Showing posts with label Yemen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Yemen. Show all posts

Thursday, May 26, 2011

Yemen, Saleh, and Change

Yemen, in my opinion, is a mess.

I'm not writing about the culture, or the people. I mean:
  • The alleged national government
    • That quite a few Yemeni are fed up with
  • The folks who can't stand living in the 21st century
    • And kill anybody who won't agree with them
  • An economic SNAFU
    • That I think won't be untangled until the first two problems are dealt with
Yemen is the territory that has kept the U.S.S. Cole bombing mastermind more-or-less imprisoned. Except when he escaped and was recaptured. Or was released and recaptured. Or never escaped at all. I don't know which official story President Saleh and company finally decided on.

An Al Qaeda branch operates in Yemen, apparently, either because what's supposed to be a national government doesn't mind, or because the Yemeni president and his outfit can't control what happens in Yemen: or maybe a little of both.

As usual, when human beings are involved, I'm pretty sure it's more complicated than that.

But, bottom line? I think Yemen is a mess.

I also think it's been getting worse:
"Analysis: Yemen civil war likely without swift Saleh exit"
Cynthia Johnston, Edition: U.S., Reuters (May 26, 2011)

"Yemen may have little chance of averting a tribal civil war as heavy fighting spreads in the capital unless President Ali Abdullah Saleh quickly resigns.

"But Saleh, a stubborn political survivor, has likely already decided to fight to keep power in the strategic state where Gulf and Western allies are concerned that anarchy could give the strong Yemen-based branch of al Qaeda more room to operate...."
"Yemen worries G8, France and U.S. condemn Saleh"
Edition: U.S., Reuters (May 26, 2011)

"The United States and France stepped up their calls Thursday for Yemen President Ali Abdullah Saleh to step down, after overnight gunbattles killed dozens of people.

"U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, speaking in Paris, urged all sides to immediately cease violence, and a French foreign ministry spokesman told reporters at a G8 summit that France blamed the latest bloodshed on Saleh's refusal to sign a transition deal...."
"U.S. Orders Nonessential Diplomats to Leave Yemen"
Associated Press, via FoxNews.com (May 25, 2011)

"The State Department on Wednesday ordered nonessential U.S. diplomats to depart Yemen and urged all Americans there to leave as security conditions deteriorated, with the country's embattled leader refusing to step down...."
I don't think that 'anything would be better than Yemen keeping President Saleh.' At least the current Yemeni president doesn't seem to be openly backing Al Qaeda and like-minded groups.

Interestingly, Saudi Arabia seem to want Saleh out: on practical grounds, it seems. The alleged leader of Yemen has botched the job of running his territory: and if folks in Yemen decide to remove him the hard way, outfits like Al Qaeda are likely to have even more leeway in how they run their operations there. That could be really bad for shipping in the region - which Saudi Arabia depends on.

In the short term, I think folks living in Yemen are going to have very unpleasant experiences.

President Saleh, understandably, wants to keep his job. Depending on just how angry his subjects are, he may even be concerned about keeping his life.

Taking a line through old-school leadership in Bahrain and Libya, Saleh may decide to kill people until the survivors like him: or at least say they do. That doesn't make sense to me, but autocrats seem to think slaughtering subjects to maintain loyalty will bring back their 'good old days.' Or maybe it's how they react when they're in a snit.

Whether or not Saleh manages to hold onto his executive perks, Al Qaeda isn't likely to stop killing Yemenis who aren't 'sufficiently Islamic,' or who simply get in the way.

And tribal leaders, whose nice, stable, culture got ripped out of the days of Ur and Babylon and dropped into a world of Coca Cola and Mickey Mouse? No matter how the mess in Sanaa is sorted out, they'll still have several thousand years of change to digest - fast.

In the long run, I'm cautiously optimistic that many or most folks in Yemen, in common with places like Somalia, Libya, and Syria, will catch up with the rest of the world: economically and otherwise. (May 10, 2011

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Friday, March 18, 2011

Bahrain, Foreign Troops, and - Maybe - the Last Stand of Kings

I'm getting to Libya in the next post.

The powers that be in Yemen and Bahrain are having a shot - literally - at trying the Libyan colonel's approach to leadership. They're having their enforcers kill people who say they don't like the way things are run.

Historically, America's leadership hasn't been quite that rough on folks who aren't on the same page whoever is running things in Washington. Even here, though, it seems hard to understand that "disagreement" isn't "treason;" and that someone can have a different opinion without being 'the enemy." I've posted about that before:
Still, I'd rather live in America:

Shia, Sunni, and Shooting the Opposition

Excerpts from today's news:
"Security forces and government supporters opened fire on demonstrators in the capital on Friday, killing at least 30 people. But the crackdown failed to disperse the protest, the largest seen so far in the center of the city, and President Ali Abdullah Saleh declared a state of emergency...."
(The New York Times)
"Hundreds of angry Iraqis demonstrated in the holy Shiite city of Karbala on Thursday, protesting the use of foreign troops in the crackdown against anti-government protests in Bahrain...."
(CNN)
"A senior Iranian cleric on Friday urged Bahrain's majority Shiites to keep up their protests—until death or victory—against the Sunni monarchy in the tiny island kingdom...."
(MercuryNews.com)
"Bahrain's Shiites are burying their dead amid a continued government crackdown in this Sunni-ruled island nation in the Persian Gulf...."
(ajc.com)
Some folks in televised news's op-ed segments have been saying that what's happening in Bahrain is a sort of proxy war between Shia Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia. I think they've got a point. Sunni and Shia, two flavors of Islam, aren't equally represented in Saudi Arabia, and Iran, or even in Bahrain, Iraq, and Yemen:

CountryShiaSunni
Bahrain170%30%
Iran289%9%
Iraq260%-65%32%-37%
Saudi Arabia15%95%
Yemen136%63%
1 PBS (see Background)
2 CIA (see Background)

Religion: Important, Yes; Everything, No

I think that religion is an often-misunderstood factor in society. I think that the politically correct notion that religion kills people is silly: but acknowledge that some have done bad things for what we call "religious" reasons. (October 31, 2007)(and A Catholic Citizen in America (April 12, 2010, July 24, 2009))

I am also fairly certain that the folks in Bahrain, at least, have fairly solid economic reasons for wanting change. Again, without accepting the notion that economics and class struggle, along with psychology and/or instinct, explains everything.

For all I know, the way the Persian and Arabic languages handle verb declensions may be a factor in today's conflicts. I think philology may prove to connect with neurology, psychology, and maybe genetics - and that's several other topics, as well as speculative.

