TERRORISM

TERRORISM

BY THE BIG DRIFTER

PREFACE

After 9-11, the Madrid and London bombings and all the Israel and Iraq suicide attacks, I decided it was about time to learn more about what makes these terrorists tick. It was "unimaginable" for me to comprehend how anybody could kill all these innocent people and also kill them self. The only thought that comes to mind is they must be "fanatical" crazy idiots. Well, after two months of extensive research on Muslims, Islam, al Qaeda and terrorism, I have come to the conclusion that these terrorist are "fanatical" crazy idiots. In the process of doing this report, I have learned a lot about Muslims, Islam, al Qaeda and terrorism that I'm going to share with you.

CONTENTS

I. Muslims and the Islamic Faith

II. Mohammed

III. Jihad

IV. Paradise

V. Some Muslims Teach Hate

VI. The Bible vs the Quran

VII. Background of Terrorism

VIII. Al Qaeda

IX. Islamic Suicide Bombers

X. Iraq Insurgents

XI. Recruiting and Funding the Terrorists

XII. Racial Profiling

XIII. President Bush's Speech on Iraq and Terrorism

XIV. My Views and Conclusions on Iraq and Terrorism

I. Muslims and the Islamic Faith

The Islamic Religion (Muslims) is the second largest in the World with 1.3 billion people. Here is a little breakdown of where these people live:

8 Million in the U.S.

3500 in Hawaii

15% are Mid-east Arabs (that is 195 million people)

30% are in India/China (390 million)

20% are in Africa (260 million)

17% are in Southeast Asia (221 million)

10% are in the former Soviet Union States (130 million)

8% are in the rest of the World (104 million)

So, as you can see, there are a lot of Muslims running around. Hopefully they are all NOT terrorists!!

Here are the Basic Beliefs of the Islamic Faith - Muslims share certain beliefs, including:

The oneness of God (Allah) - For Muslims, there is no entity worthy of worship but Allah. Allah has no partners, no progeny and no gender.

Belief in God's prophets - Muslims believe that Allah's message was given to numerous prophets, including Noah, Abraham, Moses, Elijah, and Jesus, and other prophets common to Christianity and Judaism, as well as Muhammad. Muslims believe that Muhammad is the last prophet, in part because he had the most success instituting God's word in his lifetime.

Belief in angels - Muslims believe in spiritual beings who do the will of God.

Belief in sacred books - These include the Torah, the Psalms, the Gospel, and the Quran.

The day of judgment and resurrection - Muslims believe that human beings are accountable for their behavior during their lifetimes. At death, that behavior is part of what determines how the person will be judged.

There are five fundamental practices that are generally common to Muslims worldwide. These are commonly known as the Five Pillars of Islam. They include:

Declaration of Faith - This is what people say to become Muslim, and it is repeated during prayer, in the call to prayer, and at other times during the day. This declaration of faith, called the shahada, states, "There is no god but God and Muhammad is his messenger."

Prayer - Muslims are supposed to make five daily ritual prayers -- one at dawn, one at noon, another in the afternoon, at sunset, and before bed. These prayers may be performed alone or in a group. Friday is the Muslim Sabbath, so people may gather in a mosque for the noon prayer. This is called juma'a.

Giving charity - Muslims are required to give of their bounty to those who have less. This is called zakat, which literally mean "purification." It is a tax of 2.5% of one's annual savings.

Fasting during the month of Ramadan - Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar. Muslims fast from dawn until dusk. They abstain from food, water, sex, cigarettes, gossip, anger, backbiting, and other negative behaviors. The fast is designed to encourage self-discipline and sympathy. Ramadan is the month when the first revelation was given to the prophet.

Pilgrimage, or hajj - If they are financially and physically able, Muslims are required to make a pilgrimage, or hajj, to Mecca once during their lives. Mecca is in Saudi Arabia, and is the site of the Kaaba, the building Muslims believe was the first house of worship dedicated to the one God. Several rituals are performed during hajj: circling the Kaaba; running between the hills of Safa and Marwa (echoing Hagar's search for water for her son, Ishmael); traveling to the plain of Arafat, outside of Mecca; and throwing stones at pillars that symbolize the devil.

Okay, from the descriptions above it appears that Muslims should be pretty good people. Well, in fact the vast majority of Muslims are good law bidding citizens. However, there are groups of "Fundamentalist" Islamic (primarily in the Mid-east) who interrupt the teachings of Mohammed and the Quran much differently than the average Muslim.

II. Mohammed

Let's take a closer look at Mohammed and what he had to say.

Islam means "submission" and the world Muslim means "one who submits to Allah." The Quran was started in A.D. 610 when Muhammad said the angel Gabriel spoke to him while he was meditating in a cave near Mecca.

