Posted on 03/28/2004 9:47:11 PM PST by MurryMom
WOODRUFF: We will have more of the day's political news coming up. But now a look at some other top stories.
The Navy is ready for more demonstrations on the Puerto Rican island, Vieques. After a break on Sunday, Navy warships are firing at the island's practice range again. Over the weekend, roughly 70 demonstrators were arrested and charged with trespassing. They included a U.S. congressman, Democrat Luis Gutierrez of Illinois.
The State Department officially released its annual terrorism report just a little more than an hour ago, but unlike last year, there's no extensive mention of alleged terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden. A senior State Department official tells CNN the U.S. government made a mistake in focusing so much energy on bin Laden and "personalizing terrorism."
still, Secretary of State Colin Powell says efforts to fight global terrorism will remain consistent.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
POWELL: The results are clear: state sponsors of terrorism are increasingly isolated; terrorist groups on under growing pressure. Terrorists are being brought to justice, we will not let up. But we must also be aware of the nature of the threat before us. Terrorism is a persistent disease.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
Bill Clinton's Legacy is 9/11
If your Willie had just had enough time to run down al-Qaeda, he'd have brought all those rascals to justice.
But it wasn't "time" he was lacking, MM. It was guts...
The State Department's "Patterns of Global Terrorism 2000" cites Afghanistan's ruling Taleban as a major reason for South Asia's role as a hub of terrorism, as it "continued to provide safe haven for intentional terrorists, particularly Saudi exile Osama bin Laden and his network."
"Islamic extremists from around the world ... continued to use Afghanistan as a training ground and base of operations for their worldwide terrorist activities," the report said. "Afghanistan remains a primary hub for terrorists and a home or transit point for ... a web of informally linked individuals ... involved in most major terrorist plots or attacks against the United States in the past 15 years and now engaged in international militant and terrorist acts around the world," the report said.
It added that the Taleban provided logistics support to members of various terrorist organizations in Central Asia, Chechnya and Kashmir.
Unlike last year's report, bin Laden's al Qaeda organization is mentioned, but the 2000 report does not contain a photograph of bin Laden or a lengthy description of him and the group. A senior State Department official told CNN that the U.S. government made a mistake last year by focusing too tightly on bin Laden and "personalizing terrorism ... describing parts of the elephant and not the whole beast." United Nations Resolution 1333, imposing stricter sanctions against the Taleban until it hands over bin Laden and stops its support for terrorist activity, is cited as progress in the international effort against terrorism.
For this thread, here are a few more links:
2000 Patterns of Global Terrorism Report
MR. HULL: There are a number of groups -- al-Qa'ida is perhaps the most familiar to Americans. But you have the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, you have the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, you have of course Kashmiri groups, you have (inaudible), you have Chechens. So it is, in many ways, terrorist central for the international community.
In terms of an uptick, I would say we see continued very high levels of activity and very large numbers of people being trained, so that you have tens of thousands of people who have now gone through these camps and are part of the Arab Afghan alumni network. So it is a very troubling phenomenon and continues to be that.
Evidence of the shift from treating terrorism like a law enforcement issue.
The reaction to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the Khobar Towers bombing, the 2000 USS Cole bombing and the 1998 Embassy bombing were all about law enforcement, personalizing guilt, finding the guys who placed the bombs. It would be like prosecuting a crime family's wiseguys and ignoring the organization. Take a few wiseguys off the street and the organization will raise more to replace them.
It was this law enforcement attitude that kept Clinton from taking the Sudan up on the offer of bin Laden back in 1996. Roughly paraphrased, he said the government didn't have an adequate legal case to prosecute him.
The change in attitude with the Bush administration was clear, i.e. identify the organizations and their sponsors and eliminate it altogether.
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