Saudi Troops Killing Shia Civilians in Bahrain: So What?

Another excerpt from today's news:
"...This week, military forces from the Gulf Cooperation Council -- including Saudi Arabia -- arrived in Bahrain to help the kingdom control a wave of anti-government protests, prompting the Obama administration and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to urge council members to act with restraint and to allow the citizens of Bahrain to demonstrate peacefully.

"Although Bahrain's protesters are making primarily economic and political demands, there is a sectarian dimension: Bahrain's population is 70% Shiite; the royal family is Sunni, as is the royal family of Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia recently has seen small demonstrations among its minority Shiites...."
(CNN)
I think that the Saudi royal family, and other traditionalists in the Arab world, are in an unenviable position. They seem to be dedicated to a way of life that's threatened. In a way, their troubles started in Europe and North America during the 18th century.

The 'good old days' of aristocratic privilege are gone. These days, even beating your wife, or your wife beating servants, is frowned upon in quite a few countries. (January 12, 2011, November 2, 2007) That, along with beer commercials and individual rights, must be hard to accept. For folks who grew up enjoying privileges, at least.

In the short run, the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques and like-minded folks may succeed in holding on to their old ways.

I think it depends in part on whether or not their enforcers run out of bullets, so to speak, before folks who want change run out of bodies and determination.

In the long run, I think their way of life is over. Monarchies may continue, along the lines of British royalty - and I'm not going to get started on the shenanigans there. I've written about the cultural angle of the war on terror before. (April 5, 2010, March 19, 2010, October 14, 2008, and elsewhere)

I also think that killing your subjects is a miserably ineffective way of instilling loyalty: whether practiced by an old-world monarch, or a self-styled revolutionary.

Which brings me to Libya: and that's another topic.

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Thursday, March 10, 2011

Beer, Basketball, the War on Terror, Today's News, and Me

One of the reasons I started this blog, back in July of 2007, was to provide a sort of scrapbook of news items relating to the war on terror. Which, officially, doesn't exist any more. Not as an officially-recognized term, anyway. (March 30, 2009)

Whatever it's called, what I regard as the first major global conflict of the 21st century is still going on. And, in my opinion, will continue for years. Probably decades. Generations, maybe.

It's not that I'm pessimistic: quite the contrary. I believe that, in the end, we will still be able to enjoy beer and basketball - or decide not to; that women will have the option to drive cars; and that wearing trousers will not be a capital offense.

The reason I think this conflict will not be resolved quickly is that it is not only spread across the world: but is complex. What I think may take the most time is enough people deciding that they can live with a world that's changed since the days of Ur and the Chaldeans.

Economics, Religion, and a Burr Under the Saddle

At the risk of being pegged as one of the folks who see everything as a class conflict between bourgeois capitalists and the oppressed proletariat, I think economics is involved in the war on terror.

That's because I think that theocracies like the Ayatollahs' Iran aren't good for business, among other things. I've discussed economics, and thinking straight, before.
Where was I? War on terror. Economics. Religious crazies in charge isn't good for business. Right. Moving on.

I also think that the war on terror exists in large part because we live in a world of individual rights, Barbies, soap operas, bikinis, and Mickey Mouse. That offends folks like the Ayatollahs and Al Qaeda's leaders. They seem to have a burr under their saddle about people not being sufficiently 'Islamic.' Their own particular flavor of "Islam," of course. It's hard to imagine Shia and Sunni chauvinists, for example, getting along.1

I'm not entirely happy with all aspects of contemporary Western culture: but my beliefs include a high respect for tolerance and freedom. And that's another topic, for another blog.
I've discussed 'tolerance,' real and imagined, before: and my take on culture shock as a factor in the war on terror.

News and Views North Africa and the Middle East

I don't think that information technology 'made' folks in places like Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya, get fed up with their autocrats. I do think that Information Age technology and the social structures that are evolving around it lubricated the revolts: in part by letting individuals learn that they weren't the only ones who were ready for change.

I also think that folks like the Libyan colonel and the Saudi royal family aren't the only ones who are having a hard time adjusting to the Information Age. And that is yet another topic. (February 23, 2011, August 14, 2009)

Now, excerpts from news and views about -

Bahrain

"Sectarian clashes erupted at a school in Bahrain on Thursday, fueling fears a planned march on the royal court on Friday could inflame the Gulf island where a majority of citizens is Shi'ite but the ruling family is Sunni...."
(Reuters)

Egypt

"The Army joined with armed thugs yesterday to force protesters out of Cairo's Tahrir Square – one of many incidents lately that make Egyptians blame regime elements for trying to limit the scope of the revolution...."
(Christian Science Monitor)

Libya

"France became the first Western country to recognize Libya's opposition as the country's legitimate representative. The move comes as the European Union agreed to toughen sanctions against the North African country and its leader, Moammar Gadhafi...."
(Voice of America News)
"Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, testifying Thursday before the House Appropriations Committee, said, 'We are suspending our relationships with the existing Libyan embassy, so we expect them to end operating as the embassy of Libya.'..."
(CNN)

Saudi Arabia

"Saudi police opened fire Thursday to disperse a protest in the mainly Shiite, oil-producing east, leaving at least one man injured, as the government struggled to prevent a wave of unrest sweeping the Arab world from reaching the kingdom...."
(msnbc.com)

Yemen

"President Ali Abdullah Saleh on Thursday proposed a new constitution that allows transition of some powers from the executive authority to the parliament, but opposition parties rejected the proposal and said Saleh's initiatives were too late...." (News Yemen)
"National Democratic Front Party (NDFP(announced on Thursday full support to the recent national initiative made by President Ali Abdullah Saleh at the General National Conference to come out of the current crisis witnessed by the national arena...."
(Yemen News Agency (SABA))
Somewhat-related posts:
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1 "The Search for Al Qaeda: Its Leadership, Ideology, and Future," Bruce Riedel, Brookings Institution, via Intelligence in Recent Public Literature, CIA (2008)
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Wednesday, November 10, 2010

'Printer' Bombs, Yemen Mail Service, and 'Good Old Days' That Weren't

It's the 21st century, and things aren't any simpler now, than they were in the 'good old days.' I'll get back to that.

From today's news:
"Yemen Mail Bomb Could Have Exploded Over Eastern U.S., British Authorities Say"
Associated Press, via FOXNews (November 10, 2010)

"A mail bomb intercepted last month at an English airport could have exploded over the East Coast of the United States, British police said Wednesday.

