There are a hell of a bunch of people out there who want to set the record straigt. US/Europeans still think the reign of machinery will solve it. But it will not.

The consequences are common, even not related anymore to the strings that drive and drove this momentum of hate.

America and Israel are bent and they may break. The breath of hate is restless.

They act and wait.

The people in Al-Qaida want to kill us. Pure and simple. They want to thoroughly destabilize or annihilate our way of life, and replace it with their idea of living. Of course, this means destroying not only people, but the institutions that we adhere to as well.

http://www.fas.org/irp/world/para/docs/980223-fatwa.htm

This is not the sort of goal that can be subject to negotiation.

For a lot of people in the West, this goal is incomprehensible. Many will go so far as to deny that this is what al-Qaida wants.

If you want to stop the problem at this point, you have to steel yourself that for at least some period of time, you’re going to have to hunt all of them down and kill them. Since these people are dedicated to their cause to the point of being suicidal, you’re going to have to rely on something more terrible than sanctions or embargos or conferences to resolve this.

There are sometimes when I wonder if Bush deliberately invaded Iraq (not for the public reasons) so that al-Qaida would be more likely to expend its energies attacking in a foreign country - rather than encouraging them to try again in the US. In terms of ease, a terrorist might well take a short trip to Iraq, cross a relatively unguarded border, and operate in a country with little legal or bureaucratic infrastructure. There, the suicidal terrorist could satisfy his urges, and the attack would take place somewhere other than on US soil.

Cynical, yes. But does it work? And does it show an understanding of what al-Qaida wants?

as i think i ‘ve understand, al quaida has a long term policy. they are well structured;

they are well established in europe, in USA, in asia, in africa, in Iraq, in Saudi Arabia but not in israel neighter palestinian territories, why?.

Could any organisation do what al quaida does without the support of a country?

Who reelly profit of al quaida crimes?

“gotta love the kind of viable democracy where even soldiers are too scared to go outside the capital city.”

There are parts of France - especially suburban Paris, where French police officers are too scared to go.

And 9/11 wasn’t about car theft, 9/11 was about the beginning of a war. If you haven’t noticed, this enemy doesn’t just want a car, this enemy wants to eliminate a whole people.

And should we talk about disgraceful behaviours, we could start with de Villepin and his betrayals…

I wonder about your sense of proportions. Your measuring stick seems to be crooked.

& re the “argument” for Rumsfeld’s disgraceful behaviour… if someone doesn’t like me, and someone else steals my car, then it’s acceptable for me to kick the first person’s head in, right?

Why are European newspapers so behind the learning curve?

Rumsfeld’s reasoning was actually quite cogent: let’s send a massive retaliatory strike against those nations who have openly called for America’s destruction, in order to send the proper shock waves around the world.

I actually would have supported that strike, 100%. But, quite frankly, the Afghan strike was much more masterful. And, thanks to that strike, we have the beginnings of a viable democracy in Afghanistan today.

I wouldn’t be too sure. Try this: http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labour/comment/0,9236,1160220,00.html

If it were not all so sad, there’s a delicious news report in Britain’s Independent on Sunday:

“Donald Rumsfeld, the US Secretary of Defence, urged President Bush to consider bombing Iraq almost immediately after the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, says a former senior aide.

“Richard Clarke, the White House counter-terrorism coordinator at the time, has revealed details of a meeting the day after the attacks during which officials considered the US response. Already, he said, they were certain al-Qa’ida was to blame and there was no hint of Iraqi involvement. ‘Rumsfeld was saying we needed to bomb Iraq,’ Mr Clarke said. ‘We all said: ‘No, no, al-Qa’ida is in Afghanistan.’” - from: http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=503437

Seems Rumsfeld wanted to bomb Iraq because there weren’t any really good targets in Afghanistan to bomb.

That it’s a union of states, as in “United STATES of America” - a useful thing to keep in mind.

It’s clear that you have an intense hatred of Bush, but I don’t know whose mind you expect to change with an argument that basically boils down to name-calling.

I’m not particularly fond of Bush’s domestic policy myself, but if Kerry really intends to allow France, Germany and Russia to hold American foreign policy to ransom, he deserves to be defeated. A war is not automatically made “illegitimate” just because the French and the Russians have contracts they’d like to pursue or Kofi Annan doesn’t like it, and I think you’ll find most Iraqis rather unsympathetic to your argument that there was something “immoral” about Bush’s “unilateral” decision to depose their former tormentor.

So do the rest of the British adult population, and right now, those votes don’t look likely to go the way Dawkins and Sayle might want them to.