VinceCarter - You couldn't be further from the truth if you think that any of these countries has anything but a corrupt government. Terrorism is not the cuase, but rather the effect, and the West's support of these brutal regimes is the root of the entire conflict. One of the greatest hypocrisies of our time is that the Saudis are just as bad as the Iraq regime or the rule in government. Talk of liberating women in Afghanistan from the backwards clench of the Taliban is laughable when the same laws are employed in Saudi. But a blind eye is turned because they of course are our great ally and supplier. We wouldn't even be having this dicussion in most countries, which is what is the greatest tragedy of the P.A.T.R.I.O.T act is. Freedom for dissent really was what made this country so great.
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/76A7EAF6-2D73-4D73-B078-C67340F6092B.htm Egyptians protest Sinai blasts More than 1000 Egyptian hotel workers, bedouin sheikhs and foreign dive school instructors, together with foreign tourists, have marched through Sharm al-Shaikh to condemn bombs that killed 88 in the Red Sea resort. "There is no God but God, and terrorism is the enemy of God," chanted the Egyptian protesters, including hotel chefs, technicians and road sweepers, as they marched along the main road of Sharm al-Shaikh, hit by three bombs on Saturday. "The feeling is very sad and very angry. We are not going to be scared by the bombers," said Sherif Saba, an Egyptian investor in the diving and beach resort. Protesters on Sunday marched into the night, waving Egyptian flags and holding aloft signs in Arabic, English, Spanish, Italian and Russian. "We will not be terrorised," read one banner. Hotel chefs marched with "Stop terrorism" written on their hats. Dive school employees had the same slogan printed on their T-shirts. Funeral prayers The protesters said funeral prayers for the dead at the car park where one of the bombs exploded. Several placed flowers on a car splattered with blood of the victims, who were mostly Egyptian. "People are against those who did this. They have no religion and are not from us, neither as bedouin or Egyptians. It's a cowardly act," said Saleh Mohamed, a south Sinai bedouin wearing flowing robes and a lilac headscarf. Egyptians come from all over the country to work in Sharm al-Shaikh. Resort workers are worried the attacks will scare off tourists, who provide employment for more than a million people. Visitor numbers to the Red Sea resort and the rest of Egypt dipped after militants killed 58 tourists in Luxor in 1997. The industry was also hit by the 11 September 2001 attacks on the United States. One group has claimed responsibility for the Sharm al-Shaikh attacks in an internet statement, but analysts doubt its credibility. "We don't want them here. No country accepts them," said Hajja Nasra, a fully covered bedouin woman dressed in black.
Are these terrorist good at anything else? If they concentrated their time on more constructive and practical things like building an ecomony and improving the lives of their people, they might join the civilized world and stop living like roaches.
I agree that some of these governments are corrupt and brutal, but I fully disagree that the West's support of them is the root of the entire conflict. Certainly, Great Britain and Spain do not have corrupt and brutal governments, and see what happened in London and Madrid. Also, see 9/11. To say that the West's support of the corrupt governments is the root and cause of the conflict and that terrorism is the (impliedly logical) effect of this completely confuses the issue of guilt. Terrorism is not some somehow inevitable effect that was caused by the stupid or evil western governments. People who kill innocent people in subways or buses have nobody to blame but themselves, and it disgusts me when people try to rationalize their behavior by saying that the Western governments are at fault for this.
Perhaps I misworded my post as I certainly did not mean that. I'm not trying to rationalize their behavior, I'm trying to rationalize the irrational. I didn't mean that terrorism was an inevitable consequence but that the cause of the terrorism was the support for the dictatorial regimes and foreign military presence. I apologize if my post gave the wrong impression.
I think that the foreign military presence is one of several causes of terrorism, another being the state their religion as it is practiced in these countries is in, with people being susceptible to hate preachers who deviate from the peaceful teachings within their religion. Envy and jealousy with regards to better living conditions in the west seems to be another cause, along with some sort of inferiority complex, which, again, seems to make some people more easily influenced by hate preachers. Actually, I think that the foreign military presence is just used by those hate preachers to incite anger and hatred. If there was no foreign military presence, perhaps it would be more difficult to give people reasons to hate, but those who spread the ideology of terror would still try to do so anyway. There was no Western-backed government in Afghanistan, and that seems to have been one of the prime hotbeds and breedings grounds of terrorism, so to say that military presence in a country and support of a corrupt government there is the only or main cause for terrorism developing in that country seems to be slightly inaccurate, at least.
