Reply #23: that's a useful scenario that raises a couple of important issues:

[yurbud]

who benefits from that bomb going off and how?

what would their motive be for doing it?

Is there any way we can deprive them of their motive without compromising our own security?

Terrorism one level is like having a gang in your neighborhood. The cops could arrest or kill all the members, and after a while, another gang would coalesce because the same conditions that formed the first one are still there.

I like the idea of spreading democracy in the Middle East, but doing it at the point of a bayonet won't work, and as we are seeing with their response to Hamas' win in Palestine and the Shia in Iraq's desire for a more religious government, or for that matter, the internationally monitored fair election and re-election of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, the Bushies commitment to democracy ends when they don't like the results.

The easier way to spread democracy in the Middle East is to stop funding dictators and giving them the equipment and training to oppress their own people, and stop letting oil companies dictate our foreign policy. There have been democracies and democratic movements there before, but in at least one case, we fomented a coup against the democratically elected president of Iran and replaced him with a dictator, solely to benefit our oil companies. That kind of shit pisses people off.

If you tell people in the Middle East we will stop doing that and follow it up with actions, terrorist groups would have a harder time recruiting or even coming into being in the first place.

Happy people generally don't want to kill themselves.


I know that sounds a little like midnight basketball in the inner city, but prevention of this nature has to be combined with defense because you can't make a perfect filter to catch terrorists coming in--some will always find a way to slip through.

In the case of 9/11, most got in on expedited visas from our good friend, Saudi Arabia.