Muhammad wrote down these words as they were received - they were supposed to be the direct words of Allah. It is significant that the revelations came over a period of 22 years. The books of 'Hadith' are another set of holy writings that record a verified account of what Muhammad did and said during his life.

Muhammad's life and teachings have served to establish principles of warfare and coercion that are practiced today. The revelations he received are dictated by periods in his life. When there is a contradiction in Quranic verses (which Gabriel questions), Islamic scholars had to determine which verses to follow. "This was accomplished by the principle of naskh," which means that the new revelations would override previous revelations.

There are at least 114 verses in the Quran that speak of love, peace, and forgiveness ("The Heifer" Surah 2:62, 109). "But when Surah 9:5 was revealed later, it canceled out those previous verses," Gabriel says. "This Surah is known as the 'verse of the sword," and it explains that Muslims must fight anyone who chooses not to convert to Islam, whether they are inside or outside of Arabia. It is considered to be the final development of jihad in Islam."

III. JIHAD

Jihad (holy war) is a command to all Muslims enforced by the Quran. The focus is to overcome people who do not accept Islam. Islam is a religion of works. Dying in jihad is a great honor, and it is the only way a Muslim is assured of entering Paradise at all. This is why you see Muslims leaving their own nations to fight jihad in other countries. "Their motivation is religious, which is much more dangerous than a political motivation," Gabriel says. Jihad is the motivation behind almost every act of terrorism done in the name of Islam. After the death of Muhammad, different factions rose up to carry on the faith - which became the Sunni and Shiite Muslims. Gabriel cites many reasons why Islam became such a dominant force so quickly, one being that violence was a ubiquitous part of the culture at the time and this type of religious conquest fit easily into the regional character.

Now things are getting scary!! Muhammad changed the Quran verses that speak of love, peace, and forgiveness to state that Muslims must fight anyone who chooses not to convert to Islam. What's this thing about dying a "martyr" and getting a free pass to Paradise and receiving 72 virgins as a reward? I don't buy this promise at all but read more about it in the next section.

IV. Paradise

It is widely believed that Muslim 'martyrs' enjoy rich sensual rewards on reaching paradise. A new study suggests they may be disappointed.

In August, 2001, the American television channel CBS aired an interview with a Hamas activist Muhammad Abu Wardeh, who recruited terrorists for suicide bombings in Israel. Abu Wardeh was quoted as saying: "I described to him how God would compensate the martyr for sacrificing his life for his land. If you become a martyr, God will give you 70 virgins, 70 wives and everlasting happiness." Wardeh was in fact shortchanging his recruits since the rewards in Paradise for martyrs was 72 virgins. But I am running ahead of things .

Since September 11, news stories have repeated the story of suicide bombers and their heavenly rewards, and equally Muslim scholars and Western apologists of Islam have repeated that suicide is forbidden in Islam. Suicide (qatlu nafsi-hi) is not referred to in the Koran but is indeed forbidden in the Traditions (Hadith in Arabic), which are the collected sayings and doings attributed to the Prophet and traced back to him through a series of putatively trustworthy witnesses. They include what was done in his presence that he did not forbid, and even the authoritative sayings and doings of his companions.

But the Hamas spokesman correctly uses the word martyr (shahid) and not suicide bomber, since those who blow themselves up almost daily in Israel and those who died on September 11 were dying in the noblest of all causes, Jihad, which is an incumbent religious duty, established in the Koran and in the Traditions as a divine institution, and enjoined for the purpose of advancing Islam. While suicide is forbidden, martyrdom is everywhere praised, welcomed, and urged: "By the Being in Whose Hand is my life, I love that I should be killed in the way of Allah; then I should be brought back to life and be killed again in His way..."; "The Prophet said, 'Nobody who enters Paradise will ever like to return to this world even if he were offered everything, except the martyr who will desire to return to this world and be killed 10 times for the sake of the great honor that has been bestowed upon him'." [Sahih Muslim, chapters 781, 782, The Merit of Jihad and the Merit of Martyrdom.]

What of the rewards in paradise? The Islamic paradise is described in great sensual detail in the Koran and the Traditions; for instance, Koran sura 56 verses 12 -40 ; sura 55 verses 54-56 ; sura 76 verses 12-22. I shall quote the celebrated Penguin translation by NJ Dawood of sura 56 verses 12- 39: "They shall recline on jewelled couches face to face, and there shall wait on them immortal youths with bowls and ewers and a cup of purest wine (that will neither pain their heads nor take away their reason); with fruits of their own choice and flesh of fowls that they relish. And theirs shall be the dark-eyed houris, chaste as hidden pearls: a guerdon for their deeds... We created the houris and made them virgins, loving companions for those on the right hand..."

Two points need to be noted. First, there is no mention anywhere in the Koran of the actual number of virgins available in paradise, and second, the dark-eyed damsels are available for all Muslims, not just martyrs. It is in the Islamic Traditions that we find the 72 virgins in heaven specified.

