quote:

---

...It has become an article of faith that Britain was vulnerable to terror because of its politically correct antiracism. Yet Osman’s comments suggest that what propelled at least some of the bombers was rage at what they saw as extreme racism. And what else can we call the belief—so prevalent we barely notice it—that American and European lives are worth more than the lives of Arabs and Muslims, so much more that their deaths in Iraq are not even counted? ...

The real problem is not too much multiculturalism but too little. If the diversity now ghettoized on the margins of western societies—geographically and psychologically—were truly allowed to migrate to the centres, it might infuse public life in the West with a powerful new humanism. If we had deeply multi-ethnic societies rather than shallow multicultural ones, it would be much more difficult for politicians to sign deportation orders sending Algerian asylum seekers to torture, or to wage wars in which only the invaders’ dead are counted.

A society that truly lived its values of equality and human rights, at home and abroad, would have another benefit too. It would rob terrorists of what has always been their greatest recruitment tool: our racism.

---

http://www.straight.com/content.cfm?id=12259

Censorship can't end terror
by Gwynne Dyer

quote:

---

Let’s talk dirty. The 9/11 suicide hijackers—all Arabs—attacked the United States instead of Brazil or Japan because the U.S. government has been neck deep in the politics of the Arab world for a generation, whereas the Brazilian and Japanese governments haven’t. There is a connection between Washington’s Middle Eastern policies—its support for oppressive Arab regimes, its military interventions in the region, and its uncritical backing of Israeli government policies—and the fact that Americans have become the preferred targets for Islamist terrorist attacks.

Indeed, no other non-Muslim nation except Israel was a target for Islamist terrorist attacks until after the invasion of Iraq in March 2003. And the attacks since then have been aimed at the citizens of countries that were complicit in that invasion: Londoners, not Parisians; Spaniards, not Germans; Australians holidaying in Bali, not Japanese holidaying in Malaysia....

There you have it: two full paragraphs of obscenity. Prime Minister Tony Blair himself says so. ...

The invasion of Iraq made it look (to those already susceptible to such extreme religious arguments) as if the Islamist extremists, who had barely any credibility outside the Arab world even 10 years ago, were right. If there were no terrorists in Iraq, why did western countries invade it? Because there is a Judeo-Christian conspiracy to destroy Islam, stupid. If there is another Islamist terrorist attack in the U.S., it is more likely to come from within the resident Muslim community, as it has in Britain, than from foreign infiltrators.

Most American Muslims, like most British Muslims, are appalled by the radical doctrines that are sweeping some of their young men and women away. But it is self-serving nonsense on the part of the governments of these countries to pretend that this is just some inexplicable outburst of violence by weird Muslim people. The laws of cause and effect still rule.

---

Gotta call BS on that one, even though I generally enjoy Gwynne Dyer...

Russia, a non-Muslim nation, had Chechen (Muslim, although maybe not Islamist, but Islamists were there as advisors)terrorist attacks prior to March 2003.

Mozambique and Kenya, non-Muslim nations, had the AQ bombings of their respective US embassies (which by the way killed mostly locals and not Americans). This was prior to March 2003.

Attacks in Russia reinforce the principle, which is that the violence of militants from Muslim countries follows a direct politcal logic associated with political involvement of the major powers.

Dyer could easily have thrown in Chechyn attacks in Russia as an example of principle in action, the fact that he didn't is not ignorance, at the most it is an oversight that comes from his assumption that his readers will understand the theoretical principle as he has exampled and be able to apply it to other cases, rather than nitpicking at details.

After all he is talking about the specifics relating to the US and its policies, not the somewhat older conflict, dating back to Czar Nicholas and Russian exapansionism into Muslim Asia. Fascinating that you are trying to assert that Al Queda has been operative in the Chechyn conflict as instigators as far back as 1870, if that is what you mean by your use of the term "Advisors."

My understanding has always been that some Chechyn's used the opportunity of created by the US, Pakistani and Saudi support for Al Q. and other internationalist Islamic organizations to go to Afghanistan to in the 1980's and 90's to train and be indoctrinated, and then go back to their respective home countries where they would then fight the war, as in Bosnia, Chechnya, and Kosovo. This dove-tailed nicely with US strategic interests at the time.

