Frankly t, I don't think GWB has much to do with it at all. Sure, his rhetoric does'nt help but that is small potatoes compared to what seems to be driving these guys.
How long is an operation in the planning stages?
The minimum appears to be four to six months, with some plans evolving over years. The surveillance of the East Africa embassy bombings began in 1993, five years before the bombing was carried out. The 9/11 attacks took five years to plan and carry out. The first plan was brought to bin Laden by Khalid Sheik Mohammed in 1996, then reshaped by bin Laden. Final preparations began a full two years before 9/11.
GWB was Govenor then.
Why did bin Laden declare a “fatwa,” or religious decree, against the United States?
U.S. intelligence officials believe bin Laden began to turn against the United States in the mid-1980s — a time when he still accepted aid and training from the CIA, which was then helping bin Laden and other Islamic groups fight the Soviet Army in Afghanistan. The CIA funneled its aid through the Pakistani secret service, the ISI, to various cells in Afghanistan, one of them known as the MAK. In 1984, bin Laden broke with the MAK and formed a separate, more radical splinter group that espoused a harsh, fundamentalist version of Islam that was dedicated to the liberation of Islamic nations from any foreign influences. Particularly infuriating to him was America’s cozy relationship with the Saudi Royal family since the Gulf War. But bin Laden’s first public “fatwa” came only after the Gulf War. Specifically, he railed against the presence of American and European troops on the soil of the Arabian Peninsula, site of Islam’s holiest cities, Mecca and Medina. Since then, U.S. intelligence officials say, bin Laden has been behind an unprecedented campaign of attacks on U.S., European, Israeli, Russian and other interests around the planet. In 1998, he broadened his “fatwa” to specifically include civilian targets.
msnbc.msn.com
They just don't want us there, at all. That's why I posted to youwhat I did about FC's. Unless and until we are prepared to leave the Middle East, just wash our hands of the region completely, and watch while Isreal is pushed into the sea, we will be at war with these guys. Then there are other strains of radical Islam that would'nt even be happy with that.
JMHO |
