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Subject: Our enemy is not terrorism
eplzaft    5/14/2004 12:18:46 AM
'Our Enemy Is Not Terrorism' The former Secretary of the Navy and current member of the Kean Commission investigating the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States (center) addressed the U.S. Naval Institute 130th Annual Meeting and Annapolis Naval History Symposium on 31 March. Following is an edited version of his remarks “We are at a juncture today that really is more of a threshold, even more of a watershed, than the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was in 1941. We are currently in a war, but it is not a war on terrorism. In fact, that has been a great confusion, and the sooner we drop that term, the better. This would be like President Franklin Roosevelt saying in World War II, "We are engaged in a war against kamikazes and blitzkrieg." Like them, terrorism is a method, a tool, a weapon that has been used against us. And part of the reason we suffered such a horrific attack is that we were not prepared. Let's not kid ourselves. Some very smart people defeated every single defense this country had, and defeated them easily, with confidence and arrogance. There are many lessons we must learn from this. We were not prepared intellectually. Those of us in the national security field still carried the baggage of the Cold War. We thought in concepts of coalition warfare and the Warsaw Pact. When we thought of terrorism, we thought only of state-sponsored terrorism, which is why the immediate reaction of many in our government agencies after 9/11 was: Which state did it? Saddam, it must have been Saddam. We had failed to grasp, for a variety of reasons, the new phenomenon that had emerged in the world. This was not state-sponsored terrorism. This was religious war. This was the emergence of a transnational enemy driven by religious fervor and fanaticism. Our enemy is not terrorism. Our enemy is violent, Islamic fundamentalism. None of our government institutions was set up with receptors, or even vocabulary, to deal with this. So we left ourselves completely vulnerable to a concerted attack. Where are we today? I'd like to say we have fixed these problems, but we haven't. We have very real vulnerabilities. We have not diminished in any way the fervor and ideology of our enemy. We are fighting them in many areas of the world, and I must say with much better awareness of the issues and their nature. We're fighting with better tools. But I cannot say we are now safe from the kind of attack we saw on 9/11. I think we are much safer than we were on 9/11; the ability of our enemies to launch a concerted, sophisticated attack is much less than it was then. Still, we're totally vulnerable to the kinds of attacks we've seen in Madrid, for instance. We face a very sophisticated and intelligent enemy who has been trained, in many cases, in our universities and gone to school on our methods, learned from their mistakes, and continued to use the very nature of our free society and its aversion to intrusion in privacy and discrimination to their benefit. For example, today it is still a prohibited offense for an airline to have two people of the same ethnic background interviewed at one time, because that is discrimination. Our airline security is still full of holes. Our ability to carry out covert operations abroad is only marginally better than it was at the time of 9/11. A huge amount of fundamental cultural and institutional change must be carried out in the United States before we can effectively deal with the nature of the threat. Today, probably 50 or more states have schools that are teaching jihad, preaching, recruiting, and training. We have absolutely no successful programs even begun to remediate against those efforts. It's very important that people understand the complexity of this threat. We have had to institute new approaches to protecting our civil liberties—the way we authorize surveillance, the way we conduct our immigration and naturalization policies, and the way we issue passports. That's only the beginning. The beginning of wisdom is to recognize the problem, to recognize that for every jihadist we kill or capture—as we carry out an aggressive and positive policy in Afghanistan and elsewhere—another 50 are being trained in schools and mosques around the world. This problem goes back a long way. We have been asleep. Just by chance about six months ago, I picked up a book by V. S. Naipaul, one of the great English prose writers. I love to read his short stories and travelogues. The book was titled Among the Believers (New York: Vintage, 1982) and was an account of his travels in Indonesia, where he found that Saudi-funded schools and mosques were transforming Indonesian society from a very relaxed, syncretist Islam to a jihadist fundamentalist fanatical society, all paid for with Saudi Arabian funding. Nobody paid attention. Presidents in four administrations put their arms around Saudi ambassadors, ignored the Wahhabi jihadism, and said these are our eternal frie
 
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ilpars    RE: Salman Rushdie - On Watch   5/27/2004 2:49:07 AM
I have answered these questions by my own way. But as you did not like it that way; here is my answers with good old way. "If this isn't about Islam, why the worldwide Muslim demonstrations in support of Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda?" There were no demonstrations in Turkey. For other countries, probably because USA lost the propaganda front of war. USA should have directed more resources to propaganda in Muslim countries. ---------------------------------- "Why did those 10,000 men armed with swords and axes mass on the Pakistan-Afghanistan frontier, answering some mullah's call to jihad?" If swords and axes were their only weapons, probably because they are stupid. ---------------------------------------- "Why are the war's first British casualties three Muslim men who died fighting on the Taliban side?" First British casulties were the passengers in the planes and personel that were working on the WTC. You might not have noticed but they were also Muslims in those planes and WTC. ------------------------------------ "Why the routine anti-Semitism of the much-repeated Islamic slander that "the Jews" arranged the hits on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, with the oddly self-deprecating explanation offered by the Taliban leadership, among others, that Muslims could not have the technological know-how or organizational sophistication to pull off such a feat?" Inferiority complex of some Arabs. --------------------------------- "Why does Imran Khan, the Pakistani ex-sports star turned politician, demand to be shown the evidence of Al Qaeda's guilt while apparently turning a deaf ear to the self-incriminating statements of Al Qaeda's own spokesmen (there will be a rain of aircraft from the skies, Muslims in the West are warned not to live or work in tall buildings)? " Imran Khan is stupid or he has been bribed to say this. ----------------------------------------- "Why all the talk about American military infidels desecrating the sacred soil of Saudi Arabia if some sort of definition of what is sacred is not at the heart of the present discontents?" Arabs had said the same thing against Turks at 1916 when they revolted against Ottoman Empire. And Turks have the same religion with Arabs. Hmm... Maybe it is not about religional differances. ---------------------- I have answered your questions. Now it is your turn to answer mine.
 