One hopes that one is not obliged to detail the specifics of all potential factors involved and examples when demonstrating a principle in an op/ed piece, where one depends largely on the intelligent interpretation of an sudience. More detailed analysis and factual renditionings are the domain of longer articles and books.

[ 22 August 2005: Message edited by: Cueball ]

[trusting any of these sources is obviously up to the individual reader]

But Dyer's main point was that Blair was even trying to shut-down the discussion of cause and effect as "obscene" and describing it as "justifying" terrorist mass-murder.

Regarding Chechnya, ... they have their own issues with the Russians, it has very little to do with some wider Islamicist plot.

quote:

---

Originally posted by thwap:
A right-wing poster who i once had high hopes for, has pointed out that (for instance) Spanish Intelligence has discovered that planning for the Madrid bombings took place before the invasion of Iraq, and that therefore, the cause and effect described by Dyer, myself, and the left in general, is bogus.

---

quote:

---

trusting any of these sources is obviously up to the individual reader]

---

Especially when they are not identified by name.

In general, Spanish intelligence services have been made up of quite right-wing people, historically coming from the pro-Franco ranks.

quote:

---

Originally posted by HerculesRockefeller:
"Indeed, no other non-Muslim nation except Israel was a target for Islamist terrorist attacks until after the invasion of Iraq in March 2003. And the attacks since then have been aimed at the citizens of countries that were complicit in that invasion: Londoners, not Parisians; Spaniards, not Germans; Australians holidaying in Bali, not Japanese holidaying in Malaysia...."

Gotta call BS on that one, even though I generally enjoy Gwynne Dyer...

Russia, a non-Muslim nation, had Chechen (Muslim, although maybe not Islamist, but Islamists were there as advisors)terrorist attacks prior to March 2003.

Mozambique and Kenya, non-Muslim nations, had the AQ bombings of their respective US embassies (which by the way killed mostly locals and not Americans). This was prior to March 2003.

Kenya again in Dec 2002. AQ fired SAMs at an airliner departing a coastal resort. No one was killed or injured, but still...it's the thought that counts.

---

Context, context, context: the Dyer quote preceded with:

'There is a connection between Washington’s Middle Eastern policies—its support for oppressive Arab regimes, its military interventions in the region, and its uncritical backing of Israeli government policies—and the fact that Americans have become the preferred targets for Islamist terrorist attacks.'

His point being there's a causal link between Islamic 'terrorist' attacks against western interests and prior western activities in Islamic countries.

Russia drew heat after flattening Grozny. And not before.

quote:

---

Originally posted by kurichina:
I made the mistake of linking to the Klein article prior to its republishing on rabble, in this thread, then there was another "official" thread about it here. Thanks for the Dyer link, though. I'll go check that out now.

---

I made a mistake posting Naomi Klein's article or rather link here since it appeared on babble elsewhere.

Sorry but I had no idea that this was the case. It's impossible to know about all threads and topics already discussed unless one has nothing else in life to do but surf on babble. So people can just discuss Naomi's article on one of the other threads. I put it here to share it with babblers not because I wanted to discuss it. What am I going to say about something I totally agree with anyway?

My reason for linking both in the same post are obvious, are they not?

Thanks for linking to the 2 threads. I din't know they existed.

[ 22 August 2005: Message edited by: VanLuke ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Cueball:
Fascinating that you are trying to assert that Al Queda has been operative in the Chechyn conflict as instigators as far back as 1870, if that is what you mean by your use of the term "Advisors."

---

Pray tell, whom is the founder of jihadism? I had always thought that Jihad meant religious struggle either of military, or the personal philosophical type within Islam.

I am interested to know this because I am wondering if you are suggesting that there is something unsavory about people asserting their national right of self-determination on the basis of organizing and authorizing their movements within their religious culture and institutions, and if the manner of doing this is something peculliar to Islam, that make the 18th century Muslim Chechyn rebels somehow ethically different than the largely catholic Jacobite rebels of Scotland of the same period, or somehow similar to Osama bin Laden's Trotskiest-like Islamic internationalists of today?

More importantly thanks for that interesting link.

[ 22 August 2005: Message edited by: Cueball ]