The authorities in Egypt want to question 6 Pakistanis. If foreigners outside of the Arabworld were involved, then this was definitely an Al-Qaida operation, which would be a first in Egypt's history. http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2005-07-25-egypt-police_x.htm?csp=24&RM_Exclude=Juno Police seek 6 Pakistanis in Egypt bombing probe SHARM EL-SHEIK, Egypt (AP) — Police said Monday they were searching for six Pakistani men in their widening investigation into Egypt's deadliest terror attack that killed scores of people, including an American, at this Red Sea resort. Police were circulating photographs of the six, who have been missing since several days before Saturday's attacks, at checkpoints in and around this southern Sinai resort city. An Associated Press correspondent who saw the images said the men appeared to be between the ages of 20 and 30. The involvement of Pakistanis in the attack in Sharm el-Sheik would be unprecedented, as non-Egyptians rarely have been linked to attacks here. It also would be extremely difficult for a group of young Pakistanis not to be noticed in Sharm, one of the heaviest policed cities in Egypt and a favorite place of residence for President Hosni Mubarak. Pakistani involvement, if proven, also would increase suspicions that Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network may have been involved. The Saudi-born bin Laden is popular among militant Pakistani groups and is known to enjoy support in tribal areas close to the Afghan border. According to local hospitals, Saturday's pre-dawn bombings killed at least 88 people; Egypt's Health Ministry put the death toll at 64. Hospitals said the ministry count does not include a number of sets of body parts. At least one American was killed. Kristina Miller, 27, of Las Vegas, was among the dead, according to KLAS-TV in Las Vegas, quoting her father, Anthony Miller, who said she was vacationing there from England. He told ABC's "Good Morning America" on Monday that he last spoke to her Friday night, on the eve of her birthday. "I told her be careful, have a great birthday and I love her and I will call her and talk to her the next day. And that was the last time I talked to her," Miller said. South Sinai Gov. Mustafa Afifi said Monday that 17 foreigners, including Westerners and citizens from other Arab states, were killed in the attacks, in which the bombers are suspected of hiding their explosives under vegetables in the back of pickup trucks. Two Italians and a Czech were confirmed killed, according to their governments, and a hospital official in Sharm said two Britons and two Germans were killed. Several Italians and Britons were unaccounted for. An official at the Pakistan Embassy in Cairo said his embassy was in contact with Egyptian authorities over the issue of the missing Pakistanis. "But they have not officially informed us that the Pakistanis are suspected of involvement in the bombing. They are only saying: 'We are searching for them. We cannot trace them,'" said Khalid Ahmed, a counselor at the Pakistani mission. "It is very difficult for us to confirm whether any Pakistani was in Sharm el-Sheik but it is possible that someone may have been there. I have a strong belief that Pakistanis cannot be involved in terrorism here." Many Pakistanis use Egypt as a route to travel to Europe to find jobs, he said. Last week, police arrested between 40 and 45 Pakistanis in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria for being illegal immigrants. Police have detained more than 70 people in Sharm and other parts of the Sinai Peninsula during the investigation, which also is following different threads, including possible Palestinian involvement and whether the attacks were linked to October's bombings in two other Sinai resorts. The investigators, who spoke only on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the inquiry, said they were looking into whether the six men had any involvement in carrying out Saturday's attack. Police were to conduct DNA testing on the remains of a suicide bomber found in a car that rammed into the Ghazala Gardens Hotel in Naama Bay, the city's main tourist area, early Saturday. Two other blasts rocked a parking lot near the hotel and an area about two miles away called the Old Market. Afifi said the Ghazala suicide bomber ran down and killed two security guards before crashing into the reception area and detonating his explosives, which investigators have said weighed 660 pounds. Shortly after, a backpack filled with explosives left by another attacker blew up near the parking lot and taxi stand close to the Ghazala, he said. The terrorist involved in the third blast in the Old Market had intended to attack a hotel, possibly the Iberotel Palace, Afifi said. But the attacker was stopped in a line of cars at a nearby police checkpoint and got out of his pickup before it exploded. Police are investigating whether the attacker died in the blast. If independently confirmed, any involvement of Pakistanis would suggest that those behind Saturday's bombings belong to a much wider terror network than previously believed. Until the latest news broke Monday, suspicions had primarily focused on a Sinai-based network believed responsible for the October bombings in the area that also targeted tourist sites, killing 34 people. On Sunday, security officials said the bombers appeared to have entered Sharm in two pickup trucks loaded with explosives hidden under vegetables and that police were searching for three suspects believed to have survived the bombings. It was unclear if police were linking those three in any way to the six Pakistanis being sought. Before the attacks, the militants rubbed serial numbers off the trucks' engines, the officials said. Such serial numbers had been a key clue Egyptian investigators had used to track down those behind the October bombings at two resorts farther north in the Sinai Peninsula, Taba and Ras ****an. Investigators also were examining whether the suicide bomber who set off the blast at the Ghazala was one of five suspects still at large from the October attacks. Police took DNA samples from the parents of the five Taba suspects to compare with bodies found at the Ghazala, a police official said in el-Arish, where the parents were briefly detained. Egyptian authorities portrayed the Taba bombings as an extension of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict rather than a homegrown Islamic militant movement or an al-Qaeda-linked operation. They said a Palestinian who died in the attacks had recruited Bedouins and Egyptians to plot the bombings. But the sophistication of the Sharm bombings — and their timing on the heels of two rounds of attacks in London — raised worries of a wider international connection. Two rival claims of responsibility have emerged for the Sharm bombings, but neither statement could be authenticated. One was by the Abdullah Azzam Brigades of al-Qaeda in Syria and Egypt, which also claimed responsibility for the October bombings. The other was by the previously unknown Holy Warriors of Egypt.
