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39 Sunnis toes up in Multan festivities
Today's Headlines
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Page 4: Opinion
5 00:00 Classical_Liberal [] 
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Home Front: WoT
Geostrategies
In a book published this week, Dr. George Friedman, the founder of the lucid Stratfor, a private for-profit think-tank and intelligence-gathering organization which has been dubbed "the shadow CIA", proposes to explain what the war in Iraq, and the larger "war on terrorism", is really all about.

It sure wasn't about WMD hidden in Iraq -- one of several public arguments for removing Saddam Hussein which, because it didn't work out, has been hailed by our media (which once bought into the argument but has since cashed out) as the only reason. Yet as both parties in the U.S. election maintain, the threat of nuclear or other mass-destructive weaponry in the hands of terrorists -- and quite possibly terrorists trained and directed by a foreign state or states -- is real, and must be dealt with. The arguments are only over how to prevent carnage on a scale seldom before seen.

In America's Secret War, Dr. Friedman argues that the enemy grew out of the Cold War, an artefact of Jimmy Carter's decision to use Saudi Arabian money and Pakistani expertise to create a guerrilla army that could harass the Soviets then occupying Afghanistan. "Al Qaeda", the product, mastered the art of covert operation, and as the Soviets collapsed, began turning it against the West, biting the hand that fed them. Their large ambition is the creation of a new, pan-Muslim caliphate, however, and they attack Western targets as a means of advancing an Islamist revolution at home.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: tipper || 10/07/2004 4:56:10 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Western "anti-terrorism" experts = seven blind man and an elephant.
Posted by: Anonymous6092 || 10/07/2004 11:25 Comments || Top||

#2  It remains convienent to blame the CIA for al Qaeda. However, bin Laden did most of his fighting from a hotel room in Pakistan. Most of the others, which BTW are pushing up the Afghan equivalent of daisies, joined the effort after the ouster of the Soviets. al Qaeda is a johnny-come-lately as outfits go.

And it ignores the indisputable fact that bin Laden's primary goal was to replace the House of Saud with the House of bin Laden. Mere power politics covered with a smokescreen of religion.
Posted by: Chuck Simmins || 10/07/2004 12:08 Comments || Top||

#3  Excerpts from the book here and here [PDF]. Good stuff from Friedman, he always has a clear head. Only problem is, you don't know what's true and what's not, and now that he's got "status", he has to think about what he talks about because it will anger his precious sources.
Posted by: gromky || 10/07/2004 17:29 Comments || Top||

#4  Oh, and Friedman isn't an "anti-terriorism expert". He's an expert in geopolitics. Get a clue.
Posted by: gromky || 10/07/2004 19:36 Comments || Top||

#5  Go read Sageman's "Understanding Terror Networks" for a thorough debunking of the "CIA created al Qaeda" meme.
Posted by: Classical_Liberal || 10/07/2004 19:44 Comments || Top||



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Meet the Mods
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Steve White
Seafarious
tu3031
badanov
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Bright Pebbles
trailing wife
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Two weeks of WOT
Thu 2004-10-07
  39 Sunnis toes up in Multan festivities
Wed 2004-10-06
  Boom misses Masood's brother
Tue 2004-10-05
  Sadr City targeted by US forces
Mon 2004-10-04
  ETA head snagged in La Belle France
Sun 2004-10-03
  Arafat calls on world to end Israeli campaign in Gaza
Sat 2004-10-02
  109 Terrs Killed in Samarra Offensive
Fri 2004-10-01
  IDF force with 100 tanks enters northern Gaza
Thu 2004-09-30
  Sudan's Bashir accuses U.S. of backing Darfur rebels
Wed 2004-09-29
  Baghdad terr snagged with women's underwear on his head
Tue 2004-09-28
  Johnny Jihad Appeals for Early Release
Mon 2004-09-27
  Hamas: Arab State May Have Helped in Syria Killing
Sun 2004-09-26
  French national killed in Saudi Arabia
Sat 2004-09-25
  Sudan foils Islamist coup plot
Fri 2004-09-24
  Maskhadov sez Basayev should be tried for Beslan
Thu 2004-09-23
  Noordin Mohammed Top not in custody


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