Modern apologists of Islam try to downplay the evident materialism and sexual implications of such descriptions, but, as the Encyclopedia of Islam says, even orthodox Muslim theologians such as al Ghazali (died 1111 CE) and Al-Ash'ari (died 935 CE) have "admitted sensual pleasures into paradise". The sensual pleasures are graphically elaborated by Al-Suyuti (died 1505 ), Koranic commentator and polymath. He wrote: "Each time we sleep with a houri we find her virgin. Besides, the penis of the Elected never softens. The erection is eternal; the sensation that you feel each time you make love is utterly delicious and out of this world and were you to experience it in this world you would faint. Each chosen one [ie Muslim] will marry seventy [sic] houris, besides the women he married on earth, and all will have appetizing vaginas."

One of the reasons Nietzsche hated Christianity was that it "made something unclean out of sexuality", whereas Islam, many would argue, was sex-positive. One cannot imagine any of the Church fathers writing ecstatically of heavenly sex as al-Suyuti did, with the possible exception of St Augustine before his conversion. But surely to call Islam sex-positive is to insult all Muslim women, for sex is seen entirely from the male point of view; women's sexuality is admitted but seen as something to be feared, repressed, and a work of the devil.

Scholars have long pointed out that these images are clearly drawn pictures and must have been inspired by the art of painting. Muhammad, or whoever is responsible for the descriptions, may well have seen Christian miniatures or mosaics representing the gardens of paradise and has interpreted the figures of angels rather literally as those of young men and young women. Most scholars agree that these suicide bombers, or rather prospective martyrs, would do well to abandon their culture of death, and instead concentrate on getting laid 72 times in this world because it ain't going to happen in the next.

Well, now we know why there are so many suicide bombers. These stupid idiots have been brain-washed to think they are going to Paradise and have 72 virgins at their disposal. No wonder the Muslim religion is growing so fast!

V. Some Muslims Teach Hate

"Muslims teach their children to hate unbelievers."

It is a proven "fact" that ) in such countries as Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iran, Lebanon, Pakistan, Muslim children are taught (in schools and homes) to hate Jews, Americans and other non-Muslims. In some of these countries, it is a capital offense to try and be a non-Muslim. Some times we forget how lucky we are to live in America where we are truly free to live our lives the way we want to.

Before boarding his flight to Crawford to meet with President Bush Monday, Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Abdullah presided over the arrest of 40 Pakistani Christians on Friday. Their crime? The Pakistanis were caught praying in a private home in the capital Riyadh in violation of the state’s strictly enforced religious law that bans all non-Muslim worship.

As the State Department has determined, there is no religious freedom in Saudi Arabia and everyone there, Muslim or not, must obey the rules of the extreme sharia of the kingdom’s established religion, the Wahhabi interpretation of Islam. The Saudi state indoctrinates its nationals from an early age in the Wahhabi ideology of zero tolerance for the “other.” Government textbooks and publications teach that it is a religious obligation for Muslims to hate Christians and Jews and warn against imitating, befriending, or helping them in any way, or taking part in their festivities and celebrations. The state teaches a Nazi-like hatred for Jews, treats the forged Protocols of the Elders of Zion as historical fact, and avows that the Muslim’s duty is to eliminate the state of Israel.

Though the persecution of the Pakistani Christians is a dramatic example, they and the other non-Muslims among the quarter of the kingdom’s population who are foreign workers are not the only ones to suffer from the denial of religious freedom. Saudi Arabia’s nationals, by law Muslim, find that a broad range of their freedoms are limited because of the state’s monopoly on religious expresssion.

For example, Muslims who follow the Sufi and Shiite traditions are viewed as heretical dissidents and viciously condemned and discriminated against by the state. Regarding those who convert out of Islam, the Saudi ministry of Islamic affairs explicitly asserts in publications Freedom House has acquired, they “should be killed.” Muslims who object to even particular tenets of Wahhabism, such as advocates of greater religious tolerance, also are viewed as the “other” and condemned as “infidels.” Under Saudi law, such “blasphemers” and “apostates” from Islam can be sentenced to death.

Political reformers, too, are crushed on religious grounds. Three Saudi professors have now languished for over a year in prison after proposing that the country adopt a written constitution. Among other charges, their terminology was denounced as un-Islamic or “Western.” State publications condemn democracy itself as un-Islamic. They instill contempt for America because the United States is ruled by “infidel” legislated law, rather than Wahhabi-style Islamic law.

A direct consequence of there being no religious freedom is that every Saudi woman is forced by the state to conform to Wahhabi religious edicts restricting dress, transportation, movement, due-process rights, and the ability to participate in civic life.

It is clear to me that the Muslim Religion discriminates against women. This isn't going to change any time soon.

The expansion of civil and political freedoms in the kingdom, therefore, hinges on religious freedom.

