Of course I'm not privy to all the intelligence gathered by our spy agencies, but I do have a close friend who is a former very high official in the CIA and runs a business in international intelligence, and he is quite clear that the involvement of the Islam world is far more than has been publicly revealed. We do know that al Qaeda had a lot of financial support from a lot of sources, including I am convinced more than a few members of the Saudi royal family. They had well financed, well organized training camps in several countries, of course Afghanistan, but also the Sudan, Pakistan, and almost certainly elsewhere. They had a network of safe houses in many major cities, which takes organization and money. They had accounts in several major banks, some of which must have either known at least in general outline what sort of clients they had, or were carefully and deliberately choosing not to know. So I do believe we're facing much more than " a small set of particularly (fundamentalist) Islamic groups." Those may be the only ones on the front lines, but there is a significant infrastructure behind them.
Our window of peace is an aberration in terms of history
I agree totally, and have said this many times in the past.
Here is a philosophical question: What if you could infect humans with a biological agent that killed their belief in an
absolute god? The introduction of this agent would give world peace but eliminate organized religion. How would you
feel about such a solution?
I think the result would be the same as if you could infect humans with a biological agent that killed thier belief in the law of gravity.
Being called to dinner. More later, maybe. Or maybe not. <g> |
