It didn't happen after 9-11! What you are saying is exactly what we should have done in Afganistan - killed them until the damn gun barrels melted. Now your getting to the heart of why I totally lost any respect for Bush. We never gave the bastards that did this what they deserved, and took on people who had little to do with it. Like I said, this is a wake up call. Believe it or not, thats why the democrats would do it better. they HAVE to prove they are tough. They would let the military loose where it is needed. Kerry has position papers on his web site that say the same thing I am saying about the War on Terror vs the War on Fundamentalists, a real group of people, not some abstract noun.

I have about nuthin' for Russia, but with this terrible atrocity, I cannot have any sympathy at all for the people who would perpetrate such a terrible act. Like you MedMech, I believe that those people, Al Queda, would leap at the opportunity to do us harm like that here in the USA. It will happen regardless of whom is in the presidency. Those terrorists want to do us harm at all costs. They rpove it time and again. We must hunt them down and kill them. We must dissuade countries from playing safe harbor to them.

Yeah, I think we need to shrink our global footprint, too. Big footprint comes from big feet and nobody likes our big feet clunking around. Hence my support for getting out of international agreements. The less we flex our various muscles, the happier the world will be.

These two paragraphs are in conflict. Too bad. But it doesn't mean we can't do the war on terror and also remove ourselves from spheres that aren't threatening to us.

Bot

Well it looks like we got this one worked out. :p

Massacre Draws Self-Criticism in Muslim Press


By JOHN KIFNER

Published: September 9, 2004

BEIRUT, Lebanon, Sept. 8 - The brutal school siege in Russia, with hundreds of children dead and wounded, has touched off an unusual round of self-criticism and introspection in the Muslim and Arab world.

"It is a certain fact that not all Muslims are terrorists, but it is equally certain, and exceptionally painful, that almost all terrorists are Muslims," Abdel Rahman al-Rashed, the general manager of the widely watched satellite television station Al Arabiya said in one of the most striking of these commentaries.

Writing in the pan-Arab newspaper Al Sharq al Awsat, Mr. Rashed said it was "shameful and degrading" that not only were the Beslan hijackers Muslims, but so were the killers of Nepalese workers in Iraq; the attackers of residential towers in Riyadh and Khobar, Saudi Arabia; the women believed to have blown up two Russian airplanes last week; and Osama bin Laden himself.

"The majority of those who manned the suicide bombings against buses, vehicles, schools, houses and buildings, all over the world, were Muslim," he wrote. "What a pathetic record. What an abominable 'achievement.' Does this tell us anything about ourselves, our societies and our culture?"

Mr. Rashed, like several other commentators, singled out Sheik Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a senior Egyptian cleric living in Qatar who broadcasts an influential program on Al Jazeera television and who has issued a fatwa, or religious ruling, calling for the killing of American and foreign "occupiers" in Iraq, military and civilian.

"Let us contemplate the incident of this religious sheik allowing, nay even calling for, the murder of civilians," he wrote. "How can we believe him when he tells us that Islam is the religion of mercy and peace while he is turning it into a religion of blood and slaughter?"

Mr. Rashed recalled that in the past, leftists and nationalists in the Arab world were considered a "menace" for their adoption of violence, and the mosque was a haven of "peace and reconciliation" by contrast.

"Then came the neo-Muslims," he said. "An innocent and benevolent religion, whose verses prohibit the felling of trees in the absence of urgent necessity, that calls murder the most heinous of crimes, that says explicitly that if you kill one person you have killed humanity as a whole, has been turned into a global message of hate and a universal war cry."

A columnist for the Kuwaiti newspaper Al Siyassa, Faisal al-Qina'I, also took aim at Sheik Qaradawi. "It is saddening," he wrote, "to read and hear from those who are supposed to be Muslim clerics, like Yusuf al-Qaradawi and others of his kind, that instead of defending true Islam, they encourage these cruel actions and permit decapitation, hostage taking and murder."

In Jordan, a group of Muslim religious figures, meeting with the religious affairs minister, Ahmed Heleil, issued a statement on Wednesday saying the seizing of the school and subsequent massacre "was dedicated to distorting the pure image of Islam.''

"This terrorist act contradicts the principles of our true Muslim religion and its noble values," the statement said.

Writing in the Jordanian daily Ad Dustour, columnist Bater Wardam noted the propensity in the Arab world to "place responsibility for the crimes of Arabic and Muslim terrorist organizations on the Mossad, the Zionists and the American intelligence, but we all know that this is not the case.''

"They came from our midst," he wrote of those who had kidnapped and killed civilians in Iraq, blown up commuter trains in Spain, turned airliners into bombs and shot the children in Ossetia.

"They are Arabs and Muslims who pray, fast, grow beards, demand the wearing of veils and call for the defense of Islamic causes,'' he said. "Therefore we must all raise our voices, disown them and oppose all these crimes."

In Beirut, Rami G. Khouri editor of the Daily Star, wrote that while most Arabs "identified strongly and willingly" with armed Palestinian or Lebanese guerrillas fighting Israeli occupation, "all of us today are dehumanized and brutalized by the images of Arabs kidnapping and beheading foreign hostages."

Calling for a global strategy to reduce terror, he traced what he called "this ugly trek" in the Arab world to "the home-grown sense of indignity, humiliation, denial and degradation that has increasingly plagued many of our young men and women."

...

In Saudi Arabia, newspapers tightly controlled by the government - which finds itself under attack from Islamic fundamentalists - were even more scathing.

Under the headline "Butchers in the Name of Allah," a columnist in the government daily Okaz, Khaled Hamed al-Suleiman, wrote that "the propagandists of jihad succeeded in the span of a few years in distorting the image of Islam.''

