
He was an Engineering graduate of Universtity College London, one of our most prestigious universities, before giving it up for jihad and martyrdom.
He found and exploited a weakness in air security.
He prepared a bomb for detonation, undetected, against the fuselage of a packed US airliner over a major US city.
Only luck prevented a thousand deaths on Christmas Day.
Who knows what went wrong.
Maybe his hand shook.
That does not maqke him a moron.
I am sure that mine would too.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: CarolC
Date: 09 Jan 10 - 01:56 AM

But he has said many times that that is the reason he formed it. And he and his top people have also said many times that that is the reason for its continued existence. And I refer you, once again, to this quote from bin Laden himself...

"Your security is not in the hands of [Democratic presidential candidate John] Kerry or Bush or al Qaeda. Your security is in your own hands and each state which does not harm our security will remain safe." -- 2004


And you strike me as a person who has a lot of difficulty articulating their argument without making it personal. If your arguments are any good, you don't need to keep attacking me personally in order to make them.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 09 Jan 10 - 01:45 AM

But, Carol, that doesn't mean he formed it with only that one specific purpose (of getting rid of these foreign occupations) in mind, or that it has not since evolved to embrace and include and subsume other purposes. If I may say so yet again, without re-engaging in our repetitious arguments which I have forsworn to do — you strike me as an agenda-driven gross *over-simplifier*; appearing to believe that becoz many Islamists have one main purpose, none can hold two or more purposes in mind simultaneously, and that no others can possibly exist anywhere at all whose purposes might just differ from those of this mainstream.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: CarolC
Date: 09 Jan 10 - 12:12 AM

al Qaeda didn't just form in a vacuum 999. Osama bin Laden formed it with other people as a response to what they considered to be foreign occupation of Muslim lands.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: GUEST,999
Date: 09 Jan 10 - 12:05 AM

1989
Osama bin Laden founds an international group known as al-Qaeda, which in Arabic means "the base." It is formed primarily of mujahedeen, meaning holy warriors, and others fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan.

1993
Osama bin Laden sets up militant training camps in Sudan and begins searching for nuclear material and weapons.

Feb. 26, 1993
A 500-kilogram bomb explodes in a garage under World Trade Center in New York, killing six and injuring 1,042. Bin Laden associate Ramzi Yousef is sentenced to life without parole in February 1998 for orchestrating the bombing.

Oct. 8, 1993
Al-Qaeda supporters attack UN troops in Somalia, killing 18 U.S. servicemen

June 26, 1995
Al-Qaeda tries, unsuccessfully, to assassinate Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Nov. 13, 1995
Seven people, including five Americans, are killed when two bombs explode at a U.S.-Saudi military facility in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Osama bin Laden is blamed for the attack.

1996
After Osama bin Laden is expelled from Sudan, al-Qaeda moves its operation to Afghanistan. Iran sponsors a re-organization of al-Qaeda with bin Laden as leader.

June 25, 1996
Bin Laden followers bomb U.S. military base near Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, killing 19 American soldiers and wounding hundreds of Americans and Saudi Arabians.

Aug. 7, 1998
Bombs explode at the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, killing more than 220 people and injuring 5,000. The U.S. retaliates with air strikes against suspected training camps in Sudan and Afghanistan.

Feb. 22, 1998
Osama bin Laden calls for attacks on American citizens.

Nov. 4, 1998
A U.S. federal grand jury indicts Osama bin Laden in the bombing of U.S. embassies in Africa.

Oct. 12, 2000
Two suicide bombers, suspected to be associated with bin Laden, attack the navy destroyer USS Cole in Aden, Yemen, killing 17 sailors.

May 29, 2001
A U.S. District Court jury finds four of Osama bin Laden's followers guilty of conspiring to kill Americans, including those killed in the U.S. embassy bombings in Africa.

June 19, 2001
Osama bin Laden releases a taped message, which many believe was the orders that triggered the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

August 2001
Osama bin Laden threatens attacks on U.S.

