al-Qaeda not down for the count yet

Seems that going to Afghanistan and declaring al-Qaeda finished was sort of like sweeping water off the porch and declaring the water no longer exists:

www.newsmax.com...

When you fumigate, the survivors run spmeplace else, and you gotta keep after 'em....

Did you expect anything less?

This war is going to go on for a long long time.

this war will be the longest in history i garuntee it. you may tke down osama and that will put a dent in terrorest plans, but to truley stomp out terrorism will take 50 - 100 years. then again the war on terrorism may end when shrub dies.

perhaps we didn' t imagine that violence create violence and so on.......
The War in Iraq, have just more excited the radicals muslims.......Just see the bombings in Morroco, Arabia Saoud!, and it just time before others happened in Irak..........The Iraq War could have given a new birth to Al Qaeda?
Arabs are going mad toward the occidentals in the Middle East..........We got military bases everywhere in ME, except Syria and Iran.

Whereas the palestinian bombings, are desesperate acts,from people who have lost everything in life.
The ones of radical muslims, in the name of the Jihad, are acts of resistance (in their minds ) against occidental colonialism and occidental corruption (Arab States, Oil power ) in Middle East.
It could explain why the occupation of Iraq by occidentals could feed terrorism.........

This war is going to go on for a long long time.

definitively true...............

Let ' s just hope it will not create tensions between occidentals and arabs...............


[Edited on 20-5-2003 by VzH]

Violence create violence, eh?

As if the violence that started the violence was going to go away without violence. They don't see the world as you do, unfortunately. They see such points of view as signs of weakness. You will either kill them or dazzle them with your ability to kill them and willingness to do so.

Regardless, many people (I wouldn't mention the names of the conservative talk show folk, but you know who they are) made it sound as if Al-Qaeda was a thing of the past just because we took back Afghanistan from them.

Personally, I do not think that we have the resolve to do what's necessary to win such a protracred war. In a few years people will have forgotten all about what started this, and on top of that, the paranoids are already resisting internal securities necessary to keep another hideous attack from occuring here.
But if they weren't, how long would it take for the government to set in place mechanisms that they know they'd never remove?

A totally loose-loose-loose (Figured it deserved an extra loose) situation.

And the darned l'il bastids are still around, blowing people up.

Smart guys though. If they can't get us right now, they get a small friend, and then work their way around and up.

I get the feeling that you'll never stop Al-Quaida, because it's very existence is a bit of a myth. OBL doesn't mastermind all of these attacks, he just acts as a centralist backer for a whole group of distinct terrorist organisations. You take him out and those organisations will still exist. Maybe they won't coordinate their attacks with each other anymore but those people will still be out there.

This "war on terrorisim" is going to last another few years and fizzle out, just like the last one did in the early 80s. The truth is, that so far the overall effect of the war on terrorism has been an increase in anti-Americanism, and that will lead to an increase in the number of people willing to attack American interests.

What a success!

Originally posted by Thomas Crowne
Regardless, many people (I wouldn't mention the names of the conservative talk show folk, but you know who they are) made it sound as if Al-Qaeda was a thing of the past just because we took back Afghanistan from them.

I don't think that Al Qaeda is finished. But I do believe that it's capacity to hit targets in the West has been severely dented.

We were led to believe in the West that we would be wiped out by now. TV shows and newspaper reports about nuclear weapons strikes, biochem attacks, massive bombs hitting our capitals: we were made to believe that Al Qaeda was coming and that we were going to get hit hard.

I don't know about you guys but from the impression that our governments gave through the media, I was led to believe that Al Qaeda was almost an invincible army - it's invisible, well financed, organised and well manned.

Yet what do we see since Afghanistan? A few suicide bombings on soft targets. Then we see what we are told is the capture of the cell that perpetrated those bombings. They don't seem to be as effective as our governments have made them out to be.

Yes, they hit the WTC and yes I believe that they will strike again but I don't believe that Al Qaeda is strong enough to bring a Western society down which is what we were led to believe. It suits our governments to have a strong enemy in the War Against Terror. It means that they can take drastic measures (like Guantanamo Bay) without the majority of the population questioning their actions. I honestly believe that the threat from Al Qaeda has been played up since Afghanistan. It suits our governments to have it that way.

Here's a news report from today:

news.bbc.co.uk...


Now, from reading this we are told that there is an "imminent" attack. The US and Saudi authorities are making this a big deal. Closing embassies, upping security measures and basically sending out a message to their populations in the West that we are to expect a big attack in a specified period of 4 days starting from tomorrow.

Will it happen? If it doesn't, is it yet another example of how they have played up the Al Qaeda threat so they can get on with their true objectives?

I'm not saying there isn't going to be an attack. I'm not prepared to go out on a limb like that. But I have a suspicion that if there is one we will see another series of niggling suicide bombings on soft targets in the Middle East - not the major situation that they are predicting in the US or any other Western country.

We shall see.......

Originally posted by Thomas Crowne
Seems that going to Afghanistan and declaring al-Qaeda finished was sort of like sweeping water off the porch and declaring the water no longer exists:

www.newsmax.com...

How long did it take them to figure that one out!??!?!

Originally posted by Leveller
Here's a news report from today:

news.bbc.co.uk...


Now, from reading this we are told that there is an "imminent" attack. The US and Saudi authorities are making this a big deal. Closing embassies, upping security measures and basically sending out a message to their populations in the West that we are to expect a big attack in a specified period of 4 days starting from tomorrow.

Will it happen? If it doesn't, is it yet another example of how they have played up the Al Qaeda threat so they can get on with their true objectives?

I'm not saying there isn't going to be an attack. I'm not prepared to go out on a limb like that. But I have a suspicion that if there is one we will see another series of niggling suicide bombings on soft targets in the Middle East - not the major situation that they are predicting in the US or any other Western country.

We shall see.......

It's funny how they criticize the Saudis for not "Following intelligence" But isn't that what we did before 9/11?!?!?

"I get the feeling that you'll never stop Al-Quaida, because it's very existence is a bit of a myth. OBL doesn't mastermind all of these attacks, he just acts as a centralist backer for a whole group of distinct terrorist organisations. You take him out and those organisations will still exist. Maybe they won't coordinate their attacks with each other anymore but those people will still be out there."

Couldn't agree more....

I disagree that it will stir up more anti-Americanism though...but instead show that we will destroy large organizations that try this crap... What will stir up the anti-Americanism instead, is the kind of occupational BS we're doing in Iraq right now. There should've been an interim Iraqi government installed by now, but this has been completely cluster-f'd

Beating al-Qaeda will be very very hard. I've seen a tv report from ARTE , and the journalist sayed that some British experts think it will take almost one generation to defeat Al-Qaeda.

Actually, Al-Quaeda it's 18K " freedom fighters " splitted in 90 different nations. And those terrorists are very good when it's time to hide. Finding them is very difficult task and we'll not do it in just some years. It will take decades.

If a terrorist from al-Qaeda detonated a dirty bomb in the United States, who would we go after? Would we nuke them back?