So, although Bush uses the foiled airline bomb plots in London to tell us how safe the “war on terror” has made the US, the bombers’ only international connections were to Pakistan. (not Iraq!)
Pakistani General Sultan says that if top al Qaeda offiicials are residing in North Waziristan (a remote province of Pakistan), then “as long as one is staying like a peaceful citizen, one would not be taken into custody. One has to stay like a peaceful citizen and not allowed to participate in any kind of terrorist activity.”
Former White House counter-terrorism czar Richard Clarke, an ABC News consultant, said “What this means is that the Taliban and al Queida leadership have effectively carved out a sanctuary inside Pakistan.”
…the great irony is that on this very same day, the White House released a document containing the administration’s strategy to combat terrorists. One of the goals in the document is to “Deny Sponsorship, Support, and Sanctuary to Terrorists”. But, lo and behold, Pakistan has just created a terrorist sanctuary. And I thought we were friends with Pakistan… Great work, Bushie!
Now what I’m wondering in all this mess is why Bush isn’t talking with Iran’s gov’t. If he’s so hot on curbing terrorism why’s he letting the “Iran situation” escalate? He doesn’t seem to be trying… perhaps he is hell-bent on war with Iran in the future and he doesn’t want a peaceful resolution?
To answer the original question… even though we made Saddam out to be an evil dictator, he managed to keep a very volatile area under some semblance of control. Removing Saddam from Iraq was a bad move. Our bull-headed foreign policies are just fuel on the “hate America” fire burning in the Middle East. Great work, Bushie!
Of course he wants more war. His obscenely rich family and friends - “the have and the have-mores” to use Bush’s own quote - are deeply entrenched in the oil and war-profiteer industries. Those are the two industries currently making a killing (pun intended) on the war.
You can’t spend tax-payers money on bombs unless you use up the old ones.
Pakistan is an internally weak nuclear power. They don’t have the policing capacity to manage anything but the government’s own stability. Beyond a considerable US presence in those regions, a passive containment policy is really the only available choice.
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The American defense industry is an essential commodity and the Bush regime has done a great job in extending market principals towards that end. I think George W. Bush has been entirely successful towards his means, although we’ll naturally see the disconnect when his rhetoric is examined, to attach any significance to a “safer” America is to be caught in the faux idealism when the real issue is in the material motives of force.
Yeah I’d rather have terrorists running all over the place!! Maybe if we cross our fingers they won’t attack us next time, I’m feeling lucky anyway! Hey, maybe Bush IS a terrorist! maybe he’s Osama himself!
It’s giving taxpayer money to the war-machine and tax breaks to the wealthy and tax breaks to oil companies (while they’re making record profits) and then cutting Head Start and college loan programs and job creation programs and refusing to raise minimum wage that keeps people poor.
You’re one of the few still drinking that kool-aid, pal. I’d love to ride uni with you, but it’s pretty clear that Bush has increased both the number of terrorists and the international hatred of our country.
Nonsense. It is a product of religious teaching that values death over life. They are able to recruit kids in Kuwait were the average Kuwaite lifestyle is unreal without working! Everyone gets to share in the wealth of this oil rich country. Somehow money and stability doesn’t solve their problems.
Having a negative belief towards the accumulation of wealth isn’t conducive to creating wealth. It is a wealth repellant. There are many reasons why people do not do well financially. One of them is an unhealthy view of having money. If you believe money will make you miserable, obscene, evil, spoiled or any number of other negative emotions you have programmed your mind for poverty. Even if 100 million dollars dropped in your lap tommorow, you would die broke and miserable.
Kuwait is not stable. Invaded in 1990, it’s been a military depot for 16 years. Their stability has been kept by a foreign army, their natural trading partners, Iran and Iraq, have been under heavy sanctions, the youngest generations being recruited for terrorism now were watching public tortures, rapes, and murders then, during the Iraqi occupation. There’s a lot of instability within and around Kuwait.
Religious teachings are opportunistic, they exploit the situation, but the conditions are already present.
Money is an actionable value translated directly into ethical values. To be “obscenely rich” displays a lack of compassion since any large accumulation clearly shows a direct lack of significant giving or action. Wealth is a worthless self-value and in most cases, “obscene” wealth is not indicative of a person who labors 10 hours a day creating physical product, but someone who owns the invisable rights to that product. Wealth distribution is important because wealth accumulation is not a singular effort, but only possible through the intricate support network of human economy.
some correction: I do not think that religion “per se” is a factor here.
Loss of social structures is more at stake. I’ve recently viewed a BBC documentary on that : proof is that kamikazes do not have a common profile
(though many are just losing social and cultural ties) so the “war on terror” is more a war on a crazy behavioural viruses than a war on “evil organisations” (AL Qaeda is simply not such a centralised organisation).
Providing a clearer and coherent image of a “modern” future is much more efficient for people that are losing all faith on a progressive future : this is alas not the case when we contradict the very values we want to defend.
For sure providing strong HOPE is not enough to stop nihilists but that will greatly reduce their numbers (note that HOPE is not something for the poors only).
That does not mean we do not need a stick to fight some nihilist behaviours but that will make the stick much much smaller.
How to measure efficiency on this behalf?
The rowdy north-west frontier has always been a problem for Pakistan: they know that brute force would not work but though procrastinating through negociations they should have pushed for some slow cultural changes 3 generations ago! Trying to handle the problem indirectly is not necessarily a Munich-like surrender.
maybe he’s Osama himself!