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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dayuhan who wrote (36116)	3/22/2004 10:11:25 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Respond to of 793917

Hardly matters, really. Who cares if the desire to blow people up is a function of resentment, anger, desperation, or a bad mood? The point is that a large number of Pakistanis think it is ok to blow us up I disagree. Diagnosing it as a very bad mood has limited predictive powers. If you notice that there is a driving ideology, you have a better chance to understand the ideology, and to work to discredit it. given that Pakistan has a nuclear arsenal and that the Pakistani military and intelligence apparatus has numerous and close connections to terrorists, is a situation that should concern us I think would it be fair to say that it does concern us very greatly. Bush has chosen to work with/armtwist Gen. Musharref in an effort to attack Al Qaeda. What is his other choice? What are you suggesting, a pre-emtive strike on Pakistan? I’m not so sure about this. There are lots of prosperous Muslims in the UAE, Kuwait, and other places who talk the Islamist talk, but very few take it to the level of actual participation, far less to the level of blowing themselves up. It’s always going to be easier to generate fanaticism among the desperate Easier, sure, but desperation is not necessary, if the true belief is there. I need hardly point out to you that Osama bin Laden and Ayman al Zawahiri both come from backgrounds of wealth and privilege. None of the Sept 11th hijackers could have been called either poor or desperate, either. It is more useful to note that a fantasy ideology has greater sales appeal among people who have nothing much else to believe in or hope for. But the drivers of the ideology are middle class. This has been true in every mass political movement since the French Revolution. Sure, the army can defeat any terrorist group in combat, but combat, especially on a large scale, is very rare in the fight against terrorists I don't think you've been following events in Iraq. You aren't give enough credit to the training of US troops, either. They have learned to fight guerilla ambushes so effectively that the terrorist are largely giving up attacks on soldiers, preferring to go after softer civilian targets. Since this means that they are killing mostly Iraqis, it presents a 'hearts and minds' problem for them too.