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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tekboy who wrote (48690)	10/1/2002 8:53:04 PM
From: Win Smith	Respond to of 281500

On which this NYT article: Book by Clinton Aides Says Saudi Diplomat Misled F.B.I. Chief nytimes.com Previously noted in #reply-18059923

To: tekboy who wrote (48690)	10/1/2002 10:29:58 PM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

but were stymied by bosses I assume you mean Tony Lake. I have read some very negative things about him and his assistant, (The Female one, forget her name) and their approach to the Middle East. He is, of course, doing a lot of CYA today. Since he was turned down for CIA Chief, I assume he wasn't universally loved. Can you give us any info on him?

To: tekboy who wrote (48690)	10/1/2002 11:11:21 PM
From: Ilaine	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

A lot of the rest of us--including me and Pollack--were not convinced that the threat from bin Laden was as grave as proved to be the case. Odd. This afternoon I researched the terrorists that the State Department has extradited and prosecuted over the past 20 or so years, and the vast majority of them were associated with Al Qaeda. state.gov In point of fact, most of them were associated with Ramzi Yousef, or should I say "Ramzi Yousef," whom it is most expedient to assume was assocated with bin Laden, and rather daring to argue was associated with Iraq.

To: tekboy who wrote (48690)	10/3/2002 12:09:05 AM
From: Hawkmoon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

I recall when I first researched Islamic Fundamentalism while in college back in the late '80s.. Did some graduate work on political risk in Egypt and I was struck by the fanatical nature of many of the members of the Muslim Brotherhood (suicidal assassination of Sadat.. etc) and goals.. I also admit that I was heavily influenced by Robin Wright's work "Sacred Rage".. I have never dicounted the will of these people to cause whatever maximum destruction they felt they could get away with. The 1993 WTC bombing proved that point beyond all previous examples since the target involved 50,000 innocent people and the hope that building would collapse onto Wall St. Then we had the embassy bombings where hundreds of innocent civilians were killed (the majority non-Americans)... And Khobar Towers, where a friend of the family was residing when the bomb went off, miraculously surviving the blast). It's just been evident that these guys have been escalating the level of their violence and trying to desensitize the world to just "getting on with life". They were pushing to see where the US would finally be provoked to react in a manner than they felt would unify Muslims to launch their great Jihad against the West. And I still believe that, given the opportunity, we're in store for even greater devastation.. Because the "die has been cast" and folks like Saddam and the Ayatollahs know that they window of opportunity is fading fast now that the anger of the US has been awakened. Sure they hoped we would just roll over and go back to "business as usual", because that's what Europe and many other nations have done. But obviously they were wrong. And the host of attacks don't even have to be against human beings. Our agricultural economy could be devastated through the use of select biological agents, should they be distributed widely enough in a coordinated attack. I still have that fleeting suspicion that there is more to the hoof and mouth outbreak in England than we hear about. But that could just be the conspiratorial side of me which has been aggravated by the events of 9/11. The precedent of 9/11 has created the impetus to undertake political and military actions that would have been politically impossible during the Clinton years (although the embassy bombings were sufficient in my opinion to do what we did after 9/11 in going after Bin Laden). Hawk