No military presence local to Afghanistan, but the Afghanis were si mply the foot soldiers. Bin Laden and his top aids, while taking refuge in Afghanistan, took issue with presence in his native Saudi Arabia. It can be said that the sentiment is not individual to one's own country, but any presence in all of Islamdom (so to speak) and especially intervention in the Isreali-Palestinian conflict. After all, like you said in an earlier post, if Bin Laden is truly aiming at restoring the Caliphate, his mindset of all of the Muslim lands is of one single entity. Any presence or western influence could be seen as a cause for animosity.
Again, obviously you have never been to the Gulf region, where Wahhabism originated not because of "poor living conditions", but because Sheikh Mohammed Abdul-Wahhab felt that the land of Arabia was drifting away from Islam, so he instituted an absolute extreme interpretation of the religion so as to counter what he viewed as the immoral state of society. Later on when the Saud royal family united the country in 1932, King Saud made a pact with Wahhabists (led by Al-Sheikh family, which was a very powerful tribal family that enforced Wahhabism throughout parts of the kingdom, and who were interested in ruling the country as well). Basically, the pact was that the Wahhabists would let the Saud Royal family take the throne of the kingdom, and in exchange the Saud ruling family would adopt Wahhabism as the official religion of the country. This pact has lasted to this day, and the stability of the whole regime depends on this pact, which lets the Wahhabi leaders have considerable freedom in spreading their version of Islam not just inside Saudi, but throughout the entire world, which has happened in places like Pakistan and other ME countries, and has even spread to places like Europe. All this is made possible by the billions of petro-dollars the Royals roll in every year, which finances religious schools and universities worldwide, distributes tapes, sponsors media outlets, and every other possible form of technology that can be used to spread their message. Even with all that being said, Wahhabism doesn't teach a form of "inferiority" to its followers, but rather a message of "superiority" of not just Muslims, but particular forms of Islam and particular sects to others, and they consider Shi'as "as bad as the Jews", and they teach their kids in elementary schools this type of hateful rhetoric, which undoubtedly helps contribute to the ideology of terrorism. However, they also teach their kids that targeting civilians during warfare is prohibited, but that's conveniently dismissed by AQ types, whom have adopted a "end justifies the means" philosophy in their pursue of civilizational conflict. In fact, if you lived in Saudi like I did you would realize the level or arrogance and discrimination many Saudis practice towards their fellow Muslims. They treat their Western foreigners well and pay them well, but when it comes to many of their fellow Muslims who are in the country as cheap labor (Indonesians, Filipinos, Sri Lankans, Indians, Pakistanis, and even some of their fellow Arabs) they are treated like dirt, discriminated against, and many cases humiliated as "lesser" than Saudis. That's not descriptive of a country that feels "inferior" to anyone else. In fact, when it comes to dealing with Westerners, many Saudis view them as "hired agents" who are employed by Saudi money, and thus work for the Saudis and are at their command, not the other way around (this is true to a certain extent when it comes to foreign oil companies, even in some cases foreign militaries who are more or less "hired" to defend Saudi interests). Sorry for prolonging, but I just wanted to illustrate to you why I think this "inferiority complex" you speak of isn't true for the most part, especially in the country that has been largely responsible for spreading the extremist ideology within Islam we call Wahhabism. Terrorism has many causes, not just one or the other. I think the blame doesn't lie solely on one side or the other, but everyone shares in the blame and have contributed over time to the underlying causes of this virus that is now spreading like wildefire throughout the world. To deny Western or Muslim complicity in creating an atmosphere over the past decades that have created an environment/atmosphere conducive to extremism, and by extension led to terrorism and violence, would be dishonest at best. Well, at least Arabs like Germans, so that should help you sleep better at night
I think that wasn't me with the earlier post you are referring to. Anyway, as you say "any presence or western influence could be seen as a cause for animosity". Basically, these terrorists and the hate preachers will always find a reason to incite people to act violently. I do not think we should let them dictate the other people in their country and the rest of the world that no Western people and/or military people can be present in their country. I have zero respect for these terrorists and for those who represent the ideology behind them. We should not bow to them in any way. Appeasement did not work against Hitler, and it would not work against these fanatics.
