Terrorism: What the Mainstream Press Doesn't Report

    Because of its war in Iraq, its troops in the Middle East, and its unwavering support of Ariel Sharon's government in Israel, the US is the primary target of catastrophic terrorism. Digital image copies have been made of important government buildings and monuments including the White House, Capitol, and the Washington, Lincoln and Jefferson memorials so damage to them could be repaired... or exact replicas could be built. Iodine pills to mitigate thyroid damage from nuclear fallout have been distributed to many government workers, including postal workers in New York City and Washington, DC. And serums to counteract numerous biological attacks have been distributed and are being stored in locations near major U.S. cities.
    In December, 2003 an Islamist Web site laid out a road map in a 42 page paper that concluded that while the Coalition forces in Iraq could not be defeated by a guerrilla insurgency, individual partners of the Coalition could be persuaded to depart. The paper noted that although an anti-war march in London in February before the war involving about 1,000,000 people was the biggest march of political protest in the history of Britain, it was unlikely the British would withdraw. Spain however, presented a striking opportunity since the war was almost universally unpopular, and so the Spanish government could be forced to withdraw its troops if it experienced “painful blows” before the upcoming election in March the following year. And if the Anzar government didn’t then withdraw its troops, “the victory of the Socialist Party is almost secured and the withdrawal of its troops will be on its electoral program. Moreover, the paper concluded that once Spain pulled out the pressure on Tony Blair would be unbearable and “the domino tiles would fall quickly.”
    This paper sent shock waves through the intelligence community. Before Al Qaeda’s goals had been limited to purging Western influences from the Islamic world, and especially Saudi Arabia, but offered no political platform or plan... and Bin Laden’s goals for the rest of the world seemed focused on killing Americans and their allies... i.e. success was measured by body count not political change. This paper in contrast had a clear strategic vision that was realistic as well as well-thought out. This is political science applied to jihad.” Haizam Amirah Ferandez, quoted in the New Yorker, The Terror Web by Lawrence Wright
    After the Madrid bombings on March 11th that killed 191 people, the Spanish Socialist Party indeed won the election and did in fact withdraw its troops from Iraq, and this set a precedent for accommodation that was quickly followed by the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Nicaragua, and the Philippines.
    On April 15th, 2004 Osama bin Laden spoke again offering

"a message to our neighbors north of the Mediterranean with a proposal for a peace treaty in response to the positive reactions
which emerged there.... What happened on September 11th and March 11th is your own merchandise coming back to you.... By
what measure of kindness are your killed considered innocents while ours are considered worthless? By what school [of thought]
is your blood considered blood while ours is water? Therefore it is only just to respond in kind and the one who started it is more
to blame. When you look at what has happened and is happening, the killing in our countries and in yours, an important fact
emerges, and that is that the oppression is forced on both of us and you by your politicians who send your sons, against your will,
to our country to kill and be killed. Therefore both sides have an interest in thwarting those who shed blood of the peoples for
their own narrow interests, out of vassalage to the White House gang. This war makes millions of dollars for big corporations,
either weapons manufacturers or those working in the reconstruction [of Iraq] such as Halliburton and its sister companies....
It is clear who benefits from igniting this war and this bloodshed: They are the merchants of war, bloodsuckers who run the
policy of the world from behind the scenes. President Bush and his ilk, the media giants, and the U.N. ... all are a fatal danger
to the world, and the Zionist lobby is their most dangerous member. Allah willing, we will persist in fighting them....
Therefore in order to thwart opportunities for the merchants of war, and in response to the positive developments that were
expressed in recent events and in the public opinion polls, which determined that most European peoples want peace".. bin
Laden urged the establishment of a "permanent commission to study the justice of the Islamic causes, especially Palestine.”
Bin Laden also offered a "peace treaty" with a commitment to halt all actions against any country that refrained from
attacking Muslims or intervening in their affairs, which would be effective "upon the exit of the last soldier of any given country
from our land." And "as for those who say we hate freedom and kill for the sake of killing," the reality according to bin Laden
was that killing Russians only happened after their invasion of Afghanistan and Chechnya, killing of Europeans only happened
after their invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, and killings of Americans only happened after "their support for the Jews in
Palestine and their invasion of the Arabian Peninsula."

    This message was not publicized in America, perhaps being seen as propaganda for bin Laden. The FBI called the message the “weirdest thing in the world" and said it showed bin Laden was "on the ropes and desperate." Surely, as Saudi Arabia shows, appeasement is a foolish strategy for dealing with al Qaeda. And interestingly many of bin Ladens' rants against the U.N. and the "bloodsuckers who run the world's policy from behind the scenes" wouldn't be out of place on the more radical American militia and far right webpages. But many (of the few Americans who have read this message) find bin Laden's references to politicians, public opinion polls, and Halliburton to be disconcerting... because they show a knowledge of our system and a logical strategy to advance his agenda. And as others have noted, the fact that bin Laden was addressing nations as an equal showed a new confidence in Al Qaeda’s ability to manipulate the political future. And a subsequent message taunted who would be next, and indicated the terrorists would try to replicate their success in Spain by disrupting the November U.S. elections. “We are very keen that Bush does not lose the upcoming elections... [since his] idiocy and religious fanaticism” are useful in stirring the Islamic world to action.”

