al-Qaida not all bad

[bunge]

For those of you who always claim that muslims are 100% evil, al-Qaida (http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=540&u=/ap/20041105/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_hostage&printer=1) proves you wrong.

[Carson O'Genic]

I think this is just evidence that al Queda is not stupid, rather than not bad. The recent statements by UBL regarding bankrupting the USA show that these guys aren't completely dumb. Doesn't mean they are right or decent human beings by any means.

[bunge]

No, but it does prove many of the conservatives here are completely wrong in some of their assumptions.

[Scott]

Solid proof bunge. Well done.

[bunge]

Originally posted by Scott
Solid proof bunge. Well done.

It's funny how you ignore being wrong. Admitting being wrong is one step towards learning.

Good luck.

[segovius]

A very interesting development and a great post bunge.

Some talking points:

1) 'al Qaeda in Iraq' is not to be confused with OBL's 'al Qaeda'. Apparently Zarqawi has changed the name of his 'Tawhid and Jihad' group to this. It has no other connection and they are separate entities.

2) Undoubtedly a large number of kidnappings that are blamed on 'terrorists' or 'muslims' are knowingly spun (ie lied) in this way by the US administration.

The vast majority of these events are perpetrated by criminals. Most likely a combination of the 100,000 hardcore prisoners that Saddam released from the jails prior to the invasion and new grown 'Russian style Mafia'.

This article (http://electroniciraq.net/news/1694.shtml) by a journalist visiting Baghdad has some interesting observations on this from the ground:

We quickly load my luggage into his car and drive out-passing some men in a BMW (the favored vehicle of criminal gangs), who ask us if I just flew in...Abu Talat tells them he came to pick up a friend, and asks me for a pen and paper and quickly writes down their license plate while telling me, "That could be kidnappers...there is not another flight after yours. I will watch to see if they follow us."

While driving past three burnt car bodies from the recent suicide bomber, he says, "Everyone is being kidnapped now. It is a booming business here since there are no jobs. You must be extremely careful Dahr."

===========

We mustn't stay long and are off to run errands before I go find a hotel. Every moment finds us watching to see if we are followed-the kidnapping has become out of control. He explains that even people who give information about westerners to crime gangs can earn $500. In a place with 70% unemployment, this is the only lottery. Just like in any economically depressed area, more and more folks are becoming willing to take a shot at the jackpot.

The same journalists observes at the airport troops of Indians and Sri Lankans being flown in to do jobs Iraqis could do but that's a different story, although interesting in the light of the economic angle.

One question here: why if these gangs are obvious, known to everyone and swanning around in BMWs are they not recognized as a problem and dealt with by the occupying forces ?

3) People have allowed themselves to be brainwashed by Bush's Biblical 'evil' rhetoric. Far worse, they are never, ever (perhaps because they are incapable of it) prepared to put their principles where their mouth is and get into a discussion or attempted rationalisation. If they did, they would learn something.

One must make a distinction between three groups in Iraq - all of which have many subsets: 'terrorists', insurgents and criminals.

Zarqawi would fall in the first of these groups so let's confine ourselves to that. They are not 'evil', they even have morals. Just not morals as the west knows them.

As an analogy take the mafia - they have a very strict moral code albeit one that is not shared necessarily by the general population (although Joe Public seems to find mafia torture, beheadings and similar methods of death utilised as those ascribed to the 'terrorists' somehow unbarbaric).

Similarly Islamist groups also have a very strict code. Here in another article on Zarqawi's call to release Hassan (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3987913.stm) some are outlined:

"These people who are using this prisoner as a playing card didn't know our religion very well, we only kill those who fight us and kill our people. In true Islam, they don't kill women and young children. We never kill people who we are not supposed to kill.

Many times we stop operating a successful attack because we know that Muslim people would be killed. We cancel these operations to save the blood of Muslims."

Why say this if it's not true ?

We know some attributions to 'terrorist' messages are fake. We know they faked an Osama tape. We know they faked some Zarqawi messages.

So the question is really: why can't the government tell it like it is ? Just tell the truth ?

Two things are possible:

* they really believe that all attacks/kidnappings are by Islamists and that no criminals, ordinary Iraqi resistance or ex-secular Ba'athists are operative.

In this case they don't have the slightest clue about what is going on under their own occupation. Not good.

* They are lying and opportunistically or as a matter of policy ascribe all attacks from any source to their propaganda targets.

The danger of this is that first people will believe them (we've passed that one), then people will act on that belief (election 04) and finally they will believe it themselves.

At that point they will lose because a massive attack will have been prepared under their noses which they have made themselves blind to and it will hit them out of left-field from a source that 'doesn't exist'.

They call it 'taking your eye off the ball'.

I just call it lying.

[Frank777]

Hassan was obviously taken by foreigners. They didn't know who she was initially and thought they had taken some run-of-the-mill aid worker.

Sounds to me like her kidnapping was beginning to turn regular Iraqis against the foreign insurgents, and this is the Middle Eastern equivalent of political damage control.

Bunge, I'm honestly surprised you've been taken in by this.

[segovius]

Originally posted by Frank777
Hassan was obviously taken by foreigners. They didn't know who she was initially and thought they had taken some run-of-the-mill aid worker.

Sounds to me like her kidnapping was beginning to turn regular Iraqis against the foreign insurgents, and this is the Middle Eastern equivalent of political damage control.

Bunge, I'm honestly surprised you've been taken in by this.

Everything is ok........black is black and the only other colour is white.......breathe evenly.....

....must.....remember.......they....hate .....our....freedoms.....

evil....family values.....apple pie

Phew, that's better..

[Scott]

Originally posted by bunge
It's funny how you ignore being wrong. Admitting being wrong is one step towards learning.

Good luck.

What do you mean? I agreed with you. The decapitating terrorists are not all bad.

[MarcUK]

Originally posted by Scott
What do you mean? I agreed with you. The decapitating terrorists are not all bad.


:D:D:D:D:D OWNED

[segovius]

Originally posted by Scott
What do you mean? I agreed with you. The decapitating terrorists are not all bad.

Specially the ones in the black-ops squad.

[ast3r3x]

Originally posted by segovius
Specially the ones in the black-ops squad.

:D:D:D:D:D OWNED

;)

[bunge]

Originally posted by Frank777
Bunge, I'm honestly surprised you've been taken in by this.

You're going to have to be a little more descriptive than this because I think we agree but somehow you still think I'm wrong. I think there's some very important thoughts in the extremely long post by segovius.

[Scott]

I think we are seeing a new form of the Stockholm Syndrome in bunge.