Oh, sorry about that, it was a reference to another thread a while back in which you weren't involved in the debate. I misspoke!
I have only been to Dubai and Egypt (Cairo and Sharm) in that region, never to Saudi-Arabia. I also have no intention of going to Saudi-Arabia, unless I absolutely have to.
The paychecks tend to change people's minds. Well, besides going through Frankfurt while flying Lufthansa, I have never really been to Germany, but I have been to Dubai, Saudi, Egypt, Copenhagen, among others.
Ricky Martin Seeks End to Arab Stereotypes http://apnews.excite.com/article/20050725/D8BIDHAG0.html "Martin, a Puerto Rico native, posed for photos with fans at the youth conference, at one point draping over his shoulders a traditional Palestinian kaffiyeha scarf with the slogan "Jerusalem is ours" written in Arabic on it." Remember to shake your bon bon.
Ricky Martin is a proponent of the Palestinian cause?! I just gained a whole new respect for the man I never had before, and never thought I would have.
I smell a brutal crackdown coming, those terrorists will be begging for extradition to the U.S. in no time http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/E41768E0-861A-452C-9B27-547696377672.htm Egypt police open fire in hunt for suspects Egyptian police have exchanged fire with armed men as they search for six Pakistanis suspected of involvement in deadly bombings in the Red Sea resort of Sharm al-Shaikh. The Monday firefight with Bedouin men erupted in the mountainous interior of the Sinai peninsula about 30 km from the scene of Saturday's attacks on the coast, security officials said. It came after police surrounded the nearby villages of Khurum and Rweissat in overnight raids, they said. "Two Pakistanis had been staying there, and it is suspected that the bombs were assembled in this area," an intelligence source said. Pictures of the six Pakistanis believed to have entered Egypt in early July were distributed to police stations in the Sharm al-Shaikh area after the attacks, which followed another bombing spree in Sinai resorts in October. Their passports were found in an unspecified Sharm al-Shaikh hotel, police said, adding that one of them may have died in the deadly bombings but stressing that the Pakistanis were not necessarily the bombers. Pakistani authorities said they had yet to be approached by their Egyptian counterparts about the six suspects. Massive crackdown Pictures of more than 30 other suspects were also distributed, mostly Egyptians as well as internationally wanted terror suspects. At least 130 people have been arrested in a police dragnet as part of a search for the perpetrators of the attack on a hotel, a market and a parking lot that came after deadly bombings in London. Hospital officials say the three bombings, Egypt's deadliest attacks, killed 88 people, while the health and tourism ministries have reported 64 confirmed dead.
Just wondering about if you think Wahhabism has affected areas like U.A.E, Qatar, Kuwait, Yemen….because the same superiority complex is seen…however don't you think you have exaggerated the affect of Wahhabism??....i’ve lived in Saudi and Abu Dhabi…. U.A.E is not a very religious state at all....the influence of religious leaders is non-existent...
I eblieve I was specifically addressing Saudi Arabia, and I didn't mean to lump in other Gulf states. So sorry about any confusion there... As for other Gulf countries, I think may be Yemen has some elements in their society that could be considered Wahhabist, but remember that this is an ideology, and thus is fluid and can easily move from one place to the next; it isn't limited by geographical borders. However, its effects are mostly found in Saudi, and possibly Yemen (historically speaking, the Yemenis and Saudis were very much in contact with one another through trade and the rest, so their cultures aren't that different from one another; Bin Laden, btw, has his family roots in Yemen). Qatar and the UAE are radically different from Saudi society, and if you have been to Saudi and then travelled over to the UAE or Qatar, you will sense a major difference between the two societies. It's probably fair to say that Emiratis and Qataris are much more tolerant and open-minded than the average Saudi, at least from my personal experience. Kuwaitis are an interesting mix: they are a tolerant society, and yet more socially traditional than either the UAE or Qatar or even Bahrain. As for the "superiority complex" thing, that's a widespread Gulf syndrome, except for Yemen. Anyways, there are some differences among the Gulf states, they are not one homogeneus group.