"Forensic evidence showed the device, originally sent from Yemen by way of Cologne, Germany, was timed to be detonated about six to seven hours after the cargo aircraft carrying it left the U.K. for the U.S. The package was removed by police in Britain during transit...."

"The UPS cargo plane intercepted in England left the country without the package at 11:20 p.m. ET on Oct. 28, two hours after landing, police said. The device was timed to be activated at 5:30 a.m. ET, said British police.

"Authorities on both sides of the Atlantic said they only narrowly thwarted the plot, in which terrorists in Yemen hid two powerful bombs inside printers and shipped them to addresses in Chicago aboard two cargo planes. The printer cartridges were filled with PETN, an industrial explosive that, when X-rayed, would resemble the cartridges' ink powder...."

"White House spokesman Nicholas Shapiro said: 'We greatly appreciate the highly professional nature of the U.K. investigation and the spirit of partnership with which U.K. authorities have pursued this matter.'

"He praised the efforts of intelligence and law enforcement professionals in the U.K., the UAE, Saudi Arabia and the United States, and said they will continue to work together "to address and counter the threat posed by Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.' "
"Bomb Could Have Struck East Coast, British Say"
John F. Burns, Europe, The New York Times (November 10, 2010)

"A package bomb from Yemen removed from a cargo plane in Britain on Oct. 29 could have exploded over the American East Coast, Scotland Yard said in a statement on Wednesday that offered the clearest sense so far of the danger averted.

"The bomb was one of two dispatched from Yemen to fictitious recipients in Chicago, with powerful plastic explosives packed into toner cartridges inside computer printers . The second was intercepted in Dubai...."
"Plane was over Canada when police say mail bomb was timed to detonate"
The Canadian Press / The Associated Press (CP) (November 10, 2010)

"A mail bomb that was intercepted in England last month would have been in Canadian airspace when authorities say it was timed to detonate.

Data from Houston-based Flightaware show that UPS Flight 232 from the East Midlands to Philadelphia was about 257 kilometres northwest of Quebec City at 5:30 a.m...."

"...Flight 232 makes daily flights but not always along the same route.

"Had the plane taken its alternate route, straight across the Atlantic, it likely would have been over the U.S. when it blew up...."
No matter where the thing went off, it would have killed people.

That would, in my opinion, have been a bad thing. Not good. Very bad.

Ah, For the Good Old Days?

I've been described as "an elderly gentleman." For good reason. I'm old enough to remember the 'good old days' of the fifties, when everything was rosy. In the Happy Days series, anyway.

I don't pine for 'the good old days,' because I remember the fifties.

Despite what folks with various biases might think, the fifties were not an idyllic time when children were perfect and wives knew their place and there was a car with tail fins in every carport. Economically, it was a pretty good decade for white men who had served in WWII: and that's another topic.

The fifties wasn't a time when the yellow peril and commie menace were beaten back by stalwart red-white-and-blue-blooded Americans who exposed pinkos in the State Department and cleansed Hollywood. In my opinion, we're still digging our way out of the mess left by the 'black lists.' Which is yet another topic.

The fifties also weren't a time when militaristic capitalistic warmonger oppressor classes tore food from the bleeding lips of oppressed classes, only to be exposed by the inexorable march of people's liberation. Which is the flip side of McCarthyism, sort of. And yet again another topic.

There were a whole lot of folks back in the 'good old days' of the fifties who didn't have quite the same experience as The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit. And that helped set up the sixties. I was around at the time - and despite the Timothy Leary/Jimi Hendrix insanity (we lost a lot of brilliant, talented people like Hendrix then), some of the changes were long overdue. In my opinion. And still another topic.

You Like Simple? Watch a Bond Movie, or Happy Days

We live in the real world: where everybody with an eastern European accent isn't an evil spy, cutthroat, or cold seductress (yes, the stereotype existed); where everybody living in the Middle East isn't a terrorist (some are - stereotypes exist for a reason); and all threats to America and other places where people are allowed - at times grudgingly - to speak their minds and make money don't come from the Middle East. Or, in my view, from foreigners.

One lesson from the latest near-miss is that terrorists really do exist.

Another is that there are leaders in the Middle East who seem to have, for whatever reason, decided that it's not a good idea to let terrorists operate with impunity.

I think Iran's Ayatollahs have helped make cooperation with the West seem less unpalatable. And that's emphatically another topic.

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Saturday, November 6, 2010

Al Qaeda, al-Awlaki, Yemen, and a Wake-Up Call

From today's news:
"Yemen Orders Arrest of U.S.-Born Radical Cleric Awlaki"
FOXNews (November 6, 2010)

"A Yemeni judge ordered police Saturday to find a radical U.S.-born cleric 'dead or alive' after the Al Qaeda-linked preacher failed to appear at his trial for his role in the killing of foreigners.

"Yemen is under heavy U.S. pressure to crack down on the country's Al Qaeda offshoot after a scheme to send bombs through the mail in packages addressed to the U.S. was thwarted a week ago. The group known as Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula claimed responsibility for the plot on Friday.

"The cleric, Anwar al-Awlaki, was born in New Mexico to Yemeni parents and is one of the most prominent English-language radical clerics. His sermons advocating jihad, or holy war, against the United States have influenced militants involved in several attacks or attempted attacks on U.S. soil.

"Yemeni officials say he may have blessed the mail bomb plot, while not necessarily taking an active part in it...."

"...With his sudden trial and the arrest order, Yemen appears to be trying to show its American allies that it considers the cleric a serious threat..

"Judge Mohsen Allwan ordered al-Awlaki to be 'arrested by force, dead or alive' after he failed to appear for the start of his trial in Yemen on Tuesday. He was charged last week as a co-defendant in a surprise announcement as part of the trial of another man, Hisham Assem, who has been accused of killing a Frenchman in an Oct. 6 attack at an oil firm compound...."

What the Anwar al-Awlaki Warrant Doesn't Prove

If the name Anwar al-Awlaki sounds familiar, you've been paying attention to coverage of the Fort Hood shootings by Major Nidal Malik Hasan. Major Hasan sent emails to Imam al-Awlaki, and there may be other connections. (November 11, 2009)

And no, I do not think that Major Hasan, Imam al-Awlaki, Big Oil, the entire Bush family and the shape-shifting space-alien lizard people are conspiring to make me pay more for gasoline now, than I did in 1969. Which is another topic.

I also do not think that 'the only good Indian Muslim is a dead Muslim.' I discussed that deplorable philosophy in December, 2007.