"They turned today's Islam into something having to do with decapitations, the slashing of throats, abducting innocent civilians and exploding people,'' he said. "They have fixed the image of Muslims in the eyes of the world as barbarians and savages who are not good for anything except slaughtering people."

"The time has come for Muslims to be the first to come out against those interested in abducting Islam in the same way they abducted innocent children,'' he added. "This is the true jihad these days, and this is our obligation, as believing Muslims, toward our monotheistic religion."

Let's hope that some good comes from the loss of the life of these children. I simply could not bear to watch the films they showed of them on TV. They should play them 24/7 on the Arab channels. If the loss of their innocent life helps to wake thse people up to the cancer that is rotting their souls out, they will not have died in vain

We have 50,000 US troops in Qatar, and a muslim Holy Man calls for our mass murder. If this war was fought the way it was supposed to be fought, this man would be dead. Perhaps we need to let the Russians show us how fighting a war like this is done. We are being ruthless towards innocent Iraqis, while men like him and Osama get to walk the earth. We truly need to ask ourselves some questions here.

Reminds me of a story, probably apocryphal, about the KGB in Beirut during the civil war.

Recall that diplomats and newsmen were getting kidnapped and murdered. Well, some Soviet diplomat was kidnapped for ransom. The KGB informed his family that he was dead. Then they kidnapped the son of some important sheik in Beirut and sent daddy the boy's private parts. No more kidnappings of Soviets in Lebanon. KGB let it be known they didn't give a damn whether that particular sheik was the perp, but they'd do the same to whomever they suspected if anybody else ever got kidnapped. No more Soviets were kidnapped.

That's the method that they'll likely follow worldwide. Its effective. But I think its repellant. Folks who think Abu Graib was a grave injustice might want to reconsider close allignment with Russia.

Bot

I don't see what Abu Garib has to do with it. I would have no problem for a KGB style war of assasination and counter-terror on our actual enemies, and I doubt if the American people would either. It is one of the things we should have done. Perhaps we have not because of politics, and now we can have the Russians do things that are politically nasty for us, like torture and assasination, while we provide standard military ops while suppling the Russians with satellite and electronic inteligence, perhaps even give them the plans for our latest drone. We could be a real team. A world led by a friendly US and Russia was actually Clinton's plan for world domination.

It would also lend credence to Edgar Cayce.

If its okay to torture them outside the gate, why not inside? Do we want to train americans to believe its a good idea to brutalize our enemies? I think its exactly why Abu Graib captured our imaginations as a people--we do not want our soldiers acting like thugs--we want them to represent the best of what we offer, not the worst. I don't think anybody has been interested if any of those nude guys was an actual terorist--as a country we were repelled by the thing itself.

Now imagine the shame and revulsion we'd feel if the Abu Graib foolishness had been actual physical torture, had been photographed and taped. The arab world was rightfully highly pi$$ed by the relatively benign mistreatment, imagine what they'd think and say and do if we did the KGB stuff?

Nah, lets have soldiers. Let them wear the uni and let them kick a$$ anywhere, anytime. Leave torture alone. Or at least so repellant to society that if it is practiced it is only under the most extraordinary circumstances imaginable--like when seeking a rogue nuke or something.

It's very simple. Use the current Israeli model. Attack us and your leaders get blown up, as do your training camps and anyone that supports you. Real sorry about the collateral damage but eventually the disenfranchised people will realize that it's just plain unhealthy to hang out with the "wrong crowd". Russia and the USA actually cooperating? I'd **** in my pants if I were a terrorist.
Pray that Kerry gets elected so we can reverse the inept policies of the current administration.

Putin had three days to take control of the Beslan hostage situation and that resulted 335 deaths. Now three days after the end of that siege they claim to be ready to carry out preventive strikes worldwide? That's hilarious!
Let's face it: as Beslan and the Moscow Theatre have demonstrated, Russian authorities and security forces are simply not capable or sophisticated enough to carry out succesfull preventive strikes, or any military operation for that matter. Anything they will try to that end will result in major disaster. Just think of it: as Al Quaida's support comes mainly from Saudi Arabia, what will happen if Russia decides to do such a strike over there..? Does the Pentagon have a scenario for such an event? And another thing, since GWB & Co, hijacked 9/11 to pursue their hidden agenda, why wouldn't Putin do the same? He's sure has more reason for it.

The purpose of this statement is merely to divert attention from their incompetence to handle the terror problem, and their atrocious conduct in Chechnya.

__________________
2011 Prius

I disagree with the GWB agenda portion but IMO the rest is very accurate.

I know the US wanted to talk with the perps but that was while Alpha Force was trying to get intel on what what going on inside the building and other US special OP's teams were on the way. I'm sure that Russia has some sort of US trained and US funded small anti-terrorist commando unit...in fact I'm positive of that .

The Russian military complex operations would, and think will be distastorous, and what I really fear is some fool bombing Mecca and I drawing even more Muslims into the war.

Yes. The agreement with the Ruskies is that we handle the Saudis if they take out the leadership in N. Korea. Clinton's vision was brilliant....let the rest of the EU scrap with each other for the leftovers while the U.S. and Russia forge ahead with world leadership.

......taking foil hat off now.

If the Russians strike anywhere it will be in Pakistan, the same place we ought to be. We have been totally unwilling to take out the command and control structure of al-Queda. The Russians seem to have been given a powerful rationale to do so.

It is the only way either of us will survive the coming Chinese-dominated world. Russia has the oil and raw materials, we have the money and industrial know-how. We have the military technology, they have the ability to raise vast armies if they are needed. We complement each other in every way.

I would also bet the Russians have human assets inside North Korea that we don't have, that could put a nice big hole in Kim's Elvis haircut.