PEROMANESTE
Cine-si mai aminteste cat de greu a fost multi ani dupa 1990 sa obtii la Bucuresti o viza pentru un stat occidental, mai ales daca nu erai vreun delicvent recidivist? Intre timp vesticii se inmulteau cu populatii care, in cel mai bun caz, le vor trebui generatii sa se integreze in cele gazda, iar in cel mai rau caz isi arunca gazdele inocente in aer.
Sunt voci care spun ca solutia este dialogul. Raspunsul la dialog s-ar putea sa fie amanarea unei solutii pana cand mult sange nevinovat va curge. Dialogul singur nu poate decat sa-i transforme pe teoreticienii terorii in profesionisti ai retoricii (vestice)--asta in plus fata de retorica islamului militant. Vesticii le vor da o sumedenie de motive pentru asta (ipocrizia fiind usor de pus in capul listei), iar islamicii militanti vor suna din ce in ce mai mult ca defunctii marxisti pe care se pare ca-i inlocuiesc pe scena ideologica a lumii contemporane.
Nota Bene: Ca masura a dificultatii Vestului, Marea Britanie deocamdata are mari probleme in a defini (legal) terorismul caci pentru britanici e greu sa-i distinga de 'luptatori pentru libertate'.
De la: lucid din Bucuresti
sa va dau un subiect de gandire
Acum cateva zile o colega de la un postdoc la Londra imi spunea ca circula niste cifre apocaliptice privind persoanele cu potential terorist care trebuie puse sub observatie in Marea Britanie (politiei ii este pur si simplu frica sa le faca publice). Undeva intre doua sute de mii pana catre un milion (criterii cunoscute: vizite sau rude in Pakistan, Irak, Iran etc, frecventari anumite moschei sau scoli coranice, etc). Are cineva date mai concrete?
De la: synd din Germania
Raport asupra atentatelor din Londra
Guvernul de la Londra a respins concluziile unui raport independent care susţine că sprijinul militar acordat Statelor Unite în Irak a crescut pericolul atacurilor extremiste în Marea Britanie.
Raportul realizat de Chatham House, un influent institut de cercetare, susţine că sprijinul acordat de Marea Britanie invadării Irakului a amplificat activităţile organizaţiei Al Qaeda, de recrutare, propagandă şi colectare de fonduri.
Studiul Chatham House a fost realizat înaintea atentatelor de la Londra.
Concluzia că Marea Britanie este ameninţată de terorismul internaţional din cauza alianţei extrem de strânse cu Statele Unite a provocat răspunsul prompt al guvernului de la Londra.
Jack Straw, ministrul de externe britanic, a declarat că asemenea concluzii sugerează că atentatele din 11 septembrie din Statele Unite ar fi avut loc după războaiele din Afganistan şi Irak - când de fapt acestea au fost răspunsul la un atac premeditat şi neprovocat împotriva Statelor Unite.
"A trecut vremea găsirii de scuze în favoarea terorismului. Teroriştii au atacat în toată lumea atât în ţări aliate cu Statele Unite, cât şi în ţări care nu au nimic de-a face cu războiul din Irak. Teroriştii vor găsi întotdeauna scuze pentru faptele lor şi este răspunderea lumii civilizate să ia atitudine împotriva terorismului", a spus Jack Straw.
În cele opt pagini ale sale, raportul face afirmaţii controversate. Susţine că Marea Britanie ar fi secundul Statelor Unite în războiul din Irak, ceea ce ar fi afectat negativ campania împotriva terorismului din Marea Britanie.
Unul dintre autorii săi, profesorul Paul Wilkinson, spune că Al Qaeda a reuşit să exploateze ocupaţia din Irak în scopuri propagandistice.
"Nu avem nici un dubiu că Marea Britanie a fost pe lista ţintelor terorismului mult înaintea războiului din Irak. Dar, dacă ne uităm la evoluţia acestui conflict putem vedea că Al Qaeda l-a exploatat la maximum şi credem că rezultatul este un pas înapoi în lupta împotriva Al Qaeda", a spus unul dintre autori.
Autorii raportului spun că acesta nu face decât să explice situaţia, că nu încearcă nici să explice atentatele din Londra şi nici nu sugerează că Marea Britanie ar fi trebuit să acţioneze altfel decât a făcut-o.
Guvernul de la Londra spune însă că terorismul este o problemă internaţională şi că extremiştii vor ucide pe oricine stă în calea propriei lor ideologii.
(sursa: http://www.bbc.co.uk/romanian/news/story/2005/07/printable/050718_raport_chatham.shtml)
PEROMANESTE
Daca punem impreuna postingurile lui Lucid (cel cu estimarile politiei britanice asupra numarului de suspecti) si synd (Chatham House), vedem ca in Marea Britanie, opozantii pozitiei guvernamentale cu privire la razboiul din Irak castiga teren.
Hai sa ne gandim la viitor pentru un moment: Cine crede ca prin retragerea englezilor, acesti tineri britanici ce au imbratisat islamul ca alternativa la succes in societatea occidentala vor depune armele? Sistemele sociale au inertia foarte mare: le-au luat ani sa inceapa, le vor lua probabil ani sa se opreasca...
De la: synd
Inclin sa cred ca este deja prea tarziu. Terorismul a dobandit o dinamica proprie si a atins un asemenea nivel de barbarie, incat cred ca retragerea partiala a trupelor britanice sau americane nu prea mai poate modifica esential datele problemei. Europenii si americanii trebuie sa se astepte la escaladarea masiva a acestui conflict.
Doua viziuni trebuie insa, in mod fundamental, evitate:
1. Preluarea puterii politice de catre fundamentalisti in Pakistan
2. Dotarea armatei iraniene cu arma nucleara
PEROMANESTE
Spunem cam acelasi lucru, cred. Cele doua viziuni trebuie sa includa altele 2 (cel putin):
a) Korea de Nord
b) Modificarile interne ale democratiilor vestice pentru a face fata teroristilor de acasa. Multe din tarile vestice au deja ceva experienta in sensul asta, nu la scara asta se pare.
Intrebare pentru tine synd:
Cum poate fi evitat un regim islamic in Pakistan? Intrebare aditionala: armata SUA e deja solicitata (numeric) in Irak aproape de limita. Daca iranienii nu fac vreun gest sa trezeasca america de acasa, cu ce trupe se poate opri Iranul de la ambitiile-i (post-)nucleare?
De la: synd
Observatii:
1. Includerea Coreii de Nord in acest conflict al culturilor nu este corecta. Nord-coreenii sunt comunisti din "epoca de piatra", care nu exercita nicaieri in lume o anume atractie si sunt incapabili de prozelitism.
2. Nu stiu ce intelegi prin "modificarile interne ale democratiilor vestice pentru a face fata teroristilor de acasa" . In masura in care aceste "modificari" vizeaza, in viziunea dumitale, elementele esentiale ale unei societatii democrate(libertatea expresiei, inviolabilitatea domiciliului, dreptul la asociere, etc., etc.), iar ele vor avea realmente loc, atunci rezultatul va limitarea, as zice inevitabila si progresiva, a democratiei cu consecintele cunoscute de catre romani. Este tocmai ceea ce urmaresc teroristii musulmani: inlaturarea "decadentei civilizatiei europene".
3. Nu detin informatii detaliate cu privire la Pakistan. Stiu doar, si acesta este esentialul, ca majoritatea populatiei tarii este islamic-conservativa. Acolo se afla numeroase scoli religioase islamice. Unul sau mai multi din cei patru presupuni atentatori din Londra au vizitat, potrivit informatiilor de presa, asemenea scoli in anul 2004. Presiunea asupra puterii trebuie sa fie enorma acolo si cred ca un rol extrem de important il au serviciile de contrainformatii pakistaneze.
4. Nu stiu in ce masura societatea americana va fi dispusa, dupa "experienta irakiana", sa sustina o noua interventie US, de data asta in Iran. Este cert ca americanii ar dispune atat de resursele umane cat si de capacitatea militara necesare.
5. Daca interventia US in Irak a fost o mare eroare, cred ca retragerea completa a trupelor aliate de pe teatrul irakian de lupta, in circumstantele actuale, ar fi o catastrofa.
PEROMANESTE
1. Includerea Coreii de Nord in acest conflict al culturilor nu este...
S-a dovedit exitenta unor schimburi de elemente pentru programele nucleare dintre Pakistan si Corea de Nord. Este vorba de proliferare si nord-coreenii n-au scrupule.
> 2. Nu stiu ce intelegi prin "modificarile interne ale...
synd, ai inteles foarte bine. Acele schimbari se fac deja simtite in SUA de un timp. Retine, in comparatie cu (state cheie din) Europa, SUA este totusi izolata, iar minoritatea islamica este foarte scazuta.
> 3. Nu detin informatii detaliate cu privire la Pakistan. Stiu doar, si ...
