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Posted on 09/11/2004 12:09:10 AM PDT by nwctwx
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Patrick Seale: New dangers on the Middle East
Special to Gulf News 10/1/2004
There are ominous signs the conflicts in the Middle East are set to widen in the coming months, sucking in new actors and posing new threats to the United States and its allies.
In the eyes of Arab and Islamic militants, the war against American forces in Iraq and Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation are increasingly seen as one and the same battle.
In the absence of any prospect for peace on either battlefield, alliances are being formed and command structures established which suggest that the struggle is entering a more lethal phase.
Western intelligence sources report a new high command is emerging made up of Hezbollah (the Shia Lebanese resistance movement that forced Israel out of southern Lebanon); Hamas (the hard-line Palestinian movement which has supplanted Yasser Arafat's Palestinian National Authority (PNA) as the spearhead of resistance to Israel); the Muslim Brotherhood (represented in the Occupied Territories by Islamic Jihad); and the Islamic Republic of Iran.
A striking features of this alliance is that it bridges the Sunni-Shia divide in the Muslim world; and unites Arab nationalists and Islamists in a common cause. As one of their members put it to me: 'There is today no difference between resistance and jihad.'
Victory of militants over moderates
Several factors lie behind the new, more organised and determined militancy, of which the more important may be listed as follows:
- US backing for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon for his expansion of Jewish colonies, his separation wall in the West Bank, and his all-out war against the Palestinians has ruled out any prospect of a peaceful settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The international consensus of a two-state solution seems increasingly unrealistic.
As a result, Palestinian moderates have been silenced while the PNA has virtually collapsed under Israeli blows and the bitter frustration of a population under siege. The initiative has passed to militants who argue there is no alternative but armed struggle.
The huge sacrifices the Palestinians have endured in their four-year intifada are, paradoxically, seen as arguments for continuing the battle, however long it takes.
- In Iraq, US attempts to crush the insurgency by force indeed reports that the US is planning an all-out campaign before the end of the year to 'clean out' Fallujah and other centres of resistance in preparation for elections in January are rallying anti-American forces in many parts of the world.
For Arab and Islamic militants, Iraq has become a fighting issue and a mobilising cause as intense as the Palestinian cause itself.
- Repeated American and Israeli threats to strike at Iran in order to destroy its alleged nuclear weapons programme have also contributed to the hardening mood in that country and in the region. They have encouraged hardliners in the Iranian regime to act forcefully and pre-emptively in both Iraq and the Palestinian/Lebanese arena so as to hold American and Israeli ambitions in check.
The victory of the militants was not inevitable. Movements like Hizballah and Hamas had long been reluctant to act outside their own respective battlefields of Lebanon and the Palestinian territories. They wanted their local grievances to be recognised and addressed. They sought to 'engage' the United States and are still hoping for a change in American policy.
But American and Israeli insistence to label, denounce and outlaw them as terrorist movements has increased their popularity and legitimacy and driven them to seek a wider arena for their actions.
A debate about the wisdom of suicide bombings has been raging for months in Palestinian circles. Moderates have argued that suicide bombings play into Sharon's hands, keep him in power and provide him with a pretext to destroy not just the PNA but Palestinian society itself.
The moderates argued that, if the Palestinians were to abandon suicide bombings and adopt a strategy of non-violent resistance, they could win over world opinion to their just cause and arouse the conscience of the world including the conscience of many Israelis.
In today's climate, these arguments cut little ice. On the contrary, the militants argue that the intifada and the suicide bombings have hit Israel hard.
Occupation and repression have brutalised Israeli society, inward investment has dwindled, unemployment and crime have soared, tourism has plummeted, young people are leaving, and world opinion has turned hostile.
Israel, they argue, is more isolated than ever, and would not survive were it not for American backing.
The strategy must therefore be to hit American as well as Israeli targets even harder, so as to bring home to American opinion the price the US has to pay for its one-sided policies and persuade Israelis to return to sanity. This is the dominant trend in the region today.
The debate in the Arab and Islamic world is being echoed by a still relatively-muted debate in the US.
Open opposition is beginning to surface on the internet, in speeches by prominent figures, and even in the mainstream press against the 'neoconservatives' and the 'civilian leadership of the Pentagon' who are held responsible for the Iraqi debacle and for the hatred against America in the Arab and Muslim world.
Mounting casualties and the soaring cost of the Iraq war, together with fear of terrorist attack, widely felt in the United States, has empowered the opposition to speak out against what is seen in many quarters as the consequence of the capture of America's foreign and security policy by right-wing friends of Israel.
Such views are to be heard among members of America's more traditional foreign policy establishment and among senior officers. The failure to recognise the threat from the neo-cons is being much lamented, as is the failure to block their rise to prominence over the past decade.
The American debate
A full-page advertisement in last Sunday's New York Times by an anonymous group calling itself americanrespect.com denounced America's "profound misunderstanding" of the causes of terrorism and the mistaken war against Iraq.
"Terrorists are not inherently malevolent", the advertisement declared. 'They are filled with passion and a sense of being aggrieved as true of Al Qaida as the Palestinians under Israel...' Muslims "view US foreign policy and aid to be heavily biased in favour of Israel and a significant threat to Islam..."
Such public advertisements are the tip of a very large iceberg. Dissent against the policies of the Bush administration is widespread, but it may not be strong or organised enough to put the Democratic challenger John Kerry in the White House.
Needless to say, the neo-cons are far from surrendering. They retain the upper hand in many parts of the Administration.
If President George W Bush is re-elected and the latest polls suggest he is well ahead of Kerry they will fight to retain their posts and their influence, not only inside government but in the many Washington think-tanks that shape American opinion.