Since the 9/11 terrorist attacks — and the discovery that two thirds of the hijackers were Saudis — Saudi state ideology has become a matter of U.S. national security. As bad as it is that Wahhabism is Saudi Arabia’s state religion, even worse is that it is the Saudi government’s aim to propagate it and have it replace traditional and moderate interpretations of Islam worldwide, including within the United States. Earlier this year, Freedom House’s Center for Religious Freedom released a report based on a year-long study of the radically intolerant Wahhabi ideology contained in documents spread, published, or otherwise generated by the government of Saudi Arabia and found in the United States.

In one example, a publication for the “Immigrant Muslim” bearing the words “Greetings from the Cultural Department” of the embassy of Saudi Arabia in Washington, D.C., gave detailed instructions on how to “hate” the Christian and Jew: Never greet them first. Never congratulate the infidel on his holiday. Never imitate the infidel. Do not become a naturalized citizen of the United States. Do not wear a graduation gown because this imitates the infidel. The opening fatwa of another a book distributed by the embassy that was published by the Saudi air force responds to a question about a Muslim preacher in a European mosque who taught that it is not right to condemn Jews and Christians as infidels. The Saudi state cleric’s reply emphatically rebukes the Muslim cleric: “He who casts doubts about their infidelity leaves no doubt about his.”

Within worldwide Sunni Islam, followers of Saudi Arabia’s extremist Wahhabi ideology remain a distinct minority. This is evident from the millions of Muslims who have chosen to make America their home and are upstanding, law-abiding citizens and neighbors. It was just such concerned Muslims who first brought these publications to the attention of Freedom House. They did so in the hope of “freeing their communities from ideological strangulation.”

The Saudi state’s propagation of Wahhabi extremism is more than hate speech; it is a totalitarian ideology of hatred that can incite to violence. The fact that this ideology is being mainstreamed within our borders through the efforts of a foreign government demands President Bush’s urgent attention in today’s conversations with Prince Abdullah. With his remarkable State of the Union address that challenged Saudi Arabia to democratize, the president turned a new page in U.S. policy. Some in American policy circles argue that religious freedom, however, is too sensitive to raise. It's too important not to; the first topic on the president’s agenda should be the expansion of religious freedom in the kingdom — for Muslims, as well as the captive Christians.

Saudi Arabia is supposed to be our friend!! I don't think so!

VI. The Bible vs the Quran

The Bible

Jesus

Love your enemies, While Jesus was on earth, he never commanded that we kill others who worshiped other Gods. On the contrary, he told us to love them and to tell them the good news of going to heaven by simply believing in Him who was sent by the God of Abraham, and to turn away from our old ways of worshipping God which was wrong and displeasing to God.

Quran

Mohammed

Kill Infidels and converts (Sura [Women] 4:89 and [Immunity] 9:5) Allah commands that converts should be slain. In addition, Allah commands that no Muslim should associate with Christians or Jews.

The Bible

Jesus

Promise of heaven, Have eternal life in paradise with our creator, the God (spiritual father) of Abraham. In paradise or heaven, there is no sex or marriage.

Quran

Mohammed

Virgins in paradise (Sura [Women] 4:60) Allah says that there will be marriage and sex in heaven. In addition, there will be beautiful virgins waiting for the men.

The Bible

Jesus

Forgiveness of all sins, God the father forgives our sins only if we honor and believe in Jesus Christ. This is because Jesus Christ sacrificed his life on the cross with much pain and suffering by shedding his own blood as an offering to the father for our sins. He paid the price for us.

Quran

Mohammed

Forgiveness of small faults, (Sura [The Star] 53:32) The Quran says that we must avoid great sins and shameful deeds, however he will only forgive small faults.

The Bible

Jesus

Casting out evil spirits, Jesus Christ warned us about Satan and his demonic spirits whose mission is to constantly attack and influence us through our mind in order to disobey and rebel against the ten commandments of the God of Abraham. Jesus cast out demons by his spoken word through the power of the Holy Spirit, not with pebbles or stones.

Quran

Mohammed

Fighting Satan with stones and pebbles (Bukhari Vol. 9 No. 336). Mohammed recommends that we fight the devil with stones and pebbles. This is why pilgrims that go to Mecca through seven pebbles to the pillar called The Great Satan.

The Bible

Jesus

Healing the sick, poor, and the broken hearted, the source of sickness, disease, poverty and murder comes from Satan. Jesus Christ, while he was on earth, had the Holy Spirit in him, which gave him the power and authority to heal all manners of sicknesses and diseases, and He also raised people from the dead through His power.

Quran

Mohammed

No miracles. In the Quran, Mohammed denies that he did any miracles except for the Quran itself.

