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British Intel Shuts Down al-Qaeda Sites
DarkWolf0 writes "I guess it should not be too surprising --
the British Times Online discusses the recent shutdown of multiple websites associated with al-Qaeda. I wonder how easy it would be to associate any particular activity with 'terrorism.'"
We criticize terrorists for choosing violence over speech to make their point. Then we take away their ability to speak.
Even from a tactical point-of-view this doesn't make sense. They cite one web site as offering technical instruction on how to commit terror, OK, but what about the rest which undoubtedly contain information authorities could be using to predict and prevent future attacks?
Do they actually think that this will hurt their recruitment efforts? That some guy who is already of the mind to commit suicide for the cause is going to change his mind when his browser gives him a 404?
How is it in this most important of issues we see the least intelligent people making all of the decisions for us?
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Why didn't you know?
I don't think they are shutting down, 'Voices of dissent.'
What they are doing is shutting down a conduit for the organization of groups whose purpose it is to kill civilians, disrupt society, and bring down the current government.
If all they were doing was 'voicing dissent' then most Western governments would allow that. It's when they go a step further, and start killing people, that it becomes a problem.
No reason to lie.
How do you kill someone with a web site? Or is that classified?
I can't tell you who originally said this, but I agree whole heartedly, and I believe it answers your question quite well: "The most dangerous weapon in the world is a set of trained eyes and a radio."
Communication is a military neccessity--removing your enemy's ability to talk amongst themselves makes your job easier, and theirs alot harder.
What part of "shall not be infringed" is so hard to understand?
Are you kidding? The terrorists spent a couple years planning their op, and spent 19 lives (and plane tickets) to take out the towers.
Let's ignore the direct casualties and property damage, and instead look at the whole picture.
In response to what twenty people did, we have, in response, killed tens of thousands of people, lost about twenty thousand of our own soldiers (dead and wounded), and have spent nearly two hundred billion dollars in a War On Terror, with no end in sight. For the money we're paying, we could lose a World Trade Center EVERY OTHER WEEK and STILL be ahead on costs.
Our first war front, Afghanistan, at least isn't a complete disaster. The government is not in tight control, but we could 'win' there, where 'win' is defined as leaving behind a stable, democratic government. Now, we probably won't LIKE a stable, democratic Afghan government very much, nor they us (if they're free, one of their fervently-exercised freedoms will be to dislike us), but we don't have to like them... we just have to be reasonably sure they won't bomb us. That's still possible.
Iraq, on the other hand, was completely and totally bungled. It IS a total disaster. We have created the world's best training center for terrorists, where disaffected Iraqis can learn to fight Americans in the comfort of their own homes.... we'll break right in! We face escalating violence in that country, to the point that some people are starting to talk 'civil war' instead of 'insurgency'. The American-intalled government is looking very shaky indeed. The problems there are getting worse, not better. We lost that war at Abu Ghraib; we showed the Iraqis just what kind of people run our country. The Iraqis will never, not EVER, accept any government we impose. It's just a matter of how many body bags we choose to fill before bailing out and watching that place turn into a firestorm.
Back at home, we have lost rights by the score. The government now has many, many powers to intrude into our lives that it has wanted for years, but which we (rightly) refused them. We have few protections against unreasonable search. We are building a surveillance society, the thing we feared most as a country for so many years. We are IN a police state, it's just not one that has shown its fangs very much yet.
We have lost habeas corpus. The government can call you an enemy combatant and disappear you.
Win? The terrorists didn't "win". They hit the FUCKING JACKPOT.
It's said that the Palestinians are simply too backward and dysfunctional to understand this concept. It's said that the Palestinians 'never miss an opportunity to ''miss an opportunity.'' Well, that is their problem, not ours.
Hell, you could take all the Palestinians and put them in the middle of the endless slums of Lagos or Nairobi or Abidjan or Kinshasa and they would just -disappear- as if they never existed.
The Palestinians don't realize how lucky they are to have the Israelis as the occupying force in their land.
Your views sir, are to be frank, extremely odious and an anethema to decent human compassion. You need to take history lessons. Fast.
May the Maths Be with you!
"And yet a government cannot do 'nothing' in response to a terrorist act or threat."
Simple answer. The U.S. should have used everything it had to swiftly and massively crush Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan, using every civilian airliner and ship it could find to get the forces there as quickly as it could. If Pakistan objected they should have been crushed too because the Pakistan secret service more than any other organization help nurture and create the Taliban and Al Qaeda and they are still unscathed today. They are also most probably still sheltering the Taliban and Al Qaeda today possibly including Bin Laden.
Instead they fought a weak proxy war in Afghanistan using local war lords, with very dubious motives and loyalties, mixed with special forces and air power(though there were very few actual targets to bomb). They managed to scatter Al Qaeda and the Taliban instead of ruthlessly crush it. They certainly failed to strike a crucial blow at Tora Bora. Once Al Qaeda and the Taliban made it to sanctuary in the tribal areas of Palestine and the mountains of Afghanistan they have gone largely untouched for the last four years.
Where did the U.S. focus its attention, and the lion's share of its military, money, and resource instead, Iraq which had NOTHING to do with 9/11 or Al Qaeda.
So today Al Qaeda is alive and well, spread around the globe, and using Iraq as a recruiting poster for the malevolence of the U.S. towards the Muslim world. Instead of crushing the problem at the source, the U.S. and British are engaged in a futile strategy to try to stop attacks which are by nature nearly impossible to stop. Israel has been trying for decades, using much harsher measures in a much smaller country and failed. The effort is costing a fortune and its mauling civil rights.
All in all it was a strategy conceived by morons who, to cover their tracks, constantly tell everyone what a great job they are doing, and what great war time administrations they are. In fact they are making no headway in the war and seem to mostly be playing right in to Al Qaeda's strategy. One of Al Qaeda's main goals is to launch a small number of attacks and let the U.S, Britain etc. mangle their own economies and political standing in the war with misguided overreaction.
In Iraq Al Qaeda no doubt sees a replay of Russia in Afghanistan. Tie up the U.S. there with an insurgency for the next 10 years and inflict massive economic, political and morale damage on the U.S and Britain. The U.S.S.R's misguided war in Afghanistan was the single biggest contributor to its ultimate collapse. Al Qaeda came in to being figthing that war with CIA backing and they no doubt want to repeat their victory in Iraq against their former benefactors.
@de_machina
It doesnt apply to everyone. For example the tabloid papers that printed satellite shots of "saddams WMD facilities" that incited support for the attack on iraq have not and will not be prosecuted. Neither will people like George Bush or Tony Blair who did their best to ensure the attacks were carried out.
If the police thought I arranged for someone to be killed regardless of whether it seemed good morally they would probably arrest and question me, if however you do the same on a grand scale and are the leader of the labour party they wont even bat an eyelid.
Bush and Blair ate my sig!