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.'"

Comments

Re:Strange

[demachina]

"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.