Vezi costul alegerian al opozitiei la islamism. In Pakistan, de bine de rau, mai exista iluzia democratiei cu Musharaf. Acolo cred ca e un dublu contract:
a) la interior: nu ne bagam unii pe altii cat timp avem ce manca;
b) la exterior: ai grija cu indianul.
Pe amandoua dimensiunile, americanii/Vestul pot influenta, insa trebuie timp si energie.
> 4. Nu stiu in ce masura societatea americana va fi dispusa, dupa...
Am sugerat o posibilitate: instigarea americanilor de vreun act iranian.
> 5. Daca interventia US in Irak a fost o mare eroare, cred ca...
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6 comentarii:
Cineva mentiona printre tintele teroristilor "distrugerea decadentei occidentale" prin limitarea libertatilor deomcratice. Insa eu cred ca asta este un calcul fundamental gresit al celor care-l fac si sustin, in special pt musulmani ca civilizatie. Sa ne gandim putin la alternativa la democratiile de tip vestic. Sa incercam sa privim detasat, ca cineva care se uita la aceasta ciocnire de civilizatii de pe orbita. Vom observa ca "citind" putina istorie
o alternativa f aproape de ce ar putea fi cu adevarat este dictatura nazista. Sa facem un exercitiu de memorie si sa ne amintim ca ascensiunea lui Hitler s-a facut cu suportul maselor terifiate de perspectiva comunismului . Trebuie remaract aici ca bolsevismul era privit ca o ideologie a raului care atenteta la modul de viata al germanilor de atunci (vede cineva similitudinile cu modul de viata care ne este amenintat). Acum sa incercam sa privim in viitor, dupa un inca un eventul 9/11, chiar mai devastator (Doamne fereste!). In SUA neoconservatorii (ulii) sunt deja f puternici si ar putea profita de un astfel de atac pt a instaura o dictatura (asta s-ar putea intampla nu numai in SUA). Sincer acum cred ca va dati seama ca SUA sunt mult mai puternice decat era Germania acum 70 de ani si ar putea sa rezolve "problema" musulmana intr-un mod devastator, dar f eficient. Daca nu ma credeti imaginati-va cum ar fi aratat un atac de genul 9/11 intr-o Germanie castigatore a razboiului si atotputernica. Cam cati musulmani "ar fi ajuns sapun" fara nici o discriminare dupa numai o luna, dar dupa un an. Dupa cateva decenii cred ca s-ar fi ajuns ca in bancul acela cu
tatal si copilul care se plimba in Manhattan (sau pe sub poarta Brandenburg ca sa ramanem in tonul comentariului) si in care copilul intreaba ce sunt 'Gemenii' iar tatal ii raspunde ca au sunt doua blocuri f inalte care acum 30 de ani au fost distruse de araci. Si copilul replica: dar 'arabii' ce sunt?!
PS: Oare asta isi dorec fanaticii, un Hitler modern cu mana pe butonul nuclear. Sa aiba grija ce-si doresc, s-ar putea sa obtina!
Anonim, argumentul tau pare sa fie urmatorul: islamistii nu stiu ce vor, caci in cazul in care ar stii si-ar da seama ca un regim autoritar (in SUA/Vest) ar aduce cu sine si distrugerea lor. Interesanta aceasta linie de gandire...
O posibila problema ar putea fi vizibila tot de pe orbita, caci oamenii de jos (masele) vor fi de mult cuprinsi in frenezia evenimentelor. Este vorba de costul resimtit de insesi cetatenii unui regim autoritar/dictatorial din Vest. In alte cuvinte, nu numai islamicii militanti vor fi distrusi ci si societatea vestica insasi.
Genul acesta de rationament, assured mutual distruction, a fost ceea ce a tinut URSS-ul si SUA-ul in pace 45 de ani. Aceasta a fost posibil si din cauza ca si americanii si rusii puneau un pret prea mare pe viatza lor pentru a atenta la a celuilalt. Prima problema ar fi ca cel putin teroristii sunt sinucigasi--deci viata pentru ei nu conteaza atat de mult ca pentru vestici...
Oricum, multumiri de comentarii si revino!
De la: Ratacitul
Corectitudine politica idioata
Daca, asa cum sustin unii, scopul terorismului este distrugerea modului de viata occidental, cu parere de rau trebuie sa remarc ca incet, incet chiar asta se intampla.
E o parere strict personala, dar cred ca la aceasta finalitate conduce un concept de ultima moda (deceniu) inventat de societatile occidentale, conceptul de corectitudine politica. Ca s-a ajuns la aberatii de genul celei in care orbul nu e orb ci dizabilitat vizual o stie toata lumea; mai putin cunoscut este impactul conceptului asupra securitatii nationale a statelor.
Pornesc de la premisa ca, niciodata si nicaieri in lume, resursele alocate securitatii nationale nu sunt suficiente. Intr-o asemenea situatie si un buticar stie ca trebuie sa-si organizeze prioritatile si sa sa aloce resursele corespunzator.
Ce se intampla in domeniul securitatii nationale? Se iau masuri de genul: toate telefoanele vor fi ascultate, toate persoanele vor fi ampretate, toate...., toti... . Asta in conditiile in care totusi grupul tinta a fost identificat: fundamentalistii islamici, adica probabil 0,1% din persoanele supuse observarii acum! Nu putem face o aritmetica simpla de genul 100%-0,1%=99,9% si sa stabilim ca asta-i procentul de ineficacitate al sistemului dar este clar ca o buna parte, daca nu majoritatea resurselor alocate se risipeste. Astfel, e mult mai usor pentru teroristi sa gaseasca brese.
Atentatul din Londra e un exemplu concret. Judecand dupa cantitatea resurselor alocate securitatii londoneze, MAI ALES IN PERIOADA SUMMITULUI G8!, ar fi trebuit ca atacul multiplu sa nu fie posibil. El a fost posibil si, mai mult decat atat, a reusit datorita imprastierii resurselor de securitate.
Cauza mai profunda: idiotul sistem al corectitudinii politice: toti sunt egali, sa nu se supere Ahmed (O' Connor,mai modern, ha!), sa nu se deranjeze Hassan (Smith, de ultima moda, ha!), etc.
Ba sa se supere!
Daca nu fac nimic in sensul opririi coreligionarilor lor sa fie tratati corespunzator. Nu sa fie trimisi la Guantanamo, dar sa fie urmariti pas cu pas, sa le fie limitata libertatea de optiuni strict la cele fara potential periculos. Vizibil si pe fata. Cu mesaj clar: cat timp se continua asa, tratamentul vostru este asta. Sa vedem daca le mai convine sa fie cu curul in doua luntre: sa faca afaceri la Londra si sa dea bani in Maroc ca sa fie puse bombe...tot la Londra.
In al doilea razboi mondial, japonezii din SUA au fost inchisi in lagare. Decent, dar le-a fost ingradita libertatea de miscare pentru ca America voia sa fie sigura ca poate sa-si concentreze efortul de razboi acolo unde era normal sa se concentreze, nu aiurea, prin California. Cu regret, dar cred ca s-a ajuns intr-o situatie asemanatoare.
PS: Un alt concept idiot: democratizarea fortata....dar despre asta, altadata. Ca punct de plecare: pe mine nu ma deranjeaza deloc daca unii vor sa traiasca ca-n Evul mediu. Sa fie la ei, acolo...
De la: George-Felix
Re: Corectitudine politica idioata
Ratacitule,
Mai tii mite ce scandal imens a fost cand SUA au incercat sa face "profiling" si adica sa cerceteze mai tare musulmanii care intrau in tara? Nici macar nu era oficial, nici macar nu era o lege, era doar vorba de o reglementare interna a "serviciilor".., si a iesit un haloimas pe cinste.
SI in aceiasi directie chiar daca e usor off-topic. Cand SUA au declarat ca ei nu dau nici un cetatean american catre TPI la Haga, a fost un scandal imens. Ieri, curtea constituinala a Germaniei a interzis livrarea unui presupus terorist catre Spania. (se pare ca era implicat in bombele de la Madrid) Cucu reactie, toata lumea tace malc si baiatul va fi eliberat daca nu o fi deja liber.
Felix
De la: Sobru
Re: Corectitudine politica idioata-ratacit
Terorismul insusi a fost inventat ca dusman, in logica stramba a celor care propovaduiesc "corectitudinea politica". Corectitudinea politica este o plaga ce se intinde, pentru ca, stramba fiind, are totusi o logica. Si comunismul avea o logica. Ea se bazeaza pe un rationament corect pus pe o baza eronata. Totul incepe deci, dupa ce ai inghitit primul hap. Dupa asta, incet dar sigur mintile oamenilor(culmea, a unor oameni chiar instruiti) sint prinse si nu mai scapa. Vezi interzicerea fumatului, adica "binele cu sila", iar de la asta la "democratizarea fortata" etc.