Yemen, an Arrest Warrant, and a Wake-up Call

Whether or not Yemen's government is sincere in wanting to arrest someone who's apparently involved with Al-Qaeda, I think this warrant is a good sign.

Note: I wrote "good sign." Not "final solution to everything." I'm not even convinced that the nominal central government in Yemen has practical control over a significant fraction of the country. Yemen is in better shape than Somalia - but it's not exactly in good shape either. Part of the country's recovering from being a worker's paradise, the other from being a theocratic Imamate. ("Yemen," CIA World Factbook (last updated November 3, 2010))

I think - hope might be a safer term - that the warrant is another indication that some leaders in the Middle East's Islamic world have noticed that the world has changed since the time of Abraham.

I think that at least some of the terrorists who say they're defending Islam were shocked when their local culture was abruptly exposed to the last several thousand years of change. I'm not making excuses: but I can imagine that growing up with burqas and honor killings, and suddenly having hundreds of cable channels with bikinis, Budweiser, and dog food commercials wash over over you might upset some folks. I've discussed that before. (October 21, 2010)

The failure of Western civilization to crumble after September 11, 2010, may have been a sort of wake-up call to Middle Eastern leaders. The world has changed. It's time to make adjustments.

The adjustments can be made gracefully, or under protest. But they will, I think, have to be made sooner or later. The rest of the world - at least those of us who deal with folks who don't live in our own little enclave - can't tolerate bombs on aircraft much longer.

No matter how sincere the beliefs are, of those who planned the attacks.

And that's another topic.

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Tuesday, July 13, 2010

'Draw Mohammed Day,' the Sequel

Anwar al-Awlaki, a Yemeni cleric, put Seattle's Molly "Everybody draw Mohammed Day" Norris on an execution list. Here's what set him off:
"...Norris published a 'blasphemous cartoon' on her website in April in protest to Comedy Central's decision to censor an episode of a popular show, 'South Park' that depicted Islam's Prophet objectionably...."
(The Times of India)
I haven't seen the "South Park" episode in question, but I don't doubt that it was offensive. Or, at any rate, that it offended quite a number of Muslims.

It's not just the citizen from Seattle who's threatened. Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) officials spoke with a Canadian woman who, inspired by the Seattle cartoonist, set up her own 'draw Mohammed' Facebook page. The RCMP suggested that she remove that page - and not speak with reporters. Looks like she took half their advice - but talked to at least one reporter. Or maybe a journalist spoke with someone from the RCMP. (FOXNews)

Killing Offensive People Isn't Nice

I realize it's applying my values to other people, but I don't think it's nice to kill people, just because they're boors.

I don't think it's right to call for the execution of a cartoonist, based on something the cartoonist drew.

I also think it's not right to tell folks to kill someone who set up a Facebook page for the cartoonist.

Killing someone because the other person offended you isn't considered proper behavior in the West. Quite a few countries even have laws against that sort of thing, and it was regulated before that. It's one of the cases in which the beliefs I've chosen are on the same page as Western values. Which is another topic.

Islamic Terrorists aren't Nice

I also think that outfits like Al Qaeda and the Taliban are:
  • Under the impression that they're defending Islam
  • Not even close to being on the same page with Western laws and customs
The incidents of September 11, 2001, should have made nearly everybody in the Western world aware of this.

We Live in a Global Community: Deal With It

And I certainly think that it's - silly, at best - for a grown person to intentionally offend people who have a track record for killing folks who offend them.

Granted, whoever censored that "South Park" episode wasn't following contemporary American/Western mores. Offensive portrayal of sacred things, like that "South Park" episode and putting a crucifix in urine is perfectly acceptable behavior. Even, in some circles, commendable.

As long as a person is living in a closed society where everybody agrees that religion is icky - that sort of behavior doesn't do any obvious, immediate, physical harm.

The problem is that the 'proper' sort of people don't live in a nice little gated community, cut off from the world. Like just about everybody else, they live in a village with a population of over 6,830,000,000.

And we're not all exactly alike.

Outfits like Al Qaeda and the Taliban have their own way of coping with a diverse world. I think their approach is wrong.

Folks who deliberately offend their neighbors have another way of coping with a world that isn't just the way they'd like it. I think their approach is wrong, too.

I've discussed this before:
'Draw Mohammed Day' - This Does Not Help
Whatever the motives of the 'Draw Mohammed Day' organizers, I have more trouble sympathizing with their cause. It's hard to believe that many in the English-speaking world who have heard of Mohammed are unaware of the prohibitions against drawing a likeness of The Prophet.

I don't have a problem with visual depictions of living creatures - but I know that others do. I would no more invite people in a public setting to draw The Prophet, than I would to offer an orthodox Jew a ham sandwich, or insist that a strict vegetarian eat a porterhouse steak.

Not that those three examples are quite equivalent. The point is, I've lived among people who weren't exactly like me. It really isn't smart to intentionally insult and abuse another's beliefs or customs.

I understand that it may 'feel good' to fling insults at 'those people.' It may even earn you some status in your own little subculture.

But we live in a big world. I can understand Sudan's leaders having fits over a teddy bear, and a Saudi cleric who wants women to use one eye at a time. Understand, not condone.

That 'Draw Mohammed Day' has a Western feel to it - which makes the 'Draw Mohammed Day' organizers more culpable. They presumably either grew up in a culture that - in theory, at least - practiced tolerance: or learned about the concept in their studies. You'd think they'd know better.
(" 'Draw Mohhammed Day?!' Get a Grip!" (May 19, 2010))
Related posts:In the news:Related posts, on tolerance, bigotry, racism, and hatred.
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Tuesday, January 5, 2010

If We Don't Discuss It, It Doesn't Exist?

There was a time when you'd find people - good, upstanding pillars of the community, members of the country club who went to the right church and everything - acted as though problems could be ignored into oblivion.

If you remember the fifties and sixties, you know about this sort of thing: the prominent businessman whose secretary had to take a long vacation; the society matron whose doctor prescribed extra-strength happy pills; and so on, all the way to that famous meeting of the Harper Valley PTA.

And, of course, there were the hidebound conservatives who really believed that any criticism of "the government" was tantamount to treason.

That was then, this is now. "The establishment" has a different preferred reality, apparently - and I find that I'm still at odds with it.

"Wouldn't it be Loverly?"

I've made the point before, that I don't think war is nice. I also think that it would be nice if everybody would just get along.

Somehow, though, I doubt that people like Osama bin Ladin are likely to decide that they'd feel a whole lot better if they stopped hating the west and killing Muslims who didn't live up - or down - to their standards.