I will go with the Bible. I can't believe that God or Allah wants me to kill people that doesn't believe the same things I do. Again, it depends on your interpretation of the Quran. Most Muslins believe that the Prophet (Muhammad) said "To kill one innocent is the same as killing all innocents, and to save one innocent is to save all innocents." Islam teaches Muslims to enjoy what is right and to fight what's wrong. There are good and bad Christians and there are good and bad Muslims. It would be nice if nobody wanted to kill anybody!!

VII. Background of Terrorism

The origins of the 9-11 attack on the United States arguably have their roots in the 1970s. At this time, during the height of the Cold War, a Washington shamed by defeat in Vietnam embarked on a deep, collaborative enterprise to contain the Soviet Union.

The genesis of the policy came to a head following the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, when President Jimmy Carter set up a team headed by National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski to employ its ‘death by a thousands cuts’ policy on the tottering Soviet empire, especially the oil- and mineral-rich Central Asian Republics then ruled by Moscow.

A marriage of convenience

Thus began the US-love affair with Islamists in which short-term profit motivated all parties concerned, but the deadly ramifications of which are haunting the world today and the effects of which were brought home starkly to America earlier this week.

This ‘marriage of convenience’, consummated in an alliance with Islamic fundamentalists, particularly suited the Pakistani military junta of General Mohammad Zia-ul-Haq, which was looking for greater strategic depth and economic influence in Afghanistan and Central Asia.

The flip side of the wily general’s agenda was that this alliance with the US would also strengthen Pakistan's military capabilities with respect to rival India with the induction of sophisticated US weaponry at throwaway prices. This was also the time when Pakistan made great strides in developing its covert nuclear capability through a combination of clandestine transactions, outright theft and forging closer military and nuclear relations with China, all connived at by Washington.

The US-led ‘proxy war’ model was based on the premise that Islamists made good anti-Communist allies. The plan was diabolically simple: to hire, train and control motivated Islamic mercenaries. The trainers were mainly from Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) agency, who learnt their craft from American Green Beret commandos and Navy SEALS in various US training establishments. Mass training of Afghan mujahideen was subsequently conducted by the Pakistan Army under the supervision of the elite Special Services Group (SSG), specialists in covert action behind enemy lines and the ISI.

Pakistan’s current military ruler, General Pervez Musharraf, spent seven years with the SSG and was also involved in training Afghan mujahideen. Provided he co-operates, he will prove a useful guide to the US in hunting down terrorists inside Afghanistan.

The entire anti-Soviet operation, headed by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and held together on the ground by the ISI, was supported by generous donations from the US State Department, Western governments, Saudi Arabia and a handful of commando experts from the UK Special Air Service (SAS), while surveillance training, communication and first aid help came from France.

Israel provided weapons like rifles, tanks and even artillery pieces, captured during its many wars with the Arab states, while Sudan and Algeria contributed committed mujahideen and religious motivation. The entire operation was, inexplicably but amusingly, christened the Safari Club.

Fallout from the fighting

The fallout of this ‘holy war’, which ended with the Soviet withdrawal in 1989, brought in its wake a series of distinctly ‘unholy wars’ and ‘epidemics of violence’ in places like Kashmir in northern India. It also brought grave unrest to the Central Asian and other former Soviet Republics like Chechnya as well as to North Africa. Now, it has been brought to the US, and to the rest of the world.

Over the past decade Afghanistan has been steadily devastated by internecine battles in which the Pakistan-backed Taliban militia has emerged partially victorious. Nearly two million Afghans of the country's population of some four million became refugees in Pakistan, Iran and Central Asia. The majority of those who were part of the jihad became unemployed, lacking food and shelter and, most importantly, patrons.

This, in turn, made them ideal recruits for exploitation by the ISI and Pakistan’s increasingly fundamentalist army. According to intelligence estimates over 10,000 Islamic mercenaries, trained in guerrilla warfare and armed with sophisticated weapons, are unemployed in Pakistan today, waiting to be transported to the next jihad.

Osama bin Laden was one of many US beneficiaries in its war against Moscow. He spent years in the mid-1980s travelling widely to raise funds and recruit thousands of Muslim youths to fight the Soviets.

The rise of Al-Qaeda

In 1988, with US knowledge, Bin Laden created Al Qaeda (The Base): a conglomerate of quasi-independent Islamic terrorist cells in countries spread across at least 26 countries, including Algeria, Morocco, Turkey, Egypt, Syria, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Burma, Lebanon, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Indonesia, Kenya, Tanzania, Azerbaijan, Dagestan, Uganda, Ethiopia, Syria, Tunisia, Bahrain, Yemen, Bosnia as well as the West Bank and Gaza. Western intelligence sources claim Al Quaeda even has a cell in Xinjiang in China, a country that ironically was another willing partner in the jihad against the Soviets. China wanted the Soviet Union out of Afghanistan for its own strategic ends and even trained and despatched Muslim Uighurs of the western Xinjiang region to fight alongside the Afghan mujahideen. China feared that the old Silk Route along the Karakoram Highway could, in time, come under Moscow's domination if the Soviets were not swiftly dislodged from Kabul.