Ceea ce ai facut tu e un talmes balmes, caci daca gandeai corect nu erai pesedist de exemplu. Faptul ca "toti sint egali" nu tine draguta de aberatia numita corectitudine politica ci de un principiu democratic, identic cu realitatea. Corectitudinea politica incepe cand categoria "x" incepe sa aiba privilegii, pentru ca vezi Doamne, e asuprita. Iar asta e altceva.
De la: Omul din Himalaya din Bucuresti
Sobru, cu fumatul ai infipt oistea in gard
Nu va mai repeziti fratilor la prima analogie care va trece prin cap si la prima comparatie care va rasare in minte. Interzicerea fumatului nu este "bine cu de-a sila" ci protectia nevinovatului care nu fumeaza, dar este obligat de fumatori sa inhaleze otrava. Ai fi avut dreptate daca se interzicea consumul cafelei.
Cat despre asa-zisa "corectitudine politica", care de fapt e discriminarea pozitiva (a se citi privilegierea) minoritatilor, nu stiu de ce va mai iluzionati ca a fost inventata din cauza a nu stiu ce idealuri nobile, de pastrare a diversitatii, cand nu este vorba decat de cinicul si mereu functionalul "divide et impera".
De la: ingineru
Re: Corectitudine politica idioata... corect !
PC-ul (nu calculatoru' :-) pare sa fie unul din principalele semne ca societatea nord-americana a luat-o pe aratura. Altele ar mai fi: outsourcing-ul iresponsabil si caracterul litigios al societatii, dar astea-s pt. alte "ocazii"...
Nu cred insa ca s-a ajuns la "point of no return". Iar atentalele de genul asta nu fac decat sa influeteze opinia publica, dar in sensul opus celui sperat de atentatori. O societate matura precum cea nord-americana poate restrange temporar drepturile cetatenilor sai (ale unora sau ale tuturor), fara ca prin asta sa se transforme intr-o dictatura. Iar chestia asta e valabila chiar si in Ro (in ciuda spumelor facute de Sobru p-acilea in incercarea sa de a demonstra "sfarsitul lumii" democratice... El saracu' atata poate...:-))
Fii sigur ca daca vor mai avea loc vreo cateva atentate precum cele din Londra ori Madrid, "profilingul" va fi introdus "pe fata" (si nu "discret" ca acum). Nici lagarele de internare ori deportarile in masa nu mai par chiar asa de "fantastice" cum pareau acu' 10 ani.
Pana una-alta Americanii profita de ocazie sa-si mai reglementeze putin problema imigratiei ilegale, iar Canadienii sa-si mai faca ordine printre "azilantii" sai...
Democratizarea fortata e intr-adevar o prostie, dar cred ca americanii n-o fac din cine stie ce motive obscure ci din naivitate. Si sunt convins ca ei o vad ca pe o sansa acordata unora mai ghinionisti ca ei. Daca "aia" insa se vor incapatana sa vrea doar "prin balarii," probabil ca, destul de curand, li se va face pe voie...:-))
In definitiv toti pot vedea cu ochiul liber ce societate bogata si infloritoare a ajuns Vietnamul dupa "marea victorie"...
De la: Sobru
Guantanamo are rostul ei Re: Corectitudine politica idioata
Frustrarile personale, complexul de inferioritate si alte asemenea ,sint cele care fac dintr-un individ altminteri instruit, un soi de bruta semi-ganditoare. Numai asta poate face ca, precum prostul, sa nu mai stii care iti este interesul, si sa nu fii in stare sa pui in balanta doua lucruri, si sa cantaresti corect. Ce-i mai important, libertatea cu riscul atentatului, sau teroarea de stat si falsa siguranta in fata atentatelor, caci culmea, oricate masuri s-ar lua, ele tot degeaba ar fi? Sa fii atacat de "teroristi" este mai improbabil decat sa-ti frangi gatul intr-un canal pe strada, si cu mult mai improbabil decat sa te calce o masina. In schimb, cum am spus, oricate masuri de ingradire ar lua autoritatile, ele nu-ti indeparteaza teroarea, caci ea ar ramane psihologica, chiar daca ar disparea efectiv, dincolo de teroarea ingradirii libertatii ca atare.
Revenind la ce am spus initial, numai tarele psihice ale unora, ii pot face sa simta ultima stisfactie atunci cand invart deasupra capului o ghioaga imaginara cu care strivesc teroristi, fiind in stare sa sacrifice propria libertate doar pentru asta.
Ce-o fi priceput unul ca tine dintr-o dictatura nu stiu.
De la: progitmo
Sobrule, ce e rau daca moscheile sunt supravegheate?
In moscheile din UK se predica neincetat pentru jihad, pentru "martirajul" ce trebuie sa loveasca in TOTI infidelii (si tu esti considerat infidel daca nu esti musulman) si tot asa. Daca aia ce predica asemenea lucruri precum si cei ce merg regulat in acel lacasuri de cult ar fi urmariti, ce ingradire a libertatii ar fi pentru restul cetatenilor? Ce ingradire a libertatilor ar fi arestarea si intemnitarea celor ce spala creiere cu indemnuri la terorism?
Atat timp cat majoritatea musulmanilor din tari precum SUA, sau mai nou UK, nu isi afirma raspicat si repetat dezaprobarea directa fata de teroristii islamisti e naturala luarea lor sub observatie in bloc. De fiecare data cand sunt intrebati despre terorismul islamist, in cazul in care-l dezaproba (!?) tin sa aminteasca de existenta unor "cauze" ce ar genera asemenea crime.
Pana la invazia din Iraq majoritatea filozofilor de cafenea vedeu terorismul islamist ca un raspuns fata de politica israeliana, iar acum a fost inclus si Bush.
De la: Sobru
Re: Sobrule, ce e rau daca moscheile sunt supravegheate?
Instigarea la crima este infractiune. Trebuia sa-i ia pe sus.
Asta nu insemna ingradirea libertatii. Noi vorbim de masurile concrete care incalca principiile democratice, urmarirea cetatenilor, arestare doar pe baza de suspiciune, ceea ce inseamna de fapt aleator, controale fara mandat etc... Una-i una si-alta-i alta, nu le amesteca.
Invazia din Irak a fost facut ape baza de minciuni etc, nu mai are rost sa amintesc. Evident ca a facut mai rau prin efecte. Iar daramarea blocurilor din 11 sept tot pentru ca SUA au sustinut Israelul s-a intamplat. Ce sa aiba arabul cu americanul de peste un ditamai oceanul?
De la: progitmo
Re: Sobrule, ce e rau daca moscheile sunt supravegheate?
Sobru a scris:
> Instigarea la crima este infractiune. Trebuia sa-i ia pe sus.
In SUA e un profesor la nu mai stiu ce universitate care printre multe prelegeri in fata studentilor a declarat ca americanii omorati la 11 Septembrie si-au meritat soarta pentru ca au platit taxe unui guvern criminal (sic!) si mai nou a indemnat soldatii americani din Iraq sa nu se supuna ordinelor superiorilor, ba sa recurga chiar si la impuscarea acelor superiori. Inchipuieste-ti ca respectivului profesor nu i s-a clintit un fir de par pentru ca are spatele asigurat de o numeroasa turma de "aparatori ai drepturilor cetatenesti"...
> Asta nu insemna ingradirea libertatii. Noi vorbim de masurile concrete
> care incalca principiile democratice, urmarirea cetatenilor, arestare
> doar pe baza de suspiciune, ceea ce inseamna de fapt aleator,
> controale fara mandat etc...
Unde s-au intamplat acele grozavii si impotriva caror cetateni?
> Invazia din Irak a fost facut ape baza de minciuni etc, nu mai are
> rost sa amintesc. Evident ca a facut mai rau prin efecte.
Invazia din Iraq are rostul ei chiar daca motivarea s-a facut aiurea. Trebuia servit publicului un oarecare motiv. Trimiterea militarilor in Iraq va fi inteleasa si aprobata cu entuziasm mai tarziu.
> Iar
> daramarea blocurilor din 11 sept tot pentru ca SUA au sustinut
> Israelul s-a intamplat. Ce sa aiba arabul cu americanul de peste un
> ditamai oceanul?
Nu e adevarat. "Motivul" lor a fost prezenta americana din Arabia Saudita. Daca musulmanii ar fi murit de grija "palestinienilor" iordanienii nu i-ar fi decimat intr-o saptamana. Toti stiu ce necazuri aduc "palestinieni" si cel mai bun exemplu este distrugerea Libanului.
'We're Witnessing a Civil War in Islam'
Ian McEwan, 57, talks about the atmosphere in London after the attacks, the fight against religious fanatics, the legacy of Tony Blair, and his new book, "Saturday," which imagines a day lived in the shadow of terrorism.
SPIEGEL Where were you when the bombs went off?
