From the point of view of al-Qaeda, the Muslim world can and should be united into a single country.
Nice to know that SOMEONE is talking to al Qaeda these days.
I missed that particular episode of Crossing Over.
Please pardon my interruption, Mr. Cole. You were saying:
From the point of view of al-Qaeda, the Muslim world can and should be united into a single country.
They believe that it once had this political unity, under the early caliphs. Even as late as the outbreak of World War I, the Ottoman state ruled much of the Middle East, and the Ottoman sultans had begun making claims to be caliphs (Muslim popes) from about 1880. In the below map, blue indicates heavy Muslim populations, green means medium, and yellow means the Muslims are a significant minority.
From al-Qaeda's point of view, the political unity of the Muslim world was deliberately destroyed by a one-two punch. First, Western colonial powers invaded Muslim lands and detached them from the Ottoman Empire or other Muslim states. They ruled them brutally as colonies, reducing the people to little more than slaves serving the economic and political interests of the British, French, Russians, etc. France invaded Algeria in 1830. Great Britain took Egypt in 1882 and Iraq in 1917. Russia took the Emirate of Bukhara and other Central Asian territories in the 1860s and forward. Second, they formed these colonies into Western-style nation-states, often small and weak ones, so that the divisive effects of the colonial conquests have lasted.
<Look at the British Empire and its imposition on much of the Muslim world, e.g.:>
Well, well, well.
Pardon me again Mr. Cole.
I am looking at the two maps you have presented.
It seems to me that India, Egypt, Nigeria and Sudan are nations that have a strong Islamic tradition and were afflicted with the presence of the British.
Now, I have NOT spoke with al Qaeda recently - or ever, come to think of it, but my understanding was that the British and the other Europeans had been terrorizing each other for hundred of years before Christopher Columbus discovered that there was an entire continent where people were living in peace.
After those people were mostly exterminated, the Europeans decided to gang up on Africa and Asia. To this end they held conferences to plan their piracy. One particular conference was held in Berlin, in 1885.
http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/MODAFRCA/SCRAMBLE.HTMMost European nations as well the United States, sent representatives.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scramble_for_AfricaThe delegates took a map of Africa and decided which of them was going to get to own which part after they had exterminated the entire population of the continent.
Their efforts in this endeavor have been only partly successful. Millions have died at the hands of Europe and the US but thousands survive to this very day. But they are working on that.
http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0910-15.htmhttp://www.crimelibrary.com/notorious_murders/mass/south_africa/index.html?sect=8http://www.stimson.org/?SN=CB20020113266Sorry, Mr. Cole, I was just pointing out that certain nations have a long history of murder and mayhem in the name of their God and Mammon.
All this time, we were unaware that al Qaeda was taking notes and looking forward to the time when they too could follow in the bloodstained footsteps of the imperialists. Thank you for bringing this to our attention.
Juan Cole goes on to say:
Al-Qaeda has succeeded in several of its main goals. It had been trying to convince Muslims that the United States wanted to invade Muslim lands, humiliate Muslim men, and rape Muslim women. Most Muslims found this charge hard to accept. The Bush administration's Iraq invasion, along with the Abu Ghraib prison torture scandal, was perceived by many Muslims to validate Bin Laden's wisdom and foresightedness.
OMG.
Al Qaeda was behind the humiliation of those people in Abu Ghraib?
Now I just HAVE to go and kick the dialysis machine away from that Osama bin Forgotten.
HOW DARE HE!!
WHO THE EFF DOES HE THINK HE IS?
Forcing innocent US soldiers to commit atrocities
that have brought shame to the entire world.
What the hell else is that slimy bastard plotting now?
Him and his main henchman, Ayman Al-Zawahiri?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayman_Zawahirihttp://www.fbi.gov/mostwant/terrorists/teralzawahiri.htmBack to Mr. Cole:
For al-Qaeda to succeed, it must overthrow the individual nation-states in the Middle East, most of them colonial creations, and unite them into a single, pan-Islamic state. But Ayman al-Zawahiri's organization, al-Jihad al-Islami, had tried very hard to overthrow the Egyptian state, and was always checked. Al-Zawahiri thought it was because of US backing for Egypt. They believed that the US also keeps Israel dominant in the Levant, and backs Saudi Arabia's royal family.
Al-Zawahiri then hit upon the idea of attacking the "far enemy" first. That is, since the United States was propping up the governments of Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, etc., all of which al-Qaeda wanted to overthrow so as to meld them into a single, Islamic super-state, then it would hit the United States first.
The attack on the World Trade Center was exactly analogous to Pearl Harbor. The Japanese generals had to neutralize the US fleet so that they could sweep into Southeast Asia and appropriate Indonesian petroleum. The US was going to cut off imperial Japan from petroleum, and without fuel the Japanese could not maintain their empire in China and Korea. So they pushed the US out of the way and took an alternative source of petroleum away from the Dutch (which then ruled what later became Indonesia).
Umm.
Mr. Cole, sir.
Sorry to keep interrupting you but I am really trying hard to make sense out of what you are saying.
Al Qaeda made a pre-emptive strike against the US?
Well, I guess that is one for the history books.
It must be a Rumsfeld thing, which means I won't understand it.
http://www.focusedperformance.com/articles/ut19molehills.htmlUmm,
Mr. Cole sir, I am not going to bore you with allegations that certain planes never took off and certain planes are still registered, but I am wondering about one particular thing.