It would be nice, if you could take a dedicated terrorist, be nice to him, show him how to draw nice pictures, and wind up with a nice person who's ready to embrace the whole wide world in one big fuzzy hug. As Eliza Doolittle sang, Wouldn't it be Loverly?"

Or, as the Beach Boys put it: "Wouldn't it be Nice?"

Not, however, very likely. In my opinion.

Art Lessons for Terrorists: You Can't Make This Sort of Thing Up

I've seen enough applied psychology work, over the decades, to be cautious about dismissing most ideas. "Art therapy rehabilitation," though, is quite close to the edge of the envelope when it comes my willingness to be open-minded.
"...Mohammed Atiq al-Harbi, also known as Mohammed al-Awfi, and Said Ali al-Shihri were sent home to Saudi Arabia, where they were admitted to an 'art therapy rehabilitation programme' and later set free, US and Saudi officials said...."
(BBC)
Those art lessons didn't go entirely to waste. A deputy leader (Said Ali al-Shihri) and a field commander (Mohammed al-Awfi) for Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP, now should be able to draw nice pictures - if called upon to do so. (France24)

Terrorists Don't Believe They're Terrorists

I'm going out on a limb here, but it seems that terrorists - the Islamic-crazy sort, at any rate - believe that what they're doing is right.

Just as Joseph Burges apparently thought that God wanted him to kill people who did naughty things. (A Catholic Citizen in America (July 24, 2009))

Except Al Qaeda and the Taliban have a whole lot of people like Joseph Burges - and they're organized.

I think it's the height of folly to act as if Osama bin Laden, Mohammed Atiq al-Harbi, Said Ali al-Shihri, and others like them, are like misunderstood street kids who just need a break to go straight.

War isn't Nice, But This is War

The War on Terror may no longer exist - officially (March 30, 2009) - but there's a (loosely) organized set of organizations who earnestly, sincerely, passionately believe that God is telling them to kill people.

The people they want to kill don't, quite often, want be killed. What we have, therefore, is a conflict.

The War on Terror isn't a nice, old-fashioned, gentlemanly war where a formal declaration of war is sent - and a battle arranged after tea on some mutually-acceptable afternoon. I rather doubt that wars were ever quite like that - and the War on Terror certainly isn't of that sort.

But it is a war. Over 3,000 people abruptly stopped breathing on September 11, 2001.

Some died when an exploding airliner sprayed bits and pieces of their bodies over New York City. Some didn't get out of New York City's World Trade Center in time. Some, the ones caught on floors above the impact points, couldn't.

Others were crushed, burned, or asphyxiated when an airliner crashed into the Pentagon.

Still others were retaking their airliner when it crashed into a field in Pennsylvania.
I won't 'Get Over It'
It might sound grand to say something like 'put the past behind me' or 'let bygones be bygones' or 'live and let live.' The problem is, the people who keep Al Qaeda and the Taliban going - as well as the other Islamic terrorists - (not all Muslims) aren't willing to 'live and let live.'

And, nice as it sounds, it doesn't take two to make trouble. Not when one of them is intent on killing the other.

This is One Problem That Won't Just Go Away

Back to the 'Harper Valley PTA' strategy, of ignoring a problem - unless it involves someone else.

Pretending that the War on Terror doesn't exist makes about as much sense, I think, a giving terrorists art lessons and feeling that they'll be nice people as a result.

The people running Al Qaeda and like-minded outfits are, quite simply, not nice. Wanting them to be nice, hoping that they'll be nice, treating them nicely, and pretending that everything's nice: isn't nice. It's stupid. And, potentially, lethal.

There's More - There's Always More

If you haven't gotten enough of this post: There's more. I put excerpts from the news and op-ed pieces that got me started, as well as some of my running commentary, after the links in this post.1

Related posts: News and views:
1Excerpts from today's news and views:

Prisoners released from Guantanamo return to fight for al Qaeda

"You won't see this story in many of the U. S. Elite Media...in fact we could not find a mention of it in any of the major papers or broadcast networks. While it is true they all reported several different articles on President Obama's announcement that he was closing Guantanamo they somehow have missed the story. You have to look in the British press to find it.

"The story is that many of the Guantanamo prisoners that are being moved out of the Cuban prison have ended up back on the battlefield fighting with al Qaeda. In fact, 74, at least, have returned to the battlefield. Six prisoners were returned to Yemen last month.

"Meanwhile, there are also reports that a significant number of al Qaeda fighters have moved from Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan to Yemen...."
(News and Commentary, Beaufort Observer)
Lots of assertions, not many specific facts. This is what I started with, this afternoon. I thought that the claims made were quite likely true: but I've learned to research, rather than assume.

So, I started digging: starting with "look in the British press to find it." There's quite a bit of "the British press," but at that clue narrowed the search a trifle.

U.S. suspends Guantanamo prisoner transfer to Yemen

"The Obama administration on Tuesday suspended the transfer of detainees from the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay to Yemen as a result of the deteriorating security situation there.

"President Barack Obama bowed to political pressure from Democratic and Republican lawmakers not to send any more prisoners to Yemen as a result of revelations that a would-be bomber on a Detroit-bound plane had received al Qaeda training in Yemen.

"Several of the roughly 91 Yemeni detainees at Guantanamo Bay had been cleared to be sent home, as the Obama administration struggles to close the prison.

"White House officials made clear that the suspension was considered a temporary one.

" 'While we remain committed to closing the (Guantanamo) facility, a determination has been made, right now any additional transfers to Yemen is not a good idea,' said White House spokesman Robert Gibbs...."
(Reuters)
Well, that's interesting. I'm not sure quite what to make of Reuter's turn of phrase - "...President Barack Obama bowed to political pressure...." - but let it pass. Besides, I doubt that someone with the Beaufort Observer would think Reuters was "the British press."

US suspends Guantanamo to Yemen transfers

"The US has said it is temporarily suspending the transfer of prisoners to Yemen from the Guantanamo Bay detention centre in Cuba.

"The move comes after it emerged the Nigerian man accused of trying to bomb a US plane on 25 December was allegedly trained by al-Qaeda in Yemen.

"More than 80 Yemeni men were due to be moved from Guantanamo Bay, as the US tries to shut down the camp.

"Officials fear many could re-join militant groups if sent back to Yemen.

"While we remain committed to closing the facility, the determination has been made that right now, any additional transfers to Yemen are not a good idea," said White House spokesman Robert Gibbs.