McEwan: I was here, I was working. I knew nothing. I'd been to the American Embassy to get my visa. I was crossing London when the bombs went off and I wasn't even aware of it. I mean, I was maybe two miles from Tavistock Square. My first sense of the fact that something was going wrong was just the sheer level of police sirens around me. We're used to a certain kind of background, but suddenly the helicopters and the sirens were just overwhelming.
SPIEGEL: Your new book, "Saturday," is written in expectation of an act of terrorism. Now it has happened. What was your first thought when you heard it was a terrorist attack?
McEwan: It confirmed my book. I mean, it's not that I take any satisfaction from it, nor did I share any great insight, everybody's been waiting. But at the same time as waiting they're also forgetting because, you know, it's been four years since 9/11. Even Madrid, was 18 months ago. And, yes, at the end of the novel when Henry Perowne (the protagonist) is standing in the window he talks of Londoners waiting for its bombs. Well, you know, here it was. It's a bit like the death of an old parent. You could be waiting for it but that doesn't stop you from being shocked by it. As for my emotions, I felt furious, I really felt sickened with anger.
SPIEGEL: What was the atmosphere in London like?
McEwan: I was struck, as everyone else was, by the relative lack of panic and terror on the streets. People were remarkably calm; they certainly weren't calm in the way of being indifferent. I mean, everyone was -- there was a real sense of a cataclysm in the centre city, but there was not much you could do except be obedient to this vast army of policemen and people in yellow jackets.
SPIEGEL: A lot of the themes of your book are being played out on the streets today, particularly the idea that there is no refuge from terror. Even the family refuge is not safe.
McEwan: Exactly. There is no refuge and if you want to be in a city like London, with its relatively successful racial mix, it's impossible to defend. That's the other thing I wrote at the end of my book, that these possibilities were lying just open, so easy to do.
SPIEGEL: How can cities protect themselves?
McEwan: Inevitably, we're going to start seeing around the preposterous political correctness that allows us to have radical clerics preaching in mosques and recruiting young people. We have been caught too much by a sense that we can just regard these clerics as being like English eccentrics at Hyde Park Corner. But the problem is that their audience has already been to training camps.
SPIEGEL: But isn't the West providing the best advertisement for terrorist recruiters by being in Iraq and killing Islamic civilians, torturing Muslim prisoners a la Abu Ghraib and spreading pictures of the deeds around the world?
MCEWAN: I don't think terror needs a breeding ground. I don't buy the arguments in the Iraq war. What keeps getting forgotten here is that the people committing massacres in Iraq right now belong to al-Qaida. We're witnessing a civil war that's taking place in Islam. The most breathtaking statement was the one of al-Qaida claiming responsibility for the London bombings saying it was in return for the massacre in Iraq. But the massacres in Iraq now are being conducted by al-Qaida against Muslims. I also think it's extraordinary the way in which we get morally selective in our outrages. When there was a rumor that someone at Guantanamo Bay had flushed a Koran down the lavatory, the pages in The Guardian almost caught fire with outrage, but only months before the Taliban had set fire to a mosque and destroyed 300 ancient Korans.
SPIEGEL: In your book, the Iraq war still hasn't happened yet. And the day in which the book takes place, Feb. 15, 2003, is the day in which massive peace demonstrations took place in London. Henry's daughter Daisy is among the protesters and he is full of ire and sarcasm about them. He doubts they can rightfully claim morality for themselves. Do these passages echo your own ambivalent views on the matter?
McEwan: Yes, it does. I never thought that in the run up to the war we were discussing simply the difference between war and peace. We were discussing the difference between war and continued torture and genocide and abuse of human rights by a fascist state. I missed any sense of that complexity in the peace camp. I certainly had the feeling that whatever the strong moral arguments were for deposing Saddam, the Americans would not be good nation-builders. But I had a moral problem with this view among the 2 million protesters that you should leave Saddam in power in a fascist state with 27 million Iraqis under him. The problem is that they felt good about it. I thought they should have opposed the war but also felt bad about it.
SPIEGEL: Do you think invading Iraq was a mistake?
McEwan: I think if Bush and Blair could press a button and we could all fast forward backwards, rewind the tape, they'd probably do this differently. But I don't think they fully grasped, and even the anti-war (movement) could have never fully grasped the fantastic viciousness of the insurgency against its own people.
SPIEGEL: It's been said now that if we continue traveling with the Tube it's a bit like we're staring down terrorism. Isn't that a trivialization of the fears people have? People may not want to stand up to terrorism, but they do have to go to work.
McEwan: Exactly. But, we need every kind of warm gesture of solidarity and if people can feel some kind of collective facing down of this I think it's admirable.
SPIEGEL: Can it go too far? Yesterday a CNN business report said that going shopping now means fighting terrorism.
McEwan: Well, that's obviously absurd, but this city is resilient. At the same time, however horrific the events of July 7, it is not Grozny, it is not Sarajevo. And we do have a collective memory of the IRA bombing campaigns and, I guess, into the national narrative it's the Blitz. And I think it's when a city is partially, rather than totally, bombed you can have the spirit of resistance. In other words, 43,000 died in the Blitz so you can have the spirit of the Blitz. You could have no such spirit in Dresden.
SPIEGEL: Your book suggests we are currently living under a threat. And clearly, events show that we are. Yet, in Hyde Park people are sunbathing and shops are full. The city seems to be back to normal and having dealt with the terror in an amazingly cool way. So, have we grown used to terror?
McEwan: I think behind all this ease you see in the beautiful sunshine we're having, there is a lot of nervousness. I don't think Great Britain should go too far in promoting itself as a nation of emotionally stunted people who can't, you know, feel emotion. I see that the Spanish press said in Britain the term emotional is a word of abuse. But there has been a lot of emotion in the air, especially during the two minutes of silence at Tavistock Square last week. People also seem to be holding their breath. They don't know quite where this is leading.
SPIEGEL:Are you behaving different now? Has life changed for you?
McEwan: I was anxious about my grown-up son using the tube, especially straight afterwards. There's no logic to that, I know. We're not logical creatures in this matter of risk assessment. But sooner or later practical demands will dominate. I can't just keep paying for taxis.
SPIEGEL: Let's talk about politics for a few minutes. What do you make of the historic third term of Tony Blair, obviously having weathered all the accusations and standing bigger now than ever?
McEwan: Two months ago, he was the villain. The day after he won the election, the press erupted in a furious, spiteful rage. It was incredible. You would think he'd just been found guilty of child murder. He'd been returned with a reduced majority, which I think was actually a perfectly mature, democratic decision. It was about right. There was no other game in town, there was no other party that could actually reasonably take power. The Tories couldn't do it. So to have him back with his power diminished in parliament seemed to me to be a pretty good communal decision -- at least if you think of democracies as being like people at a séance, with a Ouija board spelling out letters that nobody can quite predict. I take a very unfashionable view of Tony Blair. I think he's the least bad prime minister we've had.
SPIEGEL: The least bad prime minister?
McEwan: There have been gross mistakes, but for those who have nostalgia for old Labour, they must reflect on 30 percent inflation, 3 million were unemployed, public service was a total chaos, the government was constantly on its knees to the International Monetary Fund and there was a sense of real decline. Old Labour was a disaster, an absolute disaster. And I've never forgiven the right for their 18 years in power here, either. The fact that we've now got money pouring into education and we're finally beginning to restore the public health service is a real achievement. If you had told someone on the left in 1975 that there would be a Labour-led government with 3 percent inflation, a 2.5 percent growth rate, 800,000 unemployed and a minimum wage, they would think you were in fantasy land.
SPIEGEL: But isn't that foundation been laid by the government of Margaret Thatcher?
McEwan: She did the dirty work that no left wing party could do. But Thatcher was terrible to live under. Yet now, looking at both France and Germany, if the social model is keeping 20 million people unemployed, then that's a human tragedy.
SPIEGEL: Mr. McEwan, thank you for this interview.
peromaneste, scrieti la inceput ca
"Cine-si mai aminteste cat de greu a fost multi ani dupa 1990 sa obtii la Bucuresti o viza pentru un stat occidental, mai ales daca nu erai vreun delicvent recidivist? Intre timp vesticii se inmulteau cu populatii care, in cel mai bun caz, le vor trebui generatii sa se integreze in cele gazda, iar in cel mai rau caz isi arunca gazdele inocente in aer."
Mi-au stat in cap randurile astea fara a fi putut spune ceva. Eram de acord si dezamagit ca asa a fost. Pana am gasit pe un forum un articol care merge in detaliu si atinge indirect si ce ati scris voi.
Europe's Angry Muslims
By ROBERT S. LEIKEN
Robert S. Leiken is Director of the Immigration and National Security Program at the Nixon Center and a nonresident Fellow at the Brookings Institution. He is the author of Bearers of Jihad? Immigration and National Security After 9/11.
AN AMERICAN CONCERN
Fox News and CNN's Lou Dobbs worry about terrorists stealing across the United States' border with Mexico concealed among illegal immigrants. The Pentagon wages war in the Middle East to stop terrorist attacks on the United States. But the growing nightmare of officials at the Department of Homeland Security is passport-carrying, visa-exempt mujahideen coming from the United States' western European allies.