What exactly does al Qaeda have in the way of weapons?
You see, so far, they appear to only have access to BOX-CUTTERS
for slicing open cartons of groceries that are then placed on supermarket shelves.
Now I must admit, that al Qaeda has managed to inflict quite a good bit of damage using these weapons, but unless they are high on something other than the story of David and Goliath, they really do need a little bit more.
And I was wondering sir,
the US has been known to drop atomic bombs on the heads of hapless civilians going about their business in crowded cities. Also,
the United States Secretly Deployed Nuclear Bombs In 27 Countries and Territories During Cold War.
Newly declassified history reveals that the United States stationed nukes in "non-nuclear" Japan, Greenland and Iceland. Other countries unknowingly hosted U.S. nukes.
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/news/19991020/http://www.bullatomsci.org/issues/1999/nd99/nd99norris.htmlSurely an international man of mystery such as Osama, must know that in June 1950, the US National Security Council issued a report (NSC 26/3) titled Demolition and Abandonment of Oil Facilities and Fields in the Middle East.
The report addressed the possibility of plugging Saudi oil wells ". . .as a means of conservation and denial during enemy occupation." Nuclear weapons were looked at as a possible tool to deny the Soviets access to the oil fields. The report found, "Denial of wells by radiological means can be accomplished to prevent an enemy from utilizing the oil, but it could not prevent him from forcing ‘expendable' Arabs to enter the contaminated areas to open well heads and deplete the reservoirs. Therefore, aside from other ill effects on the Arab population, it is not considered that radiological means are practicable as a conservation measure."
http://www.mepc.org/public_asp/journal_vol11/0409_russell.aspSurely a shagadelic sheik such as al-Zawahiri has considered the effect of radioactivity on the Arab anatomy. Especially since these effects are barely next door.
http://rense.com/general17/south.htmhttp://www.life.com/Life/essay/gulfwar/gulf01.htmlSo my question is this, Mr. Cole,
HOW
in the name of God and Satan
would ANYONE
dumb enough to use their own name to obtain a fireproof passport,
strike the US first?
Now, sir, you said:
If the Muslim world can find a way to combine the sophisticated intellectuals and engineers of Damascus and Cairo with the oil wealth of the Persian Gulf, it could well emerge as a 21st century superpower.
http://www.juancole.com/2004_09_01_juancole_archive.html#109487993311862124That sir, will NEVER happen.
The US will obliterate the Muslim world in a series of pre-emptive strikes.
From looking at NSC 26/3,
we can see that the US is top dog and intends to remain top dog.
Or else.
From looking at the ever-growing federal deficit,
we can see that the US, financially, is a has-been.
Totally bankrupt.
From looking at the US military we see pure unabashed desperation.
And a desire to bomb the living crap out of every nation on earth.
The lights dimmed and Mr. Barnett, clad in a dark turtleneck and khakis, launched into his brief. He soon flashed up on a screen a picture of a mock personal ad that he found taped to a Pentagon wall in the late 1990s.
"ENEMY WANTED: Mature North American Superpower seeks hostile partner for arms racing, Third World conflicts and general antagonism. Must be sufficiently menacing to convince Congress of military financial requirements...Send note with pictures of fleet and air squadrons to CHAIRMAN JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF/PENTAGON."
In the early days of the current Bush administration, senior Pentagon officials thought China, with its growing arsenal of ballistic missiles and increasingly sophisticated submarine fleet, might fill this role.
Mr. Barnett's work with Cantor Fitzgerald, which stemmed from a long-standing relationship between the firm and the Naval War College, convinced him otherwise. China was buying U.S. debt, angling to join the World Trade Organization and growing increasingly dependent on foreign direct investment. "China isn't the problem, it's the prize," he told the officers.
He displayed a map of the sprawling "gap," which includes most of Africa, Central Asia, the Middle East and a big chunk of Central and South America. "This is globalization's ozone hole," he said.
http://www.thomaspmbarnett.com/published/wsj.htmPile on the brown man's burden,
compel him to be free;
Let all your manifestoes
Reek with philanthropy.
And if with heathen folly
He dares your will dispute,
Then, in the name of freedom,
Don't hesitate to shoot.
Pile on the brown man's burden,
And if his cry be sore,
That surely need not irk you--
Ye've driven slaves before.
Seize on his ports and pastures,
The fields his people tread;
Go make from them your living,
And mark them with his dead.
http://www.boondocksnet.com//ai/kipling/labouche.htmlhttp://www.boondocksnet.com//ai/kipling/index.htmlhttp://www.alternet.org/story/11427http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=30771And finally, Mr. Cole sir,
from looking at the White House,
we see a man living in fear of pretzels and fair elections.
A man whose father is not holy.
A man who is surrounded by cons.
A man who will gladly kill us all,
and mock us as we breathe our last.
http://www.dangerouscitizen.com/Photo+Gallery/47.jpgBut then again, this is all probably part of the al Qaeda plan.
The US is not winning the war on terror. Al-Qaeda also has by no means won. But across a whole range of objectives, al-Qaeda has accomplished more of its goals than the US has of its.
Saturday, September 11, 2004
http://www.juancole.com/2004_09_01_juancole_archive.html#109487993311862124