Posted on 08/26/2006 12:53:09 PM PDT by kronos77
Post 9/11 and particularly post-Madrid 2004, events have led to a hardening of positions in Europe among the majority population and, at the same time, there are more second and third generation Muslim youth finding their way to jihad. The stereotype of the jihadi coming from the Arab world is changing. Post-September 11, recruits are just as easily to be found in poly-techniques, high schools and university campuses in Europe. ... ... It is also assumed that Osama is the symbol of this ferment. He has been glorified into a cult figure, but he is not really the single unifying factor in the Muslim world. There are many who are anti-US and anti-Israel, but who feel that al Qaeda over-reached by attacking the US, which invited massive US military retaliation and the occupation of Muslim lands.
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Narcotics smuggling generates its own separate business lines, globally connected with arms smuggling and human trafficking, and all dealt with in hundred dollar bills. These black dollars have to be laundered, which is yet another distinctive, secretive and complicated transnational occupation closely connected with these illegal activities, and is really a crucial infusion of cash into the Western economies.
The '90s were a far cry from the early days of dependence on the Cold War sponsors of violence and terrorism. In the '70s, terrorists began to rely on legal economic activities for raising funds. The buzzword today is globalization, including in the business of terrorism. Armed groups have linked up internationally and, financially and otherwise, been able to operate across borders, with Pakistani jihadis doing service in Chechnya and Kosovo, or Uzbek insurgents taking shelter in Pakistan.
(Excerpt) Read more at in.rediff.com ...
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Commenting on the title, one of the big limitations of democracy which is little acknowledged, is this: Democracy is the best possible system for governing a group of reasonably homogeneous people with similar goals and ideals; it is not a reasonable way for two or more groups with nothing at all in common to share power. All that produces is contests to see who can outbreed the other group and, at some point, the group being outbred will realize that there are two ways to end up with more people, and not just one, i.e. that if you KILL enough of the other group, the effect is the same as that of outbreeding them.
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