Jihadist networks span Europe from Poland to Portugal, thanks to the spread of radical Islam among the descendants of guest workers once recruited to shore up Europe's postwar economic miracle. In smoky coffeehouses in Rotterdam and Copenhagen, makeshift prayer halls in Hamburg and Brussels, Islamic bookstalls in Birmingham and "Londonistan," and the prisons of Madrid, Milan, and Marseilles, immigrants or their descendants are volunteering for jihad against the West. It was a Dutch Muslim of Moroccan descent, born and socialized in Europe, who murdered the filmmaker Theo van Gogh in Amsterdam last November. A Nixon Center study of 373 mujahideen in western Europe and North America between 1993 and 2004 found more than twice as many Frenchmen as Saudis and more Britons than Sudanese, Yemenites, Emiratis, Lebanese, or Libyans. Fully a quarter of the jihadists it listed were western European nationals -- eligible to travel visa-free to the United States.
The emergence of homegrown mujahideen in Europe threatens the United States as well as Europe. Yet it was the dog that never barked at last winter's Euro-American rapprochement meeting. Neither President George W. Bush nor Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice drew attention to this mutual peril, even though it should focus minds and could buttress solidarity in the West.
YOUR LAND IS MY LAND
The mass immigration of Muslims to Europe was an unintended consequence of post-World War II guest-worker programs. Backed by friendly politicians and sympathetic judges, foreign workers, who were supposed to stay temporarily, benefited from family reunification programs and became permanent. Successive waves of immigrants formed a sea of descendants. Today, Muslims constitute the majority of immigrants in most western European countries, including Belgium, France, Germany, and the Netherlands, and the largest single component of the immigrant population in the United Kingdom. Exact numbers are hard to come by because Western censuses rarely ask respondents about their faith. But it is estimated that between 15 and 20 million Muslims now call Europe home and make up four to five percent of its total population. (Muslims in the United States probably do not exceed 3 million, accounting for less than two percent of the total population.) France has the largest proportion of Muslims (seven to ten percent of its total population), followed by the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and Italy. Given continued immigration and high Muslim fertility rates, the National Intelligence Council projects that Europe's Muslim population will double by 2025.
Unlike their U.S. counterparts, who entered a gigantic country built on immigration, most Muslim newcomers to western Europe started arriving only after World War II, crowding into small, culturally homogenous nations. Their influx was a new phenomenon for many host states and often unwelcome. Meanwhile, North African immigrants retained powerful attachments to their native cultures. So unlike American Muslims, who are geographically diffuse, ethnically fragmented, and generally well off, Europe's Muslims gather in bleak enclaves with their compatriots: Algerians in France, Moroccans in Spain, Turks in Germany, and Pakistanis in the United Kingdom.
The footprint of Muslim immigrants in Europe is already more visible than that of the Hispanic population in the United States. Unlike the jumble of nationalities that make up the American Latino community, the Muslims of western Europe are likely to be distinct, cohesive, and bitter. In Europe, host countries that never learned to integrate newcomers collide with immigrants exceptionally retentive of their ways, producing a variant of what the French scholar Olivier Roy calls "globalized Islam": militant Islamic resentment at Western dominance, anti-imperialism exalted by revivalism.
As the French academic Gilles Kepel acknowledges, "neither the blood spilled by Muslims from North Africa fighting in French uniforms during both world wars nor the sweat of migrant laborers, living under deplorable living conditions, who rebuilt France (and Europe) for a pittance after 1945, has made their children ... full fellow citizens." Small wonder, then, that a radical leader of the Union of Islamic Organizations of France, a group associated with the Muslim Brotherhood, curses his new homeland: "Oh sweet France! Are you astonished that so many of your children commune in a stinging naal bou la France [fuck France], and damn your Fathers?"
As a consequence of demography, history, ideology, and policy, western Europe now plays host to often disconsolate Muslim offspring, who are its citizens in name but not culturally or socially. In a fit of absentmindedness, during which its academics discoursed on the obsolescence of the nation-state, western Europe acquired not a colonial empire but something of an internal colony, whose numbers are roughly equivalent to the population of Syria. Many of its members are willing to integrate and try to climb Europe's steep social ladder. But many younger Muslims reject the minority status to which their parents acquiesced. A volatile mix of European nativism and immigrant dissidence challenges what the Danish sociologist Ole Waever calls "societal security," or national cohesion. To make matters worse, the very isolation of these diaspora communities obscures their inner workings, allowing mujahideen to fundraise, prepare, and recruit for jihad with a freedom available in few Muslim countries.
As these conditions developed in the late 1990s, even liberal segments of the European public began to have second thoughts about immigration. Many were galled by their governments' failure to reduce or even identify the sources of insécurité (a French code word for the combination of vandalism, delinquency, and hate crimes stemming from Muslim immigrant enclaves). The state appeared unable to regulate the entry of immigrants, and society seemed unwilling to integrate them. In some cases, the backlash was xenophobic and racist; in others, it was a reaction against policymakers captivated by a multiculturalist dream of diverse communities living in harmony, offering oppressed nationalities marked compassion and remedial benefits. By 2002, electoral rebellion over the issue of immigration was threatening the party systems of Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, and the Netherlands. The Dutch were so incensed by the 2002 assassination of Pim Fortuyn, a gay anti-immigration politician, that mainstream parties adopted much of the victim's program. In the United Kingdom this spring, the Tories not only joined the ruling Labour Party in embracing sweeping immigration restrictions, such as tightened procedures for asylum and family reunification (both regularly abused throughout Europe) and a computerized exit-entry system like the new U.S. Visitor and Immigration Status Indicator Technology program; they also campaigned for numerical caps on immigrants. With the Muslim headscarf controversy raging in France, talk about the connection between asylum abuse and terrorism rising in the United Kingdom, an immigration dispute threatening to tear Belgium apart, and the Dutch outrage over the van Gogh killing, western Europe may now be reaching a tipping point.
GOING DUTCH
The uncomfortable truth is that disenfranchisement and radicalization are happening even in countries, such as the Netherlands, that have done much to accommodate Muslim immigrants. Proud of a legendary tolerance of minorities, the Netherlands welcomed tens of thousands of Muslim asylum seekers allegedly escaping persecution. Immigrants availed themselves of generous welfare and housing benefits, an affirmative-action hiring policy, and free language courses. Dutch taxpayers funded Muslim religious schools and mosques, and public television broadcast programs in Moroccan Arabic. Mohammed Bouyeri was collecting unemployment benefits when he murdered van Gogh.
The van Gogh slaying rocked the Netherlands and neighboring countries not only because the victim, a provocative filmmaker, was a descendant of the painter Vincent, the Dutch's most cherished icon, but also because Bouyeri was "an average second-generation immigrant," according to Stef Blok, the chairman of the parliamentary commission reviewing Bouyeri's immigration record. European counterterrorism authorities saw the killing as a new phase in the terrorist threat. It raised the specter of Middle East-style political assassinations as part of the European jihadist arsenal and it disclosed a new source of danger: unknown individuals among Europe's own Muslims. The cell in Hamburg that was connected to the attacks of September 11, 2001, was composed of student visitors, and the Madrid train bombings of March 2004 were committed by Moroccan immigrants. But van Gogh's killer and his associates were born and raised in Europe.
Bouyeri was the child of Moroccan immigrant workers. He grew up in a proletarian area of Amsterdam sometimes known as Satellite City because of the many reception dishes that sit on its balconies, tuned to al Jazeera and Moroccan television. Bouyeri's parents arrived in a wave of immigration in the 1970s and never learned Dutch. But Bouyeri graduated from the area's best high school. His transformation from promising student to jihadist follows a pattern in which groups of thriving, young European Muslims enlist in jihad to slaughter Westerners.
After graduating from a local college and then taking advanced courses in accounting and information technology, Bouyeri, who had an unruly temper, was jailed for seven months on a violence-related crime. He emerged from jail an Islamist, angry over Palestine and sympathetic to Hamas. He studied social work and became a community organizer. He wrote in a community newsletter that "the Netherlands is now our enemy because they participate in the occupation of Iraq." After he failed to get funding for a youth center in Satellite City and was unable to ban the sale of beer or the presence of women at the events he organized, he moved to downtown Amsterdam. There, he was recruited into the Hofstad Group, a cell of second-generation Islamic militants.
The cell started meeting every two weeks in Bouyeri's apartment to hear the sermons of a Syrian preacher known as Abu Khatib. Hofstad was connected to networks in Spain, Morocco, Italy, and Belgium, and it was planning a string of assassinations of Dutch politicians, an attack on the Netherlands' sole nuclear reactor, and other actions around Europe. European intelligence services have linked the cell to the Moroccan Islamic Combat Group, which is associated with the Madrid bombings and a series of attacks in Casablanca in 2003. Its Syrian imam was involved with mujahideen in Iraq and with an operational chief of al Qaeda. "Judging by Bouyeri's and the Hofstad network's international contacts," an analyst for the Norwegian government says, "it seems safe to conclude that they were part of the numerous terrorist plots that have been unraveled over the past years in western Europe."
