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

To: Sam who wrote (128598)	4/7/2004 1:02:07 AM
From: Hawkmoon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

(I just read a different quote to that effect saying that we've killed or captured about 2/3 of Al Qaeda). Do you believe what they are saying? Yes... I believe that Al-Qaeda leadership has been severely disrupted and their primary funding sources curtailed. They are being forced back into a lower intensity of operations, bombing trains and car bombs, rather than major attacks.. I may be wrong, but that's my current belief until proven otherwise. We're making good progress in Pakistan by apparently seeing Musharraf get on board with bringing the N.W regions of the country more under government control. We're seeing the Saudi royals finally getting more serious about the militant rhetoric coming out of their clerics. Not yet perfect, but progress.. But we may see another 9/11 style event that reinvigorates the militants, creating a new "hero" du jour, in whom the "arab street" will vainly place their hopes for economic and social salvation from their plight. You act like the "muslim world" is some monolith. Hardly the case. In fact, I believe there is a cultural and social civil war going on in the muslim world. A war between non-violent moderates and progressives and far more violent militants. But I do believe the muslim, overall, has a real distrust of the US and its intentions in Iraq. This is due to decades of neglect for their condition and aspirations, support of corrupt regimes, and even possibly babying them too much by catering to their petro-dollars and OPEC. But the militancy was there in Iraq. And lord knows they had fertile ground for it given the repression Saddam inflicted upon them. And maybe not illogically, they believed the US was supporting Saddam, since we permitted him to remain in power after the gulf war in order to quell the fears of neighboring Arab states. Hawk