The battle over the coming months between the United States and Israel on one side and a world-wide Islamic and nationalist insurgency on the other is likely to be exceedingly hot.
Patrick Seale is a commentator and author of several books on Middle East affairs. He can be contacted at: pseale@gulfnews.com
Don't know if you folks have seen this yet. It's chilling.
S.D. school crisis plan is found on disk in Iraq
A man arrested by U.S. authorities in Iraq had a computer disk in his possession containing a public report downloaded from a U.S. Department of Education Web site on crisis planning in school districts, including San Diego Unified.
The man was described as an Iraqi national with connections to terrorism and the insurgency that is fighting U.S. forces in Iraq. Officials in San Diego said the man's intentions were unknown.
Thread is here:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1232624/posts
One attack, just one attack on any school and we should start leveling ME cities. That is just EVIL.
Uh-huh, right.
Thanks for posting this AD. This is indeed chilling. A few weeks ago they slaughtered the children in Russia, yesterday they murdered the children of Iraq. We must assume they have this scenario planned for America's children. Each and every school must be prepared to thwart this, not matter what it takes.
Are these people f'n stupid or what?
I think it's the standard response now, just to keep a lid on panic among the populace.
They can't all be this stupid, can they? Or are they counting on most of the people to be so easily mollified?
>> I think it's the standard response now, just to keep a lid on panic among the populace. <<
That's my take on it. Can't upset the sheeple you know.
(Washington -AP, October 1, 2004)
— An audio tape purportedly released by Osama bin Laden's deputy calls for attacks on U.S. and British interests everywhere, according to a broadcast Friday by Al-Jazeera television. The Arab station said the speaker on the tape was Ayman al-Zawahri, an Egyptian-born surgeon and the closest aide to the al-Qaida terrorist group leader. The U.S. government has offered up to $25 million for information leading to his killing or capture.
It was not immediately possible to verify the authenticity of the recording or determine when it was taped. In Washington, a U.S. official said the CIA was aware of the tape and was looking at it.
The tape emerged one day after a campaign debate between President Bush and Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., discussed the U.S. war on terror and the search for bin Laden.
The voice sounded like past recordings of al-Zawahri, but it also made an unusual reference to the possibility that al-Qaida's top leaders were not invincible. "You, youth of Islam, this is our message," he said. "If we die or are detained, continue the path after us, and don't betray God and his prophet, and don't knowingly betray the trust."
The speaker's words came more quickly and energetically, sounding generally more upbeat than previous tapes believed to be from al-Zawahri. In addition to the United States and Britain, the speaker singled out Australia, France, Poland, Norway, South Korea and Japan, saying their "interests ... are spread everywhere."
"We must not wait more ... or we will be devoured one country after the other," the speaker said. "The youth must not wait for anyone and must begin resisting from now, and take experience and lessons from Iraq and Afghanistan and Chechnya." He also said the countries cited had given Israel the "means of survival."
The speaker also called for "learned and experience people" to organize what he called "a leadership for the resistance to stand up to the crusader campaign like the holy warriors organized their affairs in Afghanistan, Chechnya or Palestine."
In references apparently to the Russian government, Israel, Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority and the U.S.-backed Afghan government, the speaker continued to say the holy warriors had organized "despite the will of the occupier and that of the traitor national governments." An Al-Jazeera producer said the tape was "supposedly received today," by usual means, which he refused to discuss. The station showed almost four minutes in two clips of a longer recording, and, as usual, was not planning to broadcast the tape in full.
Station officials would not comment on the contents of unaired segments. The last message purportedly from al-Zawahri surfaced last month just before the third anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States. In that videotape, a bearded al-Zawahri proclaimed the United States will be defeated in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The CIA determined with a high degree of confidence that the speaker in that earlier message was al-Zawahri.
(Copyright 2004 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.) Al-Zawahiri's New Tape
That's what it's about, I think so too.
Interesting at their website that they choose to remain anonymous.
Frightening.
I had posted info about this yesterday morning as soon as I read it in the SD Tribune.
It's just infuriating to see the response of the local PD and school officials. They all seem to want us to move on along and forget about this as they deem it not worthy of their attention.
I can't think of one good reason that a terrorist in Iraq would have this info on their computer. Not one.
This BS of "your children are safe" just boils my blood. You don't play freaking games with the lives of our children.
Des Moines, Iowa - Suspicious Substance - 715 Locust - Portions of Des Moines Register building evacuated due to box containing brown substance found in mailroom. 11:27
Disruptions everywhere.
Thanks for continuing the IPN watch.
>> This BS of "your children are safe" just boils my blood. You don't play freaking games with the lives of our children. <<
No one is safe as long as we continue to fight this PC war. We need to starting killing terrorists wholesale. These monsters are never going to like us. I want them to be AFRAID of us.
The casual attitude of the local PD and school officials my be a smoke screen so the sheeple are not upset. Else their dumb as rocks. These threats are real and if we don't treat them as such, lives will be lost...young lives.
This guy with the disks should at this time be having his fingernails ripped off with vise grips until he tells us what he knows.
Thanks for the info Hank. Much appreciate you watching IPN for us.
Might be time to do some digging.
>>This guy with the disks should at this time be having his fingernails ripped off with vise grips until he tells us what he knows.<<
I prefer needle nose pliers : )
This is the second brown powder incident -
Staffers with KTNV Channel 13 have returned to their offices after a suspicious powder in a hate letter was discovered.
..A station receptionist opened an envelope with an Oregon postmark on it and inside found a brown powder....
http://www.krnv.com/Global/story.asp?S=2365340&nav=8faORRu1
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