The Hofstad Group should not be compared with marginal European terrorist groups of the past, such as the Baader-Meinhof Gang in Germany, Action Directe in France, or the Red Brigades in Italy. Like other jihadist groups today, it enjoys what Marxist terrorists long sought but always lacked: a social base. And its base is growing rapidly, thanks in part to the war in Iraq.
The Dutch General Intelligence and Security Service (AIVD) says that radical Islam in the Netherlands encompasses "a multitude of movements, organizations and groups." Some are nonviolent and share only religious dogma and a loathing for the West. But AIVD stresses that others, including al Qaeda, are also "stealthily taking root in Dutch society" by recruiting estranged Dutch-born Muslim youths. An AIVD report portrays such recruits watching jihadist videos, discussing martyrdom in Internet chat rooms, and attending Islamist readings, congresses, and summer camps. Radical Islam has become "an autonomous phenomenon," the AIVD affirms, so that even without direct influence from abroad, Dutch youth are now embracing the fundamentalist line. Much the same can be said about angry young Muslims in Brussels, London, Paris, Madrid, and Milan.
THE RANK AND FILE
Broadly speaking, there are two types of jihadists in western Europe: call them "outsiders" and "insiders." The outsiders are aliens, typically asylum seekers or students, who gained refuge in liberal Europe from crackdowns against Islamists in the Middle East. Among them are radical imams, often on stipends from Saudi Arabia, who open their mosques to terrorist recruiters and serve as messengers for or spiritual fathers to jihadist networks. Once these aliens secure entry into one EU country, they have the run of them all. They may be assisted by legal or illegal residents, such as the storekeepers, merchants, and petty criminals who carried out the Madrid bombings.
Many of these first-generation outsiders have migrated to Europe expressly to carry out jihad. In Islamist mythology, migration is archetypically linked to conquest. Facing persecution in idolatrous Mecca, in AD 622 the Prophet Muhammad pronounced an anathema on the city's leaders and took his followers to Medina. From there, he built an army that conquered Mecca in AD 630, establishing Muslim rule. Today, in the minds of mujahideen in Europe, it is the Middle East at large that figures as an idolatrous Mecca because several governments in the region suppressed Islamist takeovers in the 1990s. Europe could even be viewed as a kind of Medina, where troops are recruited for the reconquest of the holy land, starting with Iraq.
The insiders, on the other hand, are a group of alienated citizens, second- or third-generation children of immigrants, like Bouyeri, who were born and bred under European liberalism. Some are unemployed youth from hardscrabble suburbs of Marseilles, Lyon, and Paris or former mill towns such as Bradford and Leicester. They are the latest, most dangerous incarnation of that staple of immigration literature, the revolt of the second generation. They are also dramatic instances of what could be called adversarial assimilation -- integration into the host country's adversarial culture. But this sort of anti-West westernization is illustrated more typically by another paradigmatic second-generation recruit: the upwardly mobile young adult, such as the university-educated Zacarias Moussaoui, the so-called 20th hijacker, or Omar Khyam, the computer student and soccer captain from Sussex, England, who dreamed of playing for his country but was detained in April 2004 for holding, with eight accomplices, half a ton of explosives aimed at London.
These downwardly mobile slum dwellers and upwardly mobile achievers replicate in western Europe the two social types that formed the base of Islamist movements in developing countries such as Algeria, Egypt, and Malaysia: the residents of shantytowns and the devout bourgeoisie. As in the September 11 attacks, the educated tend to form the leadership cadre, with the plebeians providing the muscle. No Chinese wall separates first-generation outsiders from second-generation insiders; indeed, the former typically find their recruits among the latter. Hofstad's Syrian imam mentored Bouyeri; the notorious one-eyed imam Abu Hamza al-Masri coached Moussaoui in London. A decade ago in France, the Algerian Armed Islamic Group proselytized beurs (the French-born children of North African immigrants) and turned them into the jihadists who terrorized train passengers during the 1990s. But post-September 11 recruitment appears more systematic and strategic. Al Qaeda's drives focus on the second generation. And if jihad recruiters sometimes find sympathetic ears underground, among gangs or in jails, today they are more likely to score at university campuses, prep schools, and even junior high schools.
THE IRAQ EFFECT
According to senior counterintelligence officials, classified intelligence briefings, and wiretaps, jihadists extended their European operations after the roundups that followed September 11 and then again, with fresh energy, after the invasion of Iraq. Osama bin Laden now provides encouragement and strategic orientation to scores of relatively autonomous European jihadist networks that assemble for specific missions, draw operatives from a pool of professionals and apprentices, strike, and then dissolve, only to regroup later.
Typically these groups target European countries allied with the United States in Iraq, as was proved by the Madrid bombings, the November 2003 attacks on British targets in Istanbul, as well as the lion's share of some 30 spectacular terrorist plots that have failed since September 11. In March 2004, within days of the London police chief's pronouncement that a local terrorist attack was "inevitable," his officers uncovered a plot involving nine British nationals of Pakistani origin and seized the largest cache of potential bomb-making material since the heyday of the Irish Republican Army. A few months later, Scotland Yard charged eight second-generation South Asian immigrants, reportedly trained in al Qaeda camps, with assembling a dirty bomb. Three of them had reconnaissance plans showing the layout of financial institutions in three U.S. cities.
Several hundred European militants -- including dozens of second-generation Dutch immigrants "wrestling with their identity," according to the Dutch intelligence service -- have also struck out for Iraq's Sunni Triangle. In turn, western Europe serves as a way station for mujahideen wounded in Iraq. The Iraq network belongs to an extensive structure developed by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, now formally bin Laden's sworn ally and the "emir" of al Qaeda in Iraq. Recently unsealed Spanish court documents suggest that at a meeting in Istanbul in February 2002, Zarqawi, anticipating a protracted war in Iraq, began to lay plans for a two-way underground railway to send European recruits to Iraq and Middle Eastern recruiters, as well as illegal aliens, to Europe. Zarqawi also activated sleeper cells established in European cities during the Bosnian conflict.
A chief terrorism investigator in Milan, Armando Spataro, says that "almost all European countries have been touched by [Iraq] recruiting," including, improbably, Norway, Switzerland, Poland, Bulgaria, and the Czech Republic. The recruitment methods of the Iraq network, which procures weapons in Germany from Balkan gangs, parallels those for the conflicts in Chechnya and Kashmir. Thanks to its state-of-the-art document-forging industry, Italy has become a base for dispatching volunteers. And Spain forms a trunk line with North Africa as well as a staging area for attacks in "al Andalus," the erstwhile Muslim Spanish caliphate.
LAX POPULI
Although for some Europeans the Madrid bombings were a watershed event comparable to the September 11 attacks in the United States, these Europeans form a minority, especially among politicians. Yet what Americans perceive as European complacency is easy to fathom. The September 11 attacks did not happen in Europe, and for a long time the continent's experience with terrorism mainly took the form of car bombs and booby-trapped trash cans. Terrorism is still seen as a crime problem, not an occasion for war. Moreover, some European officials believe that acquiescent policies toward the Middle East can offer protection. In fact, while bin Laden has selectively attacked the United States' allies in the Iraq war, he has offered a truce to those European states that have stayed out of the conflict.
With a few exceptions, European authorities shrink from the relatively stout legislative and security measures adopted in the United States. They prefer criminal surveillance and traditional prosecutions to launching a U.S.-style "war on terrorism" and mobilizing the military, establishing detention centers, enhancing border security, requiring machine-readable passports, expelling hate preachers, and lengthening notoriously light sentences for convicted terrorists. Germany's failure to convict conspirators in the September 11 attacks suggests that the European public, outside of France and now perhaps the Netherlands, is not ready for a war on terrorism.
Contrary to what many Americans concluded during Washington's dispute with Paris in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq, France is the exception to general European complacency. Well before September 11, France had deployed the most robust counterterrorism regime of any Western country. Irish terrorism may have diverted British attention from jihad, as has Basque terrorism in Spain, but Algerian terrorism worked the opposite effect in France.
To prevent proselytizing among its mostly North African Muslim community, during the 1990s the energetic French state denied asylum to radical Islamists even while they were being welcomed by its neighbors. Fearing, as Kepel puts it, that contagion would turn "the social malaise felt by Muslims in the suburbs of major cities" into extremism and terrorism, the French government cracked down on jihadists, detaining suspects for as long as four days without charging them or allowing them access to a lawyer. Today no place of worship is off limits to the police in secular France. Hate speech is rewarded with a visit from the police, blacklisting, and the prospect of deportation. These practices are consistent with the strict Gallic assimilationist model that bars religion from the public sphere (hence the headscarf dispute).