But as noted below, a logical adversary may be preferable to an illogical one.
     "As long as Al Qaeda is seen as being an irrational unyielding death cult, the only response is to destroy it.... The Bush
administration has neither explained to the American public the true nature of the threat it faces from a growing Islamic insurgency,
nor does it fully understand this threat itself. Contrary to administration assertions, bin Laden is not an irrational nihilist who hates
America because of her freedoms and representative form of government.   Rather, bin Laden is a highly patient, experienced, cunning,
and immensely capable adversary who is waging jihad against the United States to achieve logical and attainable aims – to remove the
United States as the dominate power in the Middle East and to ensure that the Arab people benefit from their region’s oil revenue by
receiving a fairer price per barrel.... Unfortunately, thus far the Bush administration has proven far more adept at fooling itself and the
American public than it has in deceiving the enemy." Scott O’Reilly
    The Internet is the key facilitator.. “in the old days one sought a fatwa from the sheik who had the best knowledge. Now it is sought
from the one with the best Web site.” When we started seven years ago there were only 12 terrorists Web sites... now there are more
than 4,000... you can download music, donate money, receive training... Articles include kidnaping, poisoning, and specific targets are
discussed like the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta, or FedWire, the Federal Reserve money-clearing system. " L Wright
    “In the end the only people who effectively can stop suicide bombers are those in the community they come from. Only if their
political and spiritual leaders de-legitimize suicide bombing, only if their security forces and intelligence agencies are mobilized to
prevent it, can it really be stopped.” T. Friedman asking Israeli security experts what they learned from dealing with Palestine suicide
bombers that might help America.
Cheyna is playing a larger role in the worldwide jihad... terrorists are being trained to exploit the technical advantages of developed
countries... some of these groups have the capacity to hijack a satellite, shutting down communication grids, power grids... and defenses...

    “The next four years will be the most dangerous in the nation’s history because the 9/11 attacks were pinpricks compared with a clear and almost present menace. This year’s pre-eminent question, besides which all others pale: Which candidate can best cope with the threat of nuclear terror?” George Will 8/29/04
    “The involvement of professional smugglers and criminals only increases the odds that some of the radiological materials will end up in the hands of terrorists, U.S. experts say. Already the sheer volume of such materials in circulation has prompted scientists at the Los Alamos National Laboratory to conclude, in a study released in September, that a dirty bomb “attack somewhere in the world is overdue.” At least 3 times since 1999, officials have discovered kilogram caches of uranium in vehicles leaving or entering Georgia.... A “well-logger” device used to search for underground oil using a powerful capsule of radioactive material was lost by Haliburton in Nigeria. Haliburton conducted its own search for several weeks before notifying the U.N. nuclear watchdog of the loss. Several months later the well-logger turned up in a private scrap yard... in Germany, more than 3200 miles from Niger.” J. Warrick, Washington Post

    After the Cuba Missile crises leaders in the the Kennedy administration, knowing how close to the brink we had been, believed its citizens should be better prepared for a potential nuclear war by urging everyone to prepare by building and stocking bomb shelters. Life Magazine had a drawing of a modern bomb shelter on the cover of one of its weekly issues, and even the clergy got involved to help decide if someone who had built a bomb shelter could use a gun to prevent neighbors who hadn’t made the same precautions from trying to break into their shelters.... But all the efforts backfired because too few could make the necessary precautions to make much of a difference, and it left the citizens with a deep sense of foreboding especially since they felt powerless in the face of such a calamity. The 9-11 attacks thus give some sense of comfort since unlike a massive nuclear war in the 1960-80's that would destroy large parts of the planet, even multiple terrorists nuclear attacks would be isolated enough that recovery woulld be possible... and indeed any terrorists will hopefully be logical and rational enough to want to terrorize U.S. citizens and their government but not destroy the U.S. economy since so many other countries depend on it...

    "Muslim immigration is transforming all of Europe. Nearly 25 million people in the European Union identify themselves as Muslim. Either we train our Muslim population to become modern global citizens who live in a pluralistic democratic society or we’re in serious trouble..." L. Wright
"Europe has given us opportunities our own countries didn’t give us. Our children are in school, and we are working. Thousands of families in Morocco can live with the money we get here. Nobody with common sense could talk about going back to that. It’s a disease.” Mustapha el-M’Rabet on living in Europe
    Fundamentalist Muslims are winning in most places in the Middle East because of our actions in Iraq and because of our unqualified support of Ariel Sharon... But they are also winning because the fundamentalist Muslims control schools and aid... Most Muslims would choose secular rather than theocratic schools and aid if offered, but instead we put most of our money in guns and weapons.