When To Give Terrorists What They Want And When Not To

Here’s an interesting read from a site about terrorism.
A lot of good questions asked about the Bush Admin and their releasing of 2 terrorists back to SA.
Also, a lot of good comparisons to the underpants bomber and the shoe bomber.
What do you think?

http://www.veteranstoday.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=9951

Now for a light hearted look at life….there are two boys in my kitchen, making dinner for my husband and I. They are hard at work, preparing a dish (sounds like “Boolani”) from leeks, potatoes and bread. It smells delicious, although the kitchen LOOKS a little like a war zone at present!

Thanks for the article. I believe in facing issues head on. I”ve read a lot about it, but there is always something new to learn.

I’m hoping to get the guys to blog, but we are working on surgery for one of them, and the other is waiting for his host family to return tomorrow so he can go spend time with them. I’m not sure it will work this week, but we will do this soon (with or without this same group).

I’ve called four people about the site; most are wanting to come aboard, but not until after New Years. Sillies……

Did anyone else know that Tom Tancredo introduced a ‘Jihad Protection Act’?

http://www.theurbangrind.net/?p=3045

http://www.washingtonwatch.com/bills/show/110_HR_6975.html

Kudos to all here! I am reading some amazing comments from all of you! Excellent discussion! I am learning so much from just hanging out on the Planet! 🙂

I’m just sayin’…..

Fantastic article, Abby! I found it highly informative, and sobering to say the least.

I realize that what we often think of as the terrorism of the Middle East is not simply religious but also political. Bernard explained this beautifully. Yet, I still think that the mixing of politics and religion will ultimately have disasterous effects. Either side will always feel that whatever accommodations are made don’t go far enough. If memory serves Queen Elizabeth was viewed by the Puritans as not being Protestant enough, and their activities which were technically illegal continued on even to this day, but it isn’t nearly as prevalent as it once was; at least that’s my understanding of it.

This is one reason why I am proudly atheist. I do believe that religion can do good works and often does, but extremeism is always a concern. That extremism leads to things like the murder of Dr. Tiller.

I am sure that throughout our history humankind has looked to the heavens and wondered what made things like the sun move, the lightning flash, the trees grow, and sickness occur to name just a few examples. I’m certain that patterns were obviously looked for, and in the hopes of achieving some control over the world around us we tried to use divine understanding to explain things. At least that is the way I think of it. Yet, much like Jung points out there are certain elements that are common within all cultural mythologies, and these archetypes speak to us all.

Sadly, fanaticism is ultimately a deadly thing. It’s that fanaticism that scares me.

I don’t agree with the idea of accomadating seperate rules of law over secular laws. This ultimately leads to anarchy because then any law can supercede a previous one and become dominant. Thus, all that is opinion will become legally binding in some way. I don’t see that we can observe everyone’s civil libertes by granting particularly dangerous accomadations to a select few without applying those laws more broadly. If I made the rules I would never allow for an “honor killing,” but I would never say that one cannot practice a traditional religion.

Yet, then there are things like $cientology. I’m passionately against that “faith” because of the way in which it has destroyed so many people’s lives. Indeed, I know what it was born out of it, and that makes me all the more concerned.

Years ago, before I declared myself to be an “athiest,” I studied under a number of spiritual systems. The Golden Dawn being one of them. Knowing that Crowley’s student hooked up with Hubbard so many years ago, and thus gave him some of his ideas bothers me immensly.

So where does one draw the line? I feel that religion and politics must remain separate and never allowed to intertwine. We’ve seen what can result by observing the GOP. They’ve actually conned Christians into believing they will get Roe vs Wade overturned, but they never do this. Indeed that’s one reason so many became disillusioned with Reagan.

Forgive me for my long winded response, but upon these matters I have many feelings.

In the end we cannot expect that terrorism will ever go away. It will remain with us in some for or fashion for as long as there are people who are willing to use violence to fight the establishments with which they differ. Nevertheless, we must maintain a consistent separation of religion and secular laws. Otherwise extremism will prevail over us. This is the case whether it’s religion or political extremism. It seems that religion can be abused to justify almost anything.

Breaking news….a suspicious vehicle parked in Times Square. Police are investigating and people being evacuated from the area!!

Thank you, abby, for your article! Excellent!

I do have a question though. I have no knowledge whatsoever of modern British law. Do you have a “free speech” provision, or anything like our Constitution guaranteeing rights to the individual? I’m sure there must be something like it as many of our laws came directly from English law. I’m just curious.

I am surprised, however, that British courts would allow a second system to exist. I may be in the minority, but I believe that the religious laws should take second place to the secular law of the land, if only for the preservation of society. I cannot imagine us having “honor killings” in this country and allowing the men to walk free because some ancient religious law says that it’s okay to commit the crime.

Good going there! I look forward to more of your posts!

Currently in Phoenix, there is a man in jail waiting trial for killing his daughter.
He drove his SUV over her in an honor killing, and when interviewed on local news, the young woman’s brothers showed no remorse, but rather said their sister had been disrespectful to their father.

Also in Phoenix, an eight year old little girl was raped by a group of boys ages 10 to 14, and the girl’s parents disowned her because she was dirty.
Child Protective Services has the child under their care and it’s hard to imagine the trauma the child must be enduring due to being brutally raped and sodomized, and then thrown out of her family.
In that case, the boys are in custody, but no charges have been brought against the parents for child neglect.

Thanks for the article. There are a few things here I’d like to comment on.

Firstly, I think you’re misunderstanding (or simplifying to the point of distorting) the relationship between US foreign policy and terrorism. Although it has been exacerbated in recent years, none of this is the direct product of recent foreign policy, it’s a situation that has been brewing for many decades.

Osama bin Laden, is a good example here. He was radicalized first and foremost by his opposition to the Saudi royalty. What began essentially as a call for self-determination in a politcal system without representation, quickly moved on to an anti-US position. Why? Because the Saudi regime would simply not exist without US support.

This is the case in a number of other countries. The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, for example. The fact is that US interests are so entrenched in the Middle East that they simply can’t afford to lose ‘friendly’ regimes. Thus, the US government has long been helping maintain the power of various unpopular and illegitimate governments.

The relationship between religion and terrorism is also more nuanced than is usually portrayed. The first thing you need to remember is that politcal debate is not something that has a public medium in many countries. The mosques are often the only places where people can get together (outside of the extended family) and discuss politics. In this way politcs comes to be closely associated with religion, and politcal debates are couched in religious terms and symbolism. Go to any mosque in the Middle East for Friday prayer and you will see just how political it is.

If you read Osama bin Laden’s statements with an awareness of the symbolism etc, you will see that he is making fundamentally politcal arguments.

While in the past the political problems in the Middle East were reasonably confined, we now live in an era of unprecedented global interconnectedness. The problems of US foreign policy can no longer be kept at arms length. They are here and they are here to stay.

I believe we need to differentiate between appeasment and addressing the root causes of anti-Western sentiment and terrorism. We should in no way compromise the ideals that underpin western society, but we should listen to why these attacks are happening and plan a way to minimize them.

For me this means going back to Carter’s strategy of energy independence which was so short-sightedly abandoned. If despotic regimes no longer have their fingers on the life support machine, we can stop playing such an interventionist role in the region and allow people there to sort out their own ways of governing.

Islam is no more violent than other religions. If left to themselves people will choose peace over violence. But because of western intervention, the west and the US in particular, has become a convenient enemy upon which to project all social discontent.

Aargh. There’s so much more I could say, but for both our sakes I will stop here.