Contrast the French approach to the United Kingdom's separatist form of multiculturalism, which offered radical Arab Islamists refuge and the opportunity to preach openly, while stepping up surveillance of them. French youth could still tune into jihadist messages on satellite television and the Internet, but in the United Kingdom open radical preaching spawned terrorist cells. Most of the rest of Europe adopted the relaxed British approach, but with less surveillance.
Now, the Madrid bombings and the van Gogh killing have strengthened the hand of engaged politicians, such as Germany's Social Democratic interior minister, Otto Schily, and the former French interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, who leads the governing Union for a Popular Movement. They have also prompted Brussels, London, Madrid, Paris, and The Hague to increase resources and personnel devoted to terrorism.
In general, European politicians with security responsibilities, not to mention intelligence and security officials who get daily intelligence reports, take the harder U.S. line. Schily has called for Europe-wide "computer-aided profiling" to identify mujahideen. The emergence of holy warriors in Europe and the meiosis of radical groups once connected to al Qaeda have prompted several European capitals to increase cooperation on counterterrorism as well as their counterterrorism resources and personnel.
Yet a jihadist can cross Europe with little scrutiny. Even if noticed, he can change his name or glide across a border, relying on long-standing bureaucratic and legal stovepipes. After the Madrid bombings, a midlevel European official was appointed to coordinate European counterterrorist statutes and harmonize EU security arrangements. But he often serves simply as a broker amid the gallimaufry of the 25 member states' legal codes.
Since the Madrid bombings, the Spanish Interior Ministry has tripled to 450 the number of full-time antiterrorism operatives, and the Spanish national police are assigning a similar number of additional agents to mujahideen intelligence. Spanish law enforcement established a task force combining police and intelligence specialists to keep tabs on Muslim neighborhoods and prison mosques. Similarly, special police cells are being organized in each of France's 22 regions, stepping up the surveillance of mosques, Islamic bookshops, long-distance phone facilities, and halal butchers and restaurants.
The 25 EU members have also put into effect a European arrest warrant allowing police to avoid lengthy extradition procedures. Despite widespread concerns about possible privacy abuses, several EU countries have lowered barriers between intelligence and police agencies since the van Gogh murder. Germany aims to place its 16 police forces under one umbrella. In France, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom, intelligence and police officers meet with officials in state-of-the-art communications centers, or "war rooms," to share information about interrogations, informant reports, live wiretaps, and video or satellite pictures.
Still, counterterrorism agencies remain reluctant to share sensitive information or cooperate on prosecutions. Measures proposed in the wake of the Madrid attacks, such as a Europe-wide fingerprint and DNA database and biometric passports, remain only that -- proposals. Fragmentation and rivalry among Europe's security systems and other institutions continue to hamper counterterrorism efforts. For nearly a decade, France has sought the extradition of the organizer of several bombings in the Paris metro in the 1990s, but his case languishes in the British courts to the anguish of the Home Office as well as Paris.
The new mujahideen are not only testing traditional counterterrorist practices; their emergence is also challenging the mentality prevailing in western Europe since the end of World War II. Revulsion against Nazism and colonialism translated into compassion toward religious minorities, of whatever stripe. At first, Muslim guest workers were welcomed in Europe by a liberal orthodoxy that generally regarded them as victims lacking rights. In some countries, such as the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, that perspective spawned a comprehensive form of multiculturalism. London's version verged on separatism. While stepping up surveillance, the British authorities allowed Islamists refuge and an opportunity to preach openly and disseminate rabid propaganda. Multiculturalism had a dual appeal: it allowed these states to seem tolerant by showering minorities with rights while segregating them from, rather than absorbing them into, the rest of society. Multiculturalism dovetailed with a diminished Western ethos that suited libertarians as well as liberals.
But now many Europeans have come to see that permissiveness as excessive, even dangerous. A version of religious tolerance allowed the Hamburg cell to flourish and rendered German universities hospitable to radical Islam. Now Europeans are asking Muslims to practice religious tolerance themselves and adjust to the values of their host countries. Tony Blair's government requires that would-be citizens master "Britishness." Likewise, "Dutch values" are central to The Hague's new approach, and similar proposals are being put forward in Berlin, Brussels, and Copenhagen. Patrick Weil, the immigration guru of the French Socialist Party, sees a continental trend in which immigrant "responsibilities" balance immigrant "rights."
The Dutch reaction to van Gogh's assassination, the British reaction to jihadist abuse of political asylum, and the French reaction to the wearing of the headscarf suggest that Europe's multiculturalism has begun to collide with its liberalism, privacy rights with national security. Multiculturalism was once a hallmark of Europe's cultural liberalism, which the British columnist John O'Sullivan defined as "free[dom] from irksome traditional moral customs and cultural restraints." But when multiculturalism is perceived to coddle terrorism, liberalism parts company. The gap between the two is opening in France, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and to some extent even in Germany, where liberalism stretched a form of religious tolerance so much so that it allowed the Hamburg cell to turn prayer rooms into war rooms with cocky immunity from the German police.
Yet it is far from clear whether top-down policies will work without bottom-up adjustments in social attitudes. Can Muslims become Europeans without Europe opening its social and political circles to them? So far, it appears that absolute assimilationism has failed in France, but so has segregation in Germany and multiculturalism in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. Could there be another way? The French ban the headscarf in public schools; the Germans ban it among public employees. The British celebrate it. The Americans tolerate it. Given the United States' comparatively happier record of integrating immigrants, one may wonder whether the mixed U.S. approach -- separating religion from politics without placing a wall between them, helping immigrants slowly adapt but allowing them relative cultural autonomy -- could inspire Europeans to chart a new course between an increasingly hazardous multiculturalism and a naked secularism that estranges Muslims and other believers. One thing is certain: if only for the sake of counterterrorism, Europe needs to develop an integration policy that works. But that will not happen overnight.
Indeed, the fissure between liberalism and multiculturalism is opening just as the continent undergoes its most momentous population shift since Asian tribes pushed westward in the first Christian millennium. Immigration obviously hits a national security nerve, but it also raises economic and demographic questions: how to cope with a demonstrably aging population; how to maintain social cohesion as Christianity declines and both secularism and Islam climb; whether the EU should exercise sovereignty over borders and citizenship; and what the accession of Turkey, with its 70 million Muslims, would mean for the EU. Moreover, European mujahideen do not threaten only the Old World; they also pose an immediate danger to the United States.
A FINER SIEVE
The United States' relative success in assimilating its own Muslim immigrants means that its border security must be more vigilant. To strike at the United States, al Qaeda counts less on domestic sleeper cells than on foreign infiltration. As a 9/11 Commission staff report put it, al Qaeda faces "a travel problem": How can it move its mujahideen from hatchery to target? Europe's mujahideen may represent a solution.
The New York Times has reported that bin Laden has outsourced planning for the next spectacular attack on the United States to an "external planning node." Chances are it is based in Europe and will deploy European citizens. European countries generally accord citizenship to immigrants born on their soil, and so potential European jihadists are entitled to European passports, allowing them visa-free travel to the United States and entry without an interview. The members of the Hamburg cell that captained the September 11 attacks came by air from Europe and were treated by the State Department as travelers on the Visa Waiver Program (VWP), just like Moussaoui and Richard Reid, the shoe bomber.
Does that mean the VWP should be scrapped altogether, as some members of Congress are asking? By no means. The State Department is already straining to enforce stricter post-September 11 visa-screening measures, which involve longer interviews, more staff, and more delays. Terminating the VWP would exact steep bureaucratic and diplomatic costs, and rile the United States' remaining European friends. Instead, the United States should update the criteria used in the periodic reviews of VWP countries, taking into account terrorist recruiting and evaluating passport procedures. These reviews could utilize task forces set up in collaboration with the Europeans. Together, U.S. and European authorities should insist that the airlines require U.S.-bound transatlantic travelers to submit passport information when purchasing tickets. Such a measure would give the new U.S. National Targeting Center time to check potential entrants without delaying flight departures. And officers should be stationed at check-in counters to weed out suspects.
Europe's emerging mujahideen endanger the entire Western world. Collaboration in taming Muslim rancor or at least in keeping European jihadists off U.S.-bound airplanes could help reconcile estranged allies. A shared threat and a mutual interest should engage media, policymakers, and the public on both sides of the Atlantic. To concentrate their minds on common dangers and solutions might come as a bittersweet relief to Europeans and Americans after their recent disagreements.
De la: roy din israel
Cum se poate combate terorismul
Am citit multe comentarii aici si in alte ocazii cind s-a vorbit cum se poate combate terorismul.
Pana acum un an Israelul a trecut o perioada teribil de grea sub terorism. Cand scriu asta stiu in mod PERSONAL ce inseamna asta.