Chinese strategy on this front, however, had a negative fallout for Beijing as the returning Uighur jihadis fuelled the already-simmering insurgency for an independent Muslim Eastern Turkestan in Xinjiang. This insurgency continues, though the Chinese have managed to significantly counter it through economic sops, effective sealing of borders and drowning dissidence using strong-arm methods, actions unquestioned by the outside world.

Washington turned a blind eye to Al-Qaeda, confident that it would not directly impinge on the US. By the time the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed in 1998, killing 224 people including 12 Americans, and the ill-fated World Trade Center was similarly attacked around the same time, it was too late for remedial measures. It was this reality that was brought home with such an unimaginable atrocity of 9-11.

Three waves of modern terrorism:

1. 1960s and 1970s: Privately funded organizations, such as the Irish Republican Army, focus on a single nation.

2. 1970s and 1980s: Terrorist organizations operate internationally under sponsorship of states like Libya, Iran and Syria.

3. 1990s to present: Private organizations, like the Osama bin Laden network, operate internationally as what some call "professional terrorists." Unlike predecessors, they often use suicide bombers, and do not gather hostages to negotiate for concessions. Although they kill to make a political point, they seldom claim responsibility for their acts.

It seems like our own Government made several "screw-ups" that actually helped the terrorists. I can understand that, at the time, the Soviet Union was considered our enemy and our biggest threat. But, somewhere along the line, our leaders should have realized that Bin Laden, al-Qaeda and these "radical" Muslims had become the biggest problem our country was facing. Look at the mess we are in now!!

VIII. Al Qaeda

After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, al-Qaeda (or al-Qa'ida, pronounced al-KYE-da) surpassed the IRA and the PLO as the world's most infamous terrorist organization. Al-Qaeda—"the base" in Arabic—is the network of extremists organized by Osama bin Laden.

The Mujahideen

Al-Qaeda has its origins in the uprising against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Thousands of volunteers from around the Middle East came to Afghanistan as mujahideen, warriors fighting to defend fellow Muslims. In the mid-1980s, Osama bin Laden became the prime financier for an organization that recruited Muslims from mosques around the world. These "Afghan Arab" mujahideen, which numbered in the thousands, were crucial in defeating Soviet forces.

After the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan, bin Laden returned to his native Saudi Arabia. He founded an organization to help veterans of the Afghan war, many of whom went on to fight elsewhere (including Bosnia) and comprise the basis of al-Qaeda.

Bin Laden also studied with radical Islamic thinkers and may have already been organizing al-Qaeda when Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990. Bin Laden was outraged when the government allowed U.S. troops to be stationed in Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Islam. In 1991 he was expelled from Saudi Arabia for anti-government activities.

The Rise of al-Qaeda

After his expulsion from Saudi Arabia, bin Laden established headquarters for al-Qaeda in Khartoum, Sudan. The first actions of al-Qaeda against American interests were attacks on U.S. servicemen in Somalia. A string of terrorist actions suspected to have been orchestrated by al-Qaeda, and in August 1996 bin Laden issued a "Declaration of War" against the U.S.

Al-Qaeda also worked to forge alliances with other radical groups. In February 1998, bin Laden announced an alliance of terrorist organizations—the "International Islamic Front for Jihad Against the Jews and Crusaders"—that included the Egyptian al-Gama'at al-Islamiyya, the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, the Harakat ul-Ansar, and other groups.

In 1994 Sudan—under pressure from Saudi Arabia and the U.S.—expelled bin Laden, who moved his base of operations to Afghanistan. Bin Laden was the "guest" of the Taliban until the U.S. drove them from power in Nov. 2001. Al-Qaeda set up terrorist training camps in the war-torn nation, as it had in Sudan.

Leadership and Structure

Although al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden have become virtually synonymous, bin Laden does not run the organization single-handedly. His top advisor is Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda's theological leader and bin Laden's probable successor. Al-Zawahiri is an Egyptian surgeon from an upper-class family. He joined the country's Islamist movement in the late 1970s. He served three years in prison on charges connected to the assassination of Anwar Sadat, during which time he was tortured. After his release he went to Afghanistan, where he met bin Laden and became his personal physician and advisor. He was likely instrumental in bin Laden's political evolution.

Al-Zawahiri is suspected of helping organize the 1997 massacre of 67 foreign tourists in the Egyptian town of Luxor and was indicted in connection with the bombing of U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya. In 1998, he was one of five Islamic leaders to sign on to bin Laden's declaration calling for attacks against U.S. citizens. He is wanted by the FBI and has been sentenced to death by Egypt in absentia. In March 2004 the Pakistani military began an assault on al-Qaeda troops along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. These troops were believed to be defending al-Zawahiri, who managed to escape.

