Subj : Re: It seems not everyone
To   : alt.tv.farscape
From : TNW7Z7Z7Z12345
Date : Wed Sep 07 2005 03:25:37

From Newsgroup: alt.tv.farscape

Ken McElhaney wrote:
 
> So you are saying that our efforts in Afghanistan and around the world
> have had NO effect on reducing terrorist attacks against the US? So,
> Osama has waiting more than four years to attack us again
> because....why?

It's a little early to make this declaration.  With regard to attacks on
US soil, it was nearly a decade between the first and second WTC
attacks. And worldwide, terror attacks against other countries have increased.

But more important, there is evidence that in future years there could
be many more terrorists in the world:

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Excerpts from: "Study cites seeds of terror in Iraq: War radicalized
most, probes find"  By Bryan Bender, Boston Globe, July 17, 2005

"WASHINGTON -- New investigations by the Saudi Arabian government and
an Israeli think tank -- both of which painstakingly analyzed the
backgrounds and motivations of hundreds of foreigners entering Iraq to
fight the United States -- have found that the vast majority of these
foreign fighters are not former terrorists and became radicalized by
the war itself."

"...American intelligence officials, speaking on the condition of
anonymity, and terrorism specialists paint a similar portrait of the
suicide bombers wreaking havoc in Iraq: Prior to the Iraq war, they
were not Islamic extremists seeking to attack the United States, as Al
Qaeda did four years ago, but are part of a new generation of
terrorists responding to calls to defend their fellow Muslims from
''crusaders" and ''infidels."

''The president is right that Iraq is a main front in the war on
terrorism, but this is a front we created," said Peter Bergen, a
terrorism specialist at the nonpartisan New America Foundation, a
Washington think tank."

''...To say we must fight them in Baghdad so we don't have to fight
them in Boston implies there is a finite number of people, and if you
pen them up in Iraq you can kill them all," said Bergen. ''The truth is
we increased the pool by what we did in Iraq."

"Intelligence officials worry that some of ''Iraq alumni" will use the
relationships they build on the battlefields of Iraq and return to
their home countries as hardened Islamic terrorists."

"The CIA's National Intelligence Council concluded in a report earlier
this year that ''Iraq and other possible conflicts in the future could
provide recruitment, training grounds, technical skills, and language
proficiency for a new class of terrorists who are 'professionalized'
and for whom political violence becomes an end in itself."

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I thought we did the right thing in Afghanistan, but it is way too early
to tell whether Iraq has ultimately increased or decreased the problem. 


- TNW

[To e-mail me, remove 12345 from my address.]

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