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ilpars    RE: Salman Rushdie - On Watch - Ilpars   5/27/2004 3:27:06 AM
"First British casulties were the passengers in the planes and personel that were working on the WTC. You might not have noticed but they were also Muslims in those planes and WTC." Excluding the terrorists themselves of course. I may give the excuse that personally I do not see them as Muslims.
 
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ilpars    RE:Turks and Islam, a discussion with Ilpars   5/27/2004 3:45:12 AM
"That is good! So maybe we can give the Turkish religion a new name? You really should not say "muslims" because it is not the whole story, right? Sihks, Druze, and Bahais all have religions with Muslim roots, changed and added to over the years. Maybe Turks need something like them?" No we are Muslims. To be Muslim you only need to believe and say that "There is only one God and Hz. Muhammed is one of God's prophets." (This might not be exact translation but close enough.) There are many different sects of Islam. All of their believers are Muslim. I do not have much knowledge about Sihks, Druze, and Bahais. So, I can not give any info about them right now. Maybe later, after I examine some books. --------------------------------- "Does it matter? Which is more important to you, your own sense of right and wrong or the words in an Arabic book that you admit you do not know by heart? If the Quran told you to do something you know is wrong, would you do it? Right and Wrong are universal principles and should not be confused with religion." No it does not matter. I do not value a man because of his religion. I value him according to his character. But I do not like "All Muslims are evil" kind of crap. Many persons that I love is Muslim. So these kind of insults are also directed against them. ---------------------------------- "Then, I claim, your grandfather also taught you Good. It is not the same thing, although it may overlap in places." In my eyes, there is only 1 way to be a good Muslim. To be Good. ----------------------------------- "So, in your heart, you are a Deist, not a Muslim. It is a good thing you don't live in Pakistan, Iran, or Saudi Arabia, because for what you just said, they would kill you." There are many Deists in Turkey. Including many among my friends. There is nothing wrong to be a Deist. If my grandfather did not teach me what is Islam and what is not; I might have been a Deist. Believe me even I am not comfortable with sharing the same religion with these maniacs. But there are maniacs in every religion. Their way is not the true Islam, not theirs. I have been taught so.
 
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SGTObvious    RE:Turks and Islam, a discussion with Ilpars   5/27/2004 6:51:12 AM
>>No we are Muslims. To be Muslim you only need to believe and say that "There is only one God and Hz. Muhammed is one of God's << And there is a problem. To a great many Muslims, that is not enough. So we have Muslims who do not agree on what makes a "true" Muslim. Ilpars, you claim you are Muslim and yet there are Muslims who would kill you for the things you say. And even more who would simply watch and say nothing. So "muslim" is a very broad definition which includes great extremes. In fact, in your definition, a Sikh, Bahai or Druze is a Muslim. They beleive in one God, an they Believe that Mohamed was one (but not the only) Prophet. Druze beleive in Mohamed and the Q'uran (sort of) and they also beleive in Reincrnation after death, so, like you, they are "Muslims with other beliefs mixed in". (They don't observe Ramadan, or make the pilgrimage- but you said this was not required to be a Muslim!) So, it is clear to me, that you ought to adopt a new name for your religion, to distinguish yourself. Otherwise, you must understand that we Americans will get confused. We have a hard enough time understanding which group is which when they name themselves (Most Americans don't know what Druze are, or that Casey Kasem - famous radio guy- is a Druze, not a Muslim). How can you blame us for getting it all mixed up when the world is full of Muslims who don't agree on who is a Muslim? I'm only saying, help us sort this out by makign it more clear. If people with one set of beliefs are muslims, people with a very different set of beliefs, even if there is some overlap, should have a different name.
 
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ilpars    RE:Turks and Islam, a discussion with Ilpars   5/27/2004 7:19:10 AM
SGT, That is why we Muslims have so many sects. Most of the Turks belonged to one of Hanefi, Alevi or Bektasi (in fact a sub-sect of Alevi) sects. All of this sects are known as very liberal compared to most other sects. Bektasi sect is so unorthodox that many other sects do not consider them as Muslims. The definition of being a Muslim that I quated is from Hanefi sect that I belonged which is one of the Sunni sects. I must add as a side note that Hanefi sect do not consider Wahabi sect as a Sunni sect as Wahabi sect is too radical.
 
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ilpars    RE:Turks and Islam, a discussion with Ilpars   5/27/2004 7:22:03 AM
typo: I belong not belonged. I was at the phone while I was writing.
 
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jjfs2    RE:Our enemy is not terrorism   6/2/2004 5:54:54 PM
"If Bush had called it a war on militant Islam then he would never get away with it. Now his words speak of war on terrorism, but his actions show war on militant islam." In the wake of 9/11, he could easily have called it a lot more than "a war on militant islam".
 
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