Al-Qaeda's leadership oversees a loosely organized network of cells. It can recruit members from thousands of "Arab Afghan" veterans and radicals around the world. Its infrastructure is small, mobile, and decentralized—each cell operates independently with its members not knowing the identity of other cells. Local operatives rarely know anyone higher up in the organization's hierarchy. Al-Qaeda differs significantly from more traditional terrorist organizations. It does not depend on the sponsorship of a political state, and, unlike the PLO or the IRA, it is not defined by a particular conflict. Instead, al-Qaeda operates as a franchise. It provides financial and logistical support, as well as name recognition, to terrorist groups operating in such diverse places as the Philippines, Algeria, Eritrea, Afghanistan, Chechnya, Tajikistan, Somalia, Yemen, and Kashmir. Furthermore, local groups may act in the name of al-Qaeda in order to bolster their own reputation—even if they are not receiving support from the organization.

Ideology and Goals

The principal stated aims of al-Qaeda are to drive Americans and American influence out of all Muslim nations, especially Saudi Arabia; destroy Israel; and topple pro-Western dictatorships around the Middle East. Bin Laden has also said that he wishes to unite all Muslims and establish, by force if necessary, an Islamic nation adhering to the rule of the first Caliphs.

According to bin Laden's 1998 fatwa (religious decree), it is the duty of Muslims around the world to wage holy war on the U.S., American citizens, and Jews. Muslims who do not heed this call are declared apostates (people who have forsaken their faith).

Al-Qaeda's ideology, often referred to as "jihadism," is marked by a willingness to kill "apostate" —and Shiite—Muslims and an emphasis on jihad. Although "jihadism" is at odds with nearly all Islamic religious thought, it has its roots in the work of two modern Sunni Islamic thinkers: Mohammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab and Sayyid Qutb.

Al-Wahhab was an 18th-century reformer who claimed that Islam had been corrupted a generation or so after the death of Mohammed. He denounced any theology or customs developed after that as non-Islamic, including more than 1,000 years of religious scholarship. He and his supporters took over what is now Saudi Arabia, where Wahhabism remains the dominant school of religious thought. Sayyid Qutb, a radical Egyptian scholar of the mid-20th century, declared Western civilization the enemy of Islam, denounced leaders of Muslim nations for not following Islam closely enough, and taught that jihad should be undertaken not just to defend Islam, but to purify it.

The War on Terrorism

In response to the September 11, 2001, attacks on the WTC and Pentagon, the U.S. invaded Afghanistan in October 2001 to dismantle al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Al-Qaeda's infrastructure in the country was destroyed and their military commander, Muhammed Atef, was killed. Abu Zubaydah, another top operative, was captured in Pakistan. Bin Laden and al-Zawahiri, however, escaped and are presumed alive. They release audio and video messages to the Arab media from time to time.

In March 2003 the U.S. widened the war on terrorism by invading Iraq and deposing Saddam Hussein and his Baath party (see Iraq primer). Although President Bush asserted that there was a working relationship between Hussein and al-Qaeda, no solid proof of collaboration between them—specifically on the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, or on any other terrorist activities—has emerged. As the Iraqi insurgency has continued, however, suspected al-Qaeda terrorists have moved into the country and are likely responsible for kidnappings and a string of suicide-bomb attacks. In February 2004, U.S. forces intercepted a letter believed to have been written by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian radical. The letter outlined plans to destabilize Iraq by igniting sectarian conflict between Shia and Sunni Muslims. Al-Zarqawi is thought to be the mastermind behind the roughly 1,000 foreign insurgents fighting in Iraq. For a time, al-Zarqawi appeared to position himself as a rival to bin Laden, but in Oct. 2004 he officially declared allegiance to al-Qaeda, changing the name of his organization from Unification and Jihad to al-Qaeda in Iraq. In an audiotape a few months later bin Laden declared that "the dear mujahed brother Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is the prince of al-Qaeda in Iraq," and announced that "we, in al-Qaeda organization, welcome him joining forces with us."

Despite the U.S. "war on terror," al-Qaeda continues to be a threat world-wide. There have been about a dozen major attacks by al-Qaeda terrorists since September 11, 2001. Both Osama bin Laden and al-Zawahiri, although in hiding, still play an important role in shaping the group's mission. In April, 2004, bin Laden offered a truce to Europe, saying that al-Qaeda would not attack any country, with the exception of the U.S., that withdrew its troops from the Islamic world within three months. European leaders quickly rejected the offer.

On March 11, 2004, Spain's most horrific terrorist attack occurred: 202 people were killed and 1,400 were injured in bombings at Madrid's railway station. Evidence soon emerged that al-Qaeda was responsible. By April, a dozen suspects, most of them Moroccan, were arrested for the bombings. On April 4, several suspects blew themselves up during a police raid to avoid capture. Many Spaniards blamed their prime minister's staunch support of the U.S. and the war in Iraq for making Spain an al-Qaeda target.

