Mike the Usurper wrote:
Someone said to me today, "If you can't see the difference between the administration and Al Qaeda then there's something ... wrong."

The difference, is the ballot box.

Our administration, like it or not, is a choice of leadership that was made by our country. That you don't agree with that choice, I understand. But that's the country we live in. A controversial issue (like who our leader is going to be) comes up, millions of people vote on it, and the majority wins out.

Al Qaeda, on the other hand, was not voted in by anybody. They're a bunch of self-appointed thugs who feel that they know what's better for the world than anybody else. They have no sympathy for other ways of life. They believe that their way is the right way, and to hell with everyone else. They seek to impose their own *very* narrow world-view, upon the entire planet. Our administration, on the other hand, usually bends over backwards to accommodate as many different viewpoints and ways of life as possible.

A further difference is how those two groups (the U.S. administration vs. Al Qaeda) go about exercising their power. The administration has a series of checks and balances. They need to get approval from an enormously complex system before they can do *anything*. And, their power is temporary. A few years down the line, they're gone, and another administration is voted in. If Al Qaeda could have been voted out of power, I think they would have been gone long ago. It is my belief that the vast majority of the muslim world despises the methods that Al Qaeda uses.

Another difference has to do with how power is used, especially when it involves violence. When our administration uses violence, via our military, it is done in a very controlled fashion, with an enormous amount of public debate and consensus-seeking. Nearly every single step is open to scrutiny and consideration by the public, our other leaders, and the rest of the world. Our plans are usually announced well in advance. Further, military targets are chosen with care and compassion. Innocents and civilians are not specifically targeted.

Al Qaeda, on the other hand, exercises its power in secret. They have no public debate. They use subterfuge, they use hatred. They use small groups with no public oversight, that seek to kill as many people as possible, with little care as to *who* they are killing. If they could kill thousands or even millions of Americans with a nuclear bomb in the middle of one of our cities, they would do it. And then if they could, they would do it again, and again, against not just Americans but against *anyone* that stood in their way, until they could force the world into the shape and culture that they wanted.

I have no trouble distinguishing between the two sides. The difference between right and wrong is very clear to me. But it flabbergasts me that anyone can say that the two sides are similar, or that the administration is *worse* than Al Qaeda. That shows to me a phenomenally deep loss of center, and in some ways, a blind hatred of one's own country. And that saddens me.

I'm not saying that I think that you and I should agree on everything. I *like* that we disagree, and I think that the process of discussion is a healthy one. But I hope we could at least agree on some basic definitions of the difference between good and evil.

Elonka

Elonka wrote:

Mike the Usurper wrote:
Someone said to me today, "If you can't see the difference between the administration and Al Qaeda then there's something ... wrong."

The difference, is the ballot box.

Our administration, like it or not, is a choice of leadership that was made by our country. That you don't agree with that choice, I understand. But that's the country we live in. A controversial issue (like who our leader is going to be) comes up, millions of people vote on it, and the majority wins out.

Al Qaeda, on the other hand, was not voted in by anybody. They're a bunch of self-appointed thugs who feel that they know what's better for the world than anybody else. They have no sympathy for other ways of life. They believe that their way is the right way, and to hell with everyone else. They seek to impose their own *very* narrow world-view, upon the entire planet. Our administration, on the other hand, usually bends over backwards to accommodate as many different viewpoints and ways of life as possible.

A further difference is how those two groups (the U.S. administration vs. Al Qaeda) go about exercising their power. The administration has a series of checks and balances. They need to get approval from an enormously complex system before they can do *anything*. And, their power is temporary. A few years down the line, they're gone, and another administration is voted in. If Al Qaeda could have been voted out of power, I think they would have been gone long ago. It is my belief that the vast majority of the muslim world despises the methods that Al Qaeda uses.

Another difference has to do with how power is used, especially when it involves violence. When our administration uses violence, via our military, it is done in a very controlled fashion, with an enormous amount of public debate and consensus-seeking. Nearly every single step is open to scrutiny and consideration by the public, our other leaders, and the rest of the world. Our plans are usually announced well in advance. Further, military targets are chosen with care and compassion. Innocents and civilians are not specifically targeted.

Al Qaeda, on the other hand, exercises its power in secret. They have no public debate. They use subterfuge, they use hatred. They use small groups with no public oversight, that seek to kill as many people as possible, with little care as to *who* they are killing. If they could kill thousands or even millions of Americans with a nuclear bomb in the middle of one of our cities, they would do it. And then if they could, they would do it again, and again, against not just Americans but against *anyone* that stood in their way, until they could force the world into the shape and culture that they wanted.

I have no trouble distinguishing between the two sides. The difference between right and wrong is very clear to me. But it flabbe... [ Read More (0.6k in body) ]

Mike the Usurper wrote:

There was for all purposes, no Al Qaeda in Iraq.

* Abdul Rahman Yasin was the only member of the al Qaeda cell that detonated the 1993 World Trade Center bomb to remain at large in the Clinton years. He fled to Iraq. U.S. forces recently discovered a cache of documents in Tikrit, Saddam's hometown, that show that Iraq gave Mr. Yasin both a house and monthly salary.