"US President Barack Obama has come under pressure to halt Guantanamo transfers to Yemen since investigators said 23-year-old Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab had been trained in that country to blow up a transatlantic flight to Detroit on Christmas Day.

"It was alleged last week that the bomb plot was planned by two men who were released by the US from Guantanamo Bay in November 2007.

"Mohammed Atiq al-Harbi, also known as Mohammed al-Awfi, and Said Ali al-Shihri were sent home to Saudi Arabia, where they were admitted to an 'art therapy rehabilitation programme' and later set free, US and Saudi officials said...."
(BBC)
Do I really need to say it? BBC - the British Broadcasting Corporation - is, well, British. This could be the source alluded to by the B.O.

Said Ali al-Shihri isn't exactly a household name here in America, but it looks like he's a very important person in Al Qaeda. Specifically, there's good reason to believe that he's the deputy leader of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP. Mohammed Atiq al-Harbi? He's only an Al Qaeda field commander. ("Key figures in al Qaeda's Yemeni branch," France24 (January 5, 2010))

Well, at least both of them should be able to draw nice pictures now.

'Bad guys' make it difficult to close Guantánamo

"The Christmas Day airline bomb plot, with its direct links to al-Qaeda in Yemen, is causing a big headache at home for President Obama and, in particular, for his already deeply troubled effort to close Guantánamo Bay.

"Of the 198 detainees still in the prison, nearly half — 91 — are from Yemen.

"In the past 24 hours there have been calls from Republicans and Democrats for the White House to freeze plans to repatriate many of them to Yemen...."

"...There is little confidence in Washington over Yemen's ability to secure its prisoners, or keep tabs on those that have been released. Memories are still fresh of a 2006 jailbreak by 23 top al-Qaeda members. 'All transfers of Yemeni detainees should stop,' Senator Joseph Lieberman, an independent, insisted.

"Two of the four top leaders of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula — Saudis called Said al-Shiri and Muhammad al-Awfi — are former Guantánamo detainees who crossed into Yemen after being sent back to Saudi Arabia. Of the more than 800 who have passed through the site in Cuba since it opened in January 2002, 108 have been Yemenis — and only 18 have been repatriated.' 'Yemen has produced an unusually high percentage of seriously bad guys,' said Benjamin Wittes, a Guantánamo expert at the Washington-based Brookings Institution. 'Given Yemen is likelier than the average country to be really scary, and the Government less likely than about all others to keep an eye on them and manage the risk, you end up with a very difficult combination of circumstances.' "
(Times Online (UK))
Or maybe this is "the British press" resource that the Beaufort Observer's writer used. Or, maybe not.

That failed Christmas weekend attempt to bring down Northwest Flight 253
(December 27, 2009) has been quite an embarrassment to the American president. From the looks of it, though, traditional American news media has recovered from the surprise - and administration officials are being quite a bit more prudent about off-the-cuff remarks. (December 28, 2009)

The Yemen connection? Not so obvious in American news coverage. My opinion.

Key figures in al Qaeda's Yemeni branch

"Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has claimed a botched Christmas Day attack on a US-bound flight in a statement released on the Internet. FRANCE 24 takes a look at some of the group's top leaders.

"Days after the failed attack on Detroit-bound Northwest Airlines Flight 253, the international spotlight has focused on Islamist networks in Yemen, where 23-year-old Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was reportedly trained by an al Qaeda bomb-maker. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has called the situation in Yemen 'a threat to global and regional security'.

"But the threat from Yemen – especially from al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), the group that has claimed the Christmas Day plot – is not a new phenomenon.

"US and Yemeni authorities have been familiar with some of the key figures in Yemeni jihadist circles for the past few years. An alarming number of top AQAP leaders have passed through US and Yemeni detention centres and they are well-known to authorities in both countries.

"The 'emir': Nasir al-Wuhayshi

"A Yemeni former aide to Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, al-Wuhayshi, was in Tora Bora, near the Pakistani border, during the US-led offensive after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. He escaped via Iran and was arrested by Iranian authorities who then extradited him to Yemen in 2003...."
(France24 (January 5, 2009))
This is a pretty good background resource: I hope France24 keeps the page online.
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Thursday, December 24, 2009

Yemen, Al Qaeda, Fort Hood, and All That

In my considered opinion, it would be nice if everybody were to be nice.

Reading a news report about quite a few people being killed isn't nice. It's not, I think, in this case, naughty: but it's sad, not nice.

War Isn't Nice

In the world I live in, Al Qaeda's arranging for thousands of people to get killed on September 11, 2001, wasn't nice either. That was naughty: even if they think God told them to, and their targets were what a college professor called "little Eichmanns". (April 3, 2009)

A psychiatrist murdering over a dozen people isn't very nice, either. Even if he felt tense at the time, and/or acted from deeply-felt religious beliefs. (November 5, 2009) I think that killing someone else for personal motives is naughty. Even if the personal motives involve deeply-felt religious beliefs: like "blacks, Jews, and Catholics are un-American." Or the now more-familiar "death to Israel! Death to the great Satan America!"

America Kills Civilians! That Line Never Seems to Get Old

On December 17, 2009, the "great Satan America" killed lots and lots of civilians all over the place near Mahsad, in southern Yemen. Or, attacked an Al Qaeda training camp. Or, attacked an Al Qaeda installation. Depends on who you listen to. I don't doubt that civilians were killed. Making sure that there will be civilian deaths in a military operation seems to be a well-worn page in the Islamic terrorists' playbook. (September 4, 2009)

Yemen doesn't show up in America's news as often as places like Iraq and Afghanistan, but it's been involved in the war on terror for some time. Remember the U.S.S. Cole?

It looks like over two dozen Al Qaeda members were killed - maybe, but not certainly, including Saad al-Fathani and Mohammad Ahmed Saleh al-Omir, local Al Qaeda leaders, and Imam Anwar al-Awlaki.

If "Awlaki" sounds familiar, it should.

The Fort Hood Connection

Imam Anwar al-Awlaki was born in Las Cruces, New Mexico, was the immam at the Dar al-Hijrah Mosque in Virginia. That's where, according to the FBI, Awlaki had a close relationship with two of the 9/11 hijackers. Anwar al-Awlaki left America in 2002 - apparently winding up in Yemen where he cheered on "insurgencies" in Iraq and Afghanistan, and was building a following through speeches, and online.

Until, quite likely, December 17.

Anwar al-Awlaki also, apparently, is connected with Major Nidal Malik Hasan. Major Hasan is the chap who [allegedly] murdered just over a dozen people at Fort Hood November 5, 2009. The last I heard, investigations into the Fort Hood shootings were still going on - but someone reported that the Major said something like "Allahu Akbar".

