Somebody (perhaps Joe Dees, perhaps not, hard to tell) wrote:
> in February the Hajj will open to the news of 6 million plus dead Afghans.
Then lets hurry up and kill the Taliban scum who stop the food trucks and
imprison relief workers.
>And it will be portrayed and believed to be largely the fault of the US.
I agree with you there, in the Islamic world the US is blamed for everything,
including the Soviets invading Afghanistan, internal tribal squabbling, medieval
religious practices and the fact that it gets dark at night. There is no point in
worrying over the fact that the Islamic world hates us, they will do that regardless
of what we do and we should just get on with doing what we have to do to defend
ourselves. If the Islamic world is angry that we don't have the good manners to
die that's just tough.
>the US is perceived by a vast majority of Muslims as being something reprehensible.
>The reason for this is primarily because of our ongoing support for Israel
The US support of Israel certainly doesn't help and I think our foreign policy has been far
too one sided but I don't believe for one second that can explain the intense hatred of America
that can be seen from Algeria to Indonesia. In that part of the world the nickname for the USA
is "The Great Satan", but in Islam Satan is not an all powerful conqueror, he is a tempter,
a seducer. The thing they really hate is popular culture, they hate the fact that the most
popular show in Iran seen on satellite and bootleg tapes is "Bay watch". They fear
Brittany Spears more that a Apache attack helicopter.
>Given his [Bin Laden] success in all of these areas, the man is nobody's fool.
He's no fool but he's not a superman either. I think the probability of him being
alive one year from today is very low, although definite proof of his death may
never surface.
>Two key differences between Afghanistan and Pakistan exist. Once we
>examine Pakistan's forces, we know that the number of Islamic
>fundamentalists in Pakistan's forces exceeds 30% of the total muster.
>And we know that Pakistan has an arsenal of possibly 30 nuclear weapons.
Another difference is that Afghanistan, like all those willing to support Bin Laden
with deeds and not just words, has nothing to lose and that's what makes them so
dangerous. Pakistan on the other hand has a lot to lose.
>There are a number of possible outcomes, to this battle. One might be that the
> fundamentalists succeed in taking over the country - and her nuclear arsenal.
The USA knows where the arsenal is stored, I am sure that at the slightest indication
that fundamentalists are about to take over an Army Delta team will grab them and
the Air force will bomb the production factories. Yes, Islam will hate us for doing that,
but they already do and always will.
>The above could well lead to a war of attrition that would destabilize
> the US and probably cause her to withdraw from global interaction -
Before September 11 that was possible but not now, even massive casualties
will not prevent the USA from getting bin Laden's head on a stick.
>Possible? Likely? If anything, I suspect that this scenario is optimistic.
Oh for heaven's sake. Do you think this is the first crises the world has seen,
or the worst? Sure things are bad, but it's a walk in the park compared with the
Cuban Missile Crises or Hitler invading Poland.
John K Clark jonkc@att.net
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