* Bin Laden met at least eight times with officers of Iraq's Special Security Organization, a secret police agency run by Saddam's son Qusay, and met with officials from Saddam's mukhabarat, its external intelligence service, according to intelligence made public by Secretary of State Colin Powell, who was speaking before the United Nations Security Council on February 6, 2003.

* Sudanese intelligence officials told us that their agents had observed meetings between Iraqi intelligence agents and bin Laden starting in 1994, when bin Laden lived in Khartoum.

* Bin Laden met the director of the Iraqi mukhabarat in 1996 in Khartoum, according to Mr. Powell.

* An al Qaeda operative now held by the U.S. confessed that in the mid-1990s, bin Laden had forged an agreement with Saddam's men to cease all terrorist activities against the Iraqi dictator, Mr. Powell told the United Nations.

* In 1999 the Guardian, a British newspaper, reported that Farouk Hijazi, a senior officer in Iraq's mukhabarat, had journeyed deep into the icy mountains near Kandahar, Afghanistan, in December 1998 to meet with al Qaeda men. Mr. Hijazi is "thought to have offered bin Laden asylum in Iraq," the Guardian reported.

* In October 2000, another Iraqi intelligence operative, Salah Suleiman, was arrested near the Afghan border by Pakistani authorities, according to Jane's Foreign Report, a respected international newsletter. Jane's reported that Suleiman was shuttling between Iraqi intelligence and Ayman al Zawahiri, now al Qaeda's No. 2 man.

(Why are all of those meetings significant? The London Observer reports that FBI investigators cite a captured al Qaeda field manual in Afghanistan, which "emphasizes the value of conducting discussions about pending terrorist attacks face to face, rather than by electronic means.")

* As recently as 2001, Iraq's embassy in Pakistan was used as a "liaison" between the Iraqi dictator and al Qaeda, Mr. Powell told the United Nations.

* Spanish investigators have uncovered documents seized from Yusuf Galan -- who is charged by a Spanish court with being "directly involved with the preparation and planning" of the Sept. 11 attacks -- that show the terrorist was invited to a party at the Iraqi embassy in Madrid. The invitation used his "al Qaeda nom de guerre," London's Independent reports.

* An Iraqi defector to Turkey, known by his cover name as "Abu Mohammed," told Gwynne Roberts of the Sunday Times of London that he saw bin Laden's fighters in camps in Iraq in ... [ Read More (0.6k in body) ]

grunchley wrote:

* Abdul Rahman Yasin was the only member of the al Qaeda cell that detonated the 1993 World Trade Center bomb to remain at large in the Clinton years. He fled to Iraq. U.S. forces recently discovered a cache of documents in Tikrit, Saddam's hometown, that show that Iraq gave Mr. Yasin both a house and monthly salary.

He lived as a free man for a year, but the authorities in Iraq tell CBS News they put him in prison in 1994. - source CBS in May 2002.

* Bin Laden met at least eight times with officers of Iraq's Special Security Organization, a secret police agency run by Saddam's son Qusay, and met with officials from Saddam's mukhabarat, its external intelligence service, according to intelligence made public by Secretary of State Colin Powell, who was speaking before the United Nations Security Council on February 6, 2003.

This was the same meeting where Powell was talking about the "bio-weapon trucks" which did not exist. While some people have talked about meetings, I have yet to hear anyone not associated with the administration say they went anywhere. This argument is the same as saying that we are complicit in Russia's actions in Chechnya because people in our government have contact with people in the Russian government. Because of the problems with the statements of the administration, they cannot be considered a reliable source.

* Sudanese intelligence officials told us that their agents had observed meetings between Iraqi intelligence agents and bin Laden starting in 1994, when bin Laden lived in Khartoum.

"Moreover, Bin Ladin had in fact been sponsoring anti-Saddam Islamists in Iraqi Kurdistan, and sought to attract them into his Islamic army." 9/11 Commission report. This is a reference to Ansar al-Islam, and when those connections start, when bin Ladin was in Sudan.

* Bin Laden met the director of the Iraqi mukhabarat in 1996 in Khartoum, according to Mr. Powell.

* An al Qaeda operative now held by the U.S. confessed that in the mid-1990s, bin Laden had forged an agreement with Saddam's men to cease all terrorist activities against the Iraqi dictator, Mr. Powell told the United Nations.

This needs another source.

* In 1999 the Guardian, a British newspaper, reported that Farouk Hijazi, a senior officer in Iraq's mukhabarat, had journeyed deep into the icy mountains near Kandahar, Afghanistan, in December 1998 to meet with al Qaeda men. Mr. Hijazi is "thought to have offered bin Laden asylum in Iraq," the Guardian reported.

This comes straight from Sean Hannity's discussion list, and there are still two problems. One he didn't go, and two, he (bin Laden) was putting himself behind an anti-Saddam group, Ansar al-Islam.

* In October 2000, another Iraqi intelligence operative, Salah Suleiman, was arrested ne... [ Read More (1.3k in body) ]