As I've written before, I don't think these years are Islam's shining hour in history.

Christianity's gone through something like this, on I think a smaller scale, back in the fifties and sixties. White supremacists, who said they were Christians defending Christian America from blacks, Jews, and people like me (I'm Catholic), were - in rather loud taste - burning crosses in those "good old days." That sort of thing leaves an impression - a very unpleasant one.

I don't think that the KKK and similar groups represent Christianity. I sincerely hope that Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and other Islamic terrorists are to Islam what the cross-burners were to Christianity: a small but impossible-to-ignore bunch of fanatics, following a perverse caricature of a major world religion.

Related posts: In the news:
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Friday, February 6, 2009

Said Ali al-Shihri: Gitmo Grad Makes Good, or Bad

Depending on where you read the name, it's Susan El-Baneh or Susan Elbaneh. Either way, she's dead, and has been since September of last year.

She'd lived in New York, but went to Yemen to be married. She and her husband were going through the paperwork necessary for the two of them to go back to America. She planned to finish high school, and become a nurse.

She was at the U.S. Embassy in Sana, Yemen, when terrorists bombed the place. As I said, she's dead. So is her husband, and 14 other people.

And, yes: "Susan Elbaneh was related to Yemeni-American Jaber A. Elbaneh, who is on the FBI's 'Most Wanted Terrorists' list for allegedly being the seventh member of the Lackawanna Six, a group of men convicted for providing material support to Al Qaeda...." Her brother, Ahmed Elbaneh, had a few words about the connection. " 'That has nothing to do with my sister,' he said. 'I haven't seen my cousin in 15 years.' " Until there's evidence of a link other than sharing ancestors, I'm inclined to believe him.

The punch line to Susan El-Baneh's death is that Said Ali al-Shihri seems to be involved. "Said Ali al-Shihri" may not be a very familiar name, but American Counterterrorism officials confirmed that Said Ali al-Shihri is the deputy leader of Al Qaeda in Yemen. And, he's a suspect in the September, 2008, attack.

He was released from Guantanamo in 2007. Now, he's back at work, helping Al Qaeda kill people.

In retrospect, releasing him may not have been a very good idea.

On the other hand, somebody who's written a book says that Said Ali al-Shihri hadn't been in Yemen early enough to have been involved in the bombing. He could be right.

Either way, America is in the process of closing Gitmo, and sending the prisoners elsewhere. Some of them will probably want to go home. Under the circumstances, that might not be a good idea.

Related posts: In the news:
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Friday, January 23, 2009

Gitmo Prisoner Released to Saudi Arabia, Graduated from Jihad Rehab, Rejoined Al Qaeda: Success Story?

You've read about it: a Saudi man, Said Ali al-Shihri, had been held at "Gitmo," the Guantanamo (Guantánamo, if you insist) Bay prison for terrorists. Then, he was released, to Saudi Arabia.

As The New York Times put it this morning, "He was released to Saudi Arabia in 2007 and passed through a Saudi rehabilitation program for former jihadists before resurfacing with Al Qaeda in Yemen." At least, he's back and with Al Qaeda - according to a website used by terrorists. They may be right.

Al-Shihri was in Gitmo, because he was probably involved in a lethal bombing of the American Embassy in Yemen's capital, Sana. After he was released and went home to Saudi Arabia, he went through the desert kingdom's jihad rehab program. And released, as a successful graduate.

Well, more-or-less successful. Looks to me like Yemen is on the Arabian Peninsula, and graduates from Saudi Arabia's jihad rehabilitation program are supposed to lay off acts of terrorism - on the Arabian Peninsula. The rest of us, it seems, are fair game.

Yemen is setting up its own jihad rehab program, according to Arab News. Yemen is getting ready for the 100 or so Yemenis expected to be sprung from Gitmo, now that America has a new administration.

As Arab News put it, "The move triggered outrage among rights activists who said the government’s plan to keep the returnees in a rehabilitation center in their home country only means re-jailing them."

Judging from the Saudi example, I'd say that the 'rights activists' don't have much to worry about. Not about the Gitmo prisoners being re-jailed.

The case of al-Shihri, the jihad rehab programs, and the prisoners at Gitmo brings up an interesting point: Isn't it customary to wait until after a war is over, to release prisoners of war?

As Clive Davis said in the Spectator: "Well, let's hope this has all been thought through."

Related posts: News and views:
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Monday, December 1, 2008

Cruise Ships and Safety: Designated Smoking Areas and Sonic Cannons

"Safety" means a lot of things. Oceania Cruise lines points out that
the "safety and security of all guests and staff" is important: That's why they have Designated Smoking Areas.

Their cruise ships also have sonic cannons, powerful engines, and at least one alert captain. The Nautica's sonic cannon wasn't used during yesterday's attack, but the crew had their Long Range Acoustic Device (LRAD), ready for use.

"Yesterday's attack?" I'm getting ahead of myself. The Nautica, a nice cruise ship, was minding its own business in the Gulf of Aden:
  • Good news:
    Somali pirates didn't hijack the Nautica
  • Bad news:
    Pirates tried
Over a thousand people, 386 crew and 690 passengers, are on the cruise ship. They're okay, and so is the ship.

One pirate skiff got within 300 yards and fired eight rifle shots, but the Natutica out-maneuvered it, and the other skiff involved in the attack. The cruise ship also outran the skiffs. I didn't realize that a cruise ship could make 23 knots. 27 miles an hour isn't all that impressive on land, but

Blame Time

One headline reads "Somali Pirates," which raises a question: What nut case of a captain would run a cruise ship near the Somali coast?

We still don't know the answer: because the Nautica was off the coast of Yemen when pirates attacked the cruise ship. That's according to someone speaking for the Nautica's owner, Oceania Cruises.

Actually, the Gulf of Aden isn't all that wide: a couple hundred miles, or about three hundred kilometers, depending on how you like to measure things. If Somali pirates have ship-based radar, and I'd think they could afford it, given their cash flow, they could target a cruise ship near the Yemeni coast and still have a good chance of staying out of the way of those international patrols.


View Larger Map

The Yemeni government's track record for keeping tight reins on illegal activity being what it is, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that a local sheik decided to boost his revenue through piracy, no matter what the leaders off in Sanaa thought about it.

I've noticed that "Somali pirates" has changed to "pirates" in news reports. That photo is from Sky News, when it was "Somali Pirates." I'm not clear on why news services thought the pirates were from Somalia.