Terorismul inseamna ca te despartzi dimineatza de familie plecand la lucru si te gandesti ca poate nu ai sa-i mai vezi diseara. Terorismul insemana ca luni de zile, zi de zi sa-tzi conduci copiii in masina vreo 4 ore pe zi numai ca sa nu mearga cu autobuzele care explodeaza. Terorismul inseamna sa plangi de cateva ori pe zi vazand la TV tragediile altora, faptele de eroism ale victimelor, sa participi sufleteste la toate inmormantarile.
Dupa acesti 4 ani de amara experientza, eu cred ca urmatorii factori sant esentziali in combaterea terorismului:
1. FACTORUL NUMARUL 1 DE COMBATERE A TERORISMULUI ESTE TARIA MORALA A NATZIUNII. Viatza trebuie sa continue in ciuda terorismului si teroristii trebuie sa vada asta. De aceea, in zilele de doliu sant meciuri de fotbal si sant reprezentatzii de teatru si restaurantele explodate sant reparate in 2-3 zile dupa care se organizeaza redeschiderea festiva si transmisa la TV. O natziune care cedeaza este o natziune pierduta. Teroristii invatza imediat punctul slab si il vor exploata in continuare.
2. Fortzele de securitate trebuie sa primeasca bugete enorme. Asta vine in detrimentul multor bugete sociale, dar nu este nimic de facut. Oamenii trebuie sa intzeleaga aceasta ordine: intai bani ca sa-ti aperi natziunea apoi alte "luxuri".
3. A treia conditzie este ca guvernul care va conduce sa fie darz in lupta, in sensul ca sa nu se indoaie sub presiunea "internatzionala" (a acelor dobitoci care inca nu stiu ce este terorismul si li se pare ca se poate dialoga cu el) si sa execute planuri bune pentru natziunea lor si nu pentru alte natziuni.
4. A patra conditzie este ca in afara de planuri tactice de combatere a terorismului, trebuie sa existe planuri strategice clare care sa rezolve problemele de imigratzie (limitarea imigratziei, schimbarea tipului mediu de imigrant, deportarea extremistilor, limitarea bugetelor sociale care sprijina imigratzia, etc) si demografie (incurajarea nasterilor mai ales prin sprijin financiar).
Eu cred ca daca nu sant indeplinite aceste 4 conditzii minimale (si fiecare se poate gandi daca in tzara unde locuieste ele exista) putetzi sa incepetzi sa studiatzi Coranul.
De la: Sobru
Re: Cum se poate combate terorismul
Problemele israelului nu sint si ale altora.
Nu trebuia sa termini cu glumita aia "studiati coranul" si macar parea mesajul ceva mai serios, caci in rest, zici ca esti telejurnalul de pe vremea colectivizarii sau poate radioul pe vremea lui Goebbels.
De la: achile din Romania
Re: Cum se poate combate terorismul
Sobru, probleme Israelului sunt si ale altora, asa cum o arata implicarea europeana in conflictul israelo-palestinian. Insa daca probleme de tipul celor cu care se confrunta Israelul aproape zinic devin probleme si ale europenilor, atunci avem cu totii o problema. Si nu-mi vine bine deloc cand vad in ultimele zile jandarmi inarmati pana in dinti atat cu pistoale mitraliera cat si cu pistoale simple patruland prin statiile de metrou.
Solutiile sunt foarte putine si dificil de aplicat pentru ca lumea moderna a devenit mult prea ipocrita. Insa va veni un moment in care va fi foarte dificil sa rezolvam problema si trecand de propriile ipocrizii.
De la: Sobru
Re: Cum se poate combate terorismul-achile
Intrebarea este de ce sa devina problemele alea, ale europenilor?
Apoi, sa nu o luam inca pe coclauri. Nu europenii au fost atacati ci cei care se afla ca ocupant in teritoriile arabe, unde mai pui ca totul s-a facut pe baza unor minciuni. Vorbesti de ipocrizie?
Daca vorbesti de ipocrizie, atunci poti incepe si cu "corectitudinea politica". Vezi si de unde vine si cu ce se mananca.
Pe de alta parte, despre ce razboi e vorba? Se sinucid unii in metrou si mor 50 de insi, in timp ce armata sustinuta prin taxe de cei 50, omoara zeci de mii in cealalta tabara. Si-apoi, in conditiile in care in tarile cu metrou, mor cu mult mai multi calcati de masini, de infarct, in crime de strada, pasionale si in serie, etc, merita sa-ti bati joc de democratie pentru asta?
De la: roy din israel
Re: Cum se poate combate terorismul
London, Again
A 21st-century threat; 19th century laws.
The Wall Street Journal- Editorial
Due to some combination of good luck and possible incompetence, Londoners were spared serious casualties in yesterday's apparent bus and train bombings. This is not something to take much comfort in. As the second attack in as many weeks, it means the Israelization of the war on terror may now be upon Britain and, sooner or later perhaps, Europe and America, too.
By "Israelization," we refer to the steady stream of bus, cafe, grocery, mall and street bombings to which Israeli civilians have been wantonly subjected these past several years. Unlike the September 11 attacks in the U.S. or last year's Madrid bombings, none of these have been terrorist "spectaculars," in the sense that they required extensive preparation and resulted in three- or four-figure death tolls.
Even so, the effects of Palestinian-style terror are in many ways more devastating. No place feels safe; ordinary living becomes vastly more difficult; security costs to government and businesses are massive. And the killing adds up: In a country as small as Israel, nearly everyone had a personal connection to one of the 1,000 Israelis murdered in terrorist attacks over the past five years.
Yet "Israelization" also means the methods Israelis have refined over the years to contain the terrorist threat. Throughout the course of the intifada, these methods came in for high-minded criticism as being violations of civil and international law. But as Australian Prime Minister John Howard observed at a press conference in London yesterday with British counterpart Tony Blair, many of the laws currently on the books in the West amount to "19th-century legal responses" to a 21st-century threat.
Chief among Israel's innovations--since adopted by the Bush Administration--has been to treat terrorism as something different from criminal behavior, and to respond to it as something more than a law-enforcement problem. In some instances, this has led to actions that make civil libertarians uneasy, particularly the round-up and imprisonment of hundreds of Palestinians deemed security risks, although this has been key to reducing the number of terror attacks by more than 90%.
Yet one need not endorse such tactics for Britain and Europe to see that the current approach is failing. Earlier this week, Germany's Constitutional Court set free Mamoun Darkazanli, a German national who is suspected of being Osama bin Laden's principal money man in Europe, on what amounted to a legalism regarding the constitutionality of a Spanish judge's extradition request. That followed on last month's release of Mounir el Motassadeq, who had previously been convicted by a Hamburg court as an accomplice in the 9/11 attacks. Here again, he owes his release mainly to legal niceties, which al Qaeda members are trained to manipulate.
Much the same goes in Britain. Late last year, Britain's Law Lords ruled as unconstitutional a 2001 antiterrorism law that gave the government the right to detain indefinitely terrorist suspects who were not British nationals, provided they could not be returned to their home countries (where they might risk torture).
The Law Lords' reasoning may have been sound, but it raised the question of what, if anything, Britain could seriously do about suspected foreign jihadists living in its midst other than set them free. As we have learned in recent days, it is precisely such attitudes, along with a laissez-faire approach to all forms of "political" speech, including speech that incites to violence and sedition, that turned London into the European haven of choice for Muslim extremists. Mr. Blair's government is now in the process of outlining plans to ban even indirect statements of support for terror and violence, which might or might not pass constitutional muster.
All this has ramifications for the U.S. Even as Europe tinkers with new ways of dealing with terrorism, critics of the Bush Administration seek to return the U.S. to where Europe is today. Thus the relentless assaults on the legality of Guantanamo, the renewal of the Patriot Act and the treatment of U.S. citizens, such as Jose Padilla, who are held as enemy combatants.
But whatever one thinks is the best legal framework required to deal with domestic and foreign terrorist threats, what the bombings in London make clear is that the old legal tool kits no longer work. And the sooner we learn to "Israelize" our approach to terror--both in Europe and the U.S.--the better the chances our lives won't be Israelized in turn.
De la: traktorist din SUA
iuropa a bagat fitile numai....
La 2005-07-22 16:34:37, Sobru a scris:
> Intrebarea este de ce sa devina problemele alea, ale europenilor?
Uite ca este ! Iuropa si nu numai ea , a finantat terorismul lui Arafat. Arafat e mercenar din egipt si s-a dus sa elibereze Palestina , tara care nu a existat niciodata.
Palestina este o zona si nu o tara. Similar cu zona carpatilor, stepa ruseasca, lunca siretului.
Nu a fost niciodata o tara. Iuropa a tot bagat fitile, ca era usor...
De la: Sobru
Re: iuropa a bagat fitile numai....
Bla, bla. La asa sparcaieli se raspunde cu: SUA au ajutat talibanii, l-au format pe Ben Laden, l-au ajutat pe Saddam etc. Deci poti s-o lasi balta.
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