Sept. 11, 2001
Attacks on World Trade Center in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania kill close to 3,000 people. Al-Qaeda is blamed within days of the attacks.

Oct. 7, 2001
The United States launches air strikes in Afghanistan aimed at al-Qaeda training camps and Taliban bases. Osama bin Laden, in a videotaped message, praises God for Sept. 11 attacks and swears America will never "dream of security" until "the infidels' armies leave the land of Muhammad."

Oct. 9, 2001
Al-Qaeda spokesman Sulaiman Abu Ghaith issues a statement calling for a holy war against the United States.

Nov. 9, 2001
The Taliban flee the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif.

Nov. 13, 2001
Northern Alliance soldiers enter Kabul.

Dec. 7, 2001
Taliban forces in Kandahar surrender to American troops.

Dec. 11, 2001
The United States files criminal charges against the alleged "20th hijacker" Zacarias Moussaoui.

Dec. 22, 2001
Shoe bomber Richard Reid tries to blow up an American Airlines jet over the Atlantic.

Mar. 18, 2002
The United States ends its sweep through the mountains of Afghanistan, Operation Anaconda, but most of the Taliban and al-Qaeda escape.

Oct. 12, 2003
Bombs in two nightclubs in Bali kill 202 people. Authorities later charges members of a local group, Jemaah Islamiyah, which has ties with al-Qaeda.

Oct. 23, 2003
Chechen rebels, believed to be loosely affilated with al-Qaeda, storm a theatre in Moscow and take audience, actors and crew as hostages.

Oct. 26, 2003
Russian special forces use gas to retake the theatre. The total death toll, from the gas and from those killed by the hostages is 128. All 41 hostage-takers are also killed.

Nov. 12, 2003
Osama bin Laden releases an audiotape praising attacks in Bali and Moscow.

Jan. 30, 2003
Shoe bomber Richard Reid sentenced to life in prison.

Mar. 1, 2003
Pakistani and U.S. agents arrest Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, one of the suspected masterminds of the Sept. 11 attacks.

Mar. 20, 2003:
The United States attacks Iraq.

May 1, 2003
U.S. President George W. Bush declares "major combat" over in Iraq.

Jan. 4, 2004
Bin Laden releases an audiotape calling on Muslims to continue "the jihad to check the conspiracies launched against the Islamic nation."

Mar.11, 2004:
Bombs on commuter trains in Madrid kill 190 people and injure more than 1,800. Spain later arrests more than a dozen suspects, many of them from Morocco and believed to have ties to al-Qaeda.

Mar. 25, 2004:
An audio tape believed to be from Ayman al-Zawahri, number two in al-Qaeda, is broadcast on al-Jazeera, calling for the overthrow of the government in Pakistan.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: GUEST,999
Date: 09 Jan 10 - 12:00 AM

"Stop doing things in other people's countries that give Al Qaeda so many reasons to exist!"

That's a bit too simplistic, LH.

Keriste, it would take a full page to LIST terrorist organizations, let alone SAY anything about them. What is Al Queda's country? You continue to justify AQ with the same litany, and the litany isn't really true. You may see them as an organization devoted to helping the oppressed, but they are just a bunch of killers disguised as an organization. Would you have said the same of Baader-Meinhoff?

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: GUEST
Date: 09 Jan 10 - 12:00 AM

"Stop doing things in other people's countries that give Al Qaeda so many reasons to exist!"

That's a bit too simplistic, LH.

Keriste, it would take a full page to LIST terrorist organizations, let alone SAY anything about them. What is Al Queda's country? You continue to justify AQ with the same litany, and the litany isn't really true. You may see them as an organization devoted to helping the oppressed, but they are just a bunch of killers disguised as an organization. Would you have said the same of Baader-Meinhoff?

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Little Hawk
Date: 08 Jan 10 - 09:07 PM

Bobert's got it right. You want to stop Al Qaeda? Stop doing things in other people's countries that give Al Qaeda so many reasons to exist! Al Qaeda is not the cause of this conflict, they are an inevitable byproduct of it.