It could simply be the result of starting with couple of facts, then making a dicey assumption:
  • The Nautica was attacked in the Gulf of Aden
  • Somalia is on the Gulf of Aden
  • Pirates operate in Somalia
  • These must be Somali pirates
I sure hope that the complexion of the pirates in that skiff isn't what made the editors write "Somali pirates." In that part of the world, not many people look like my Scandinavian forebears.

I'm also very glad that nobody got hurt.

Near-Miss for a Cruise Ship: Lessons to Learn?

I can think of a few:
  • Big engines are nice to have
  • Long Range Acoustic Devices (LRADs) are nice to have
  • Running is a good idea: particularly when you're in command of a cruise ship
  • This could have been turned out very badly
It's one thing to say 'no negotiations' when its a cargo ship with a relatively small crew: who presumably knew that they were going into one of the world's less-than-safe areas.

It's different, when over a thousand people, who may not have put two and two together and realized what "over-night stays in some of the world's most alluring ports" actually implies.

That shooting gallery, down at the south end of the Red Sea, isn't one of the areas that Oceania Cruises focuses on. But if you're going to get from Asia to Africa in a reasonable time, the Gulf of Aden is going to be on your route.

I still think that America's 'no negotiation' rule makes sense, gut-wrenching as it is. Paying ransom for the first boatload of cruise ship passengers and (I trust) the crew might result in a happy reunion for the people immediately involved. But it's hard to imagine that making the hijacking of a cruise ship profitable would discourage pirates from trying the same thing again. And again.

The alternative, of course, is extremely unpleasant in the short run: and I'm not sure that I'd have the nerve and determination it takes to refuse demands of pirates holding someone I know.

But emotional pain doesn't make rewarding pirates and putting the lives of the next ship in danger a good idea.

Long-Term Solution: Pirates Must Go

I sincerely hope that, a few decades from now, Somalia will be a nation with a functioning government, laws, and a lively sense of enlightened self-interest: not the colorful land of crazed religious zealots, lawless pirates, and besieged national 'leaders' it is now. That's going to take hard work, and brains.

Related post: In the news (most recent articles first, as usual): Background:
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Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Monkey Pirates, Jews, and Zionists? Get a Grip!

Today's news about Somali pirates reminded me of a racist comment in this blog, and extremely dubious statements by two American leaders.

Jews, Zionists, and Monkeys

A little over two weeks ago, United States Representative Alcee Hastings warned Floridians about that dangerous candidate, Sarah Palin: "Anybody toting guns and stripping moose don't care too much about what they do with Jews and blacks. So, you just think this through."

The Reverend Jesse Jackson took a more sophisticated approach last week, when he informed an international relations conference in France. He assured attendees that "Zionists who have controlled American policy for decades" would lose their influence.

Over the weekend, a comment on another post in this blog called Somali pirates "terrorist monkeys." I looked it up. Sure enough, "monkey," in this context, is still a racial slur.

Somali Pirates and Smugglers

(There's a reason why I'm mentioning so many nationalities here.)

About 150 people left Somalia, thinking that smugglers would help them get to Yemen. What they probably didn't realize was that they'd have to swim part of the way. It looks like a hundred of them drowned, although only 30 bodies that washed up on shore lately seem to have come from that particular operation. It's rather hard to tell which body comes from which ship around the Horn of Africa. A CNN article says that about 165 bodies washed up on Yemeni shores during the first part of September, where Yemenis buried them.

Meanwhile, back in Somalia, Somali forces freed the 11-man crew of the Wail. The Wail, flying under a Panamanian flag, had a crew of two Somalis and nine Syrians.

And, there's good news and bad news about the Faina, that Ukranian ship with Russian tanks being sold by a Ukrainian outfit to the Somali government.
  • Good news
    The pirates didn't blow up the ship, as they'd promised to
  • Bad news
    They're still holding the ship and the crew hostage
    • They want about 14,700,000 Euros, or around $20,000,000 USD)
A CNN article reported: "...The threat by the pirates on the Faina was unusual. Pirates operating off Somalia rarely harm their hostages, instead holding out for ransoms that often exceed US$1 million...."
What's With All Those Nationalities?
One point I'm trying to make is that even a seemingly regional problem can involve people from quite a few different countries. And, in this case, different continents.

Distrust and/or hatred of people who aren't just like us (whoever "us" happens to be) is something that Americans, at least, just can't afford these days. We live in a world filled with people who aren't Yankees, who 'aren't even Americans.'

I realize that hatred and distrust of Jews/Zionists, Muslims, and 'monkeys' is very much a part of how some people react. But, ethical and moral considerations aside, putting intellectual blinders like that on just isn't practical.

Reducing others to racial or religious stereotypes keeps a person from noticing common interests and goals. That makes negotiating on any level difficult, and prevents whoever is keeping the eyes of the mind closed from experiencing a larger world.

Keep an Open Mind: But Don't Let Your Brains Fall Out

Somewhere between 'beware the Zionists' and 'just give peace a chance, man,' there's a wide territory, filled with people who
  • Don't look anything like either Sarah Palin or Justice Clarence Thomas
  • Come from literally a world of cultures
  • Want to earn a living and live their lives
Before I start sounding too groovy, let's remember that there are also people who are, quite simply, dangerous. The leaders of Al Qaeda, those Somali pirates, and Iran's leaders fall into that category.

But I think they're dangerous because of what they believe, and what they've demonstrated they're willing to do: not because of who their ancestors are.

Previous posts on related topics: In the news: Once more, this blog isn't political. But
  • America determines who leads using a political process
  • America's leadership over the next several years will make a great difference in how the War on Terror is conducted
  • So, politics is inextricably entangled in the War on Terror
Related posts, on tolerance, bigotry, racism, and hatred.
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Blogroll

Note! Although I believe that these websites and blogs are useful resources for understanding the War on Terror, I do not necessarily agree with their opinions. 1 1 Given a recent misunderstanding of the phrase "useful resources," a clarification: I do not limit my reading to resources which support my views, or even to those which appear to be accurate. Reading opinions contrary to what I believed has been very useful at times: sometimes verifying my previous assumptions, sometimes encouraging me to change them.

Even resources which, in my opinion, are simply inaccurate are sometimes useful: these can give valuable insights into why some people or groups believe what they do.

In short, It is my opinion that some of the resources in this blogroll are neither accurate, nor unbiased. I do, however, believe that they are useful in understanding the War on Terror, the many versions of Islam, terrorism, and related topics.