He is intelligent yet crazy, a dangerous combination. He has very small number of followers but they are willing to die for the cause.
I wonder if he's crazy period...or crazy like a fox. Certainly, attacking the WTC gives the impression of being crazy [and evil], but I could see how a sane, rational person could justify the attack. I am sure that the soony faction considers itself at war with the USA, and that this attack was simply a part of this war. The fact that civilians were killed I think means little to the military mindset although they sometimes profess concern.
He like many Moslem is against the proliferation of "unislamic" elements like playboy and soap operas. He believes that US is very much responsible for this and he is against US foreign policy in his "holy land".
Is it really that they don't like the proliferation of unislamic things, or is that the excuse and what they really don't like is our incursion in middle eastern affairs? Were we to pull out of the middle east completely, including ending our support of Israel, do you think that the Muslim terrorists would back off?
Re <<Do you have a feeling of how visible the terrorist organization is to the average Muslim?>>
To an average Moslem, zero. Keep in mind that there are about 1 Billion Moslems in the world. According to %99.99 of the Moslem, terrorist and Laden are regarded as who they are, radicals with complete disregard to humanity and real fundamentals of Islam. Christianity does not support killing abortion doctors, and 99.99% of the Christians do not see it that way.
So the people that we see in the streets cheering bin Laden on are not representative of the majority? But doesn't bin Laden have great appeal to the Muslim kid growing up in the slums of Bagdad or Kabul?
Re <<A couple of articles on bin Laden say that he is opposed to the current Saudi gov't? Are the Saudis perceived like Americans...fat and rich?>>
He is against Saudi Government because the Saudi government is allowing US to occupy the Moslem land. He believes that Saudi government is allowing US to proliferate non Islamic principle into a wholly land.
What part of Saudi Arabia is the holy land....is it just Mecca? I don't understand how he can hold the US accountable if its the gov'ts of Saudi Arabia or Yemen or the UAR that allow women to go out publicly without a veil or allow playboy to be sold in the stores?
I can understand how our occupation of middle eastern land for bases and the like would upset the underground factions, or even that we covet middle eastern oil but I don't get the concern over non islamic issues.....maybe because I am not a religious fundamentalist; however, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria etc. are already very conservative would it not be easier to get the gov'ts to implement more conservative laws than to go after the US?
What's your thought re my concern that if we kill bin Laden, we turn him into a martyr? This man is very dangerous...to his people he is a saint, and to the West and other Muslims, he's the devil. The truth probably lies somewhere in the middle.
ted |