On July 7, 2005, London suffered what is believed to be al-Qaeda's latest attack. Four bombs exploded in three subway stations and on one double-decker bus during the morning rush hour, killing at least 52 and wounding more than 700. A group calling itself the Secret Organization of al-Qaeda in Europe claimed responsibility on a Web site, asserting that the attacks were a retaliation for Britain's involvement in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

What is going to happen next? The World is not safe any more. We are at WAR. All terrorists World-wide

must be tracked down and killed or put away. This will not be an easy task.

IX. Islamic Suicide Bombers

The vast majority of Muslims do not condone terrorism, including suicide attacks. However, tiny minorities - essentially cults and sects of Islam - believe they have found a way to make the Koran support their evil actions.

''Suicide is a major sin in Islam,'' Maher Hathout, imam of the Islamic Center in Los Angeles, explained. Ibrahim Hooper of the Council on American-Islamic Relations pronounced that suicide ''would not be in accord with Islamic beliefs and practices.''

Well, sort of. The Koran does tell Muslims, ''Do not kill yourselves'' and warns that those who disobey will be ''cast into the fire.'' The Prophet Mohammed is reported to have said that a suicide cannot go to paradise.

Islamic laws oppose the practice.

This religious prohibition has had the intended effect. According to Franz Rosenthal, a scholar of the subject, ''suicide was of comparatively rare occurrence'' in traditional Muslim society. In contemporary Egypt, statistics bear out that suicide is exceedingly rare.

But those spokesmen are not telling the whole story, for Islamists consider suicide as not just legitimate, but highly commendable when undertaken for reasons of jihad (holy war). Going into war knowing with the certainty that one will die, they argue, is not suicide (intihar) but martyrdom (istishhad), a much-praised form of self-sacrifice in the path of God, a way to win the eternal affection of the houris in paradise.

A leading Islamist authority, Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi, recently explained the distinction this way: attacks on enemies are not suicide operations, but ''heroic martyrdom operations'' in which the kamikazes act not ''out of hopelessness and despair, but are driven by an overwhelming desire to cast terror and fear into the hearts of the oppressors.''

In other words, Islamists find suicide for personal reasons abominable, suicide for jihad admirable.

The following article was compiled by Robert Pape and some of his findings and recommendations make a lot of sense.

The rash of suicide bombings in Iraq and the suicide attacks in London earlier this month have focused attention on the motivation for such attacks and how to prevent them. A new study examines hundreds of suicide attacks and why individuals kill themselves to murder others.

University of Chicago Professor Robert Pape has collected evidence and developed a database on more than 300 suicide attacks that have occurred around the world since 1980.

Mr. Pape is the director of the Chicago Project on Suicide Terrorism, and has just published a book called Dying to Win, the Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism.

During a recent appearance on the VOA public affairs program, Press Conference USA, Mr. Pape says his research indicates that, every major suicide campaign has what he calls a secular and political goal, to compel democracies to withdraw military forces from areas the bombers view as their territory.

"Iraq is a prime example of the strategic logic of suicide terrorism. Before the American invasion in March 2003, Iraq never experienced a suicide terrorist attack in its history. Since the invasion of 2003, suicide terrorism has been growing rapidly. Suicide terrorism has doubled in Iraq every year that 140,000 American combat forces have been stationed in the country, and we are on pace now to set a new record for the year."

Mr. Pape says suicide terrorism is not primarily a product of Islamic fundamentalism, although he says religion is used as a recruiting and fundraising tool.

He says the world's leading suicide terrorist group is the Tamil Tigers, a secular Hindu group in Sri Lanka.

Mr. Pape says the Tamil Tigers have committed more suicide attacks than the Palestinian militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

He says the objective of compelling countries to withdraw military forces from territory the terrorists perceive as occupied has been the central goal of suicide campaigns in Lebanon, Israel, Sri Lanka and among separatists in the Russian republic of Chechnya and the disputed region of Kashmir, which is divided between India and Pakistan.

"Suicide terrorism is mainly a response to the presence of foreign military troops, that is mainly a response to the threat of foreign occupation, not Islamic fundamentalism," he said. "This is a terribly important finding, because it means that the use of heavy military force to transform Muslim societies is only likely to increase suicide terrorists coming at us."

Mr. Pape says his study of hundreds of suicide bombers who actually killed themselves to kill others indicates that most are educated and do not fit the common profile of a person who engages in self-destructive behavior. "What you see is very few fit the standard stereotype of a depressed, lonely individual on the margins of society seeking to escape some wretched existence. That is, very few are suicidal in the ordinary sense of that term. Instead, most are socially integrated, productive members of their community," he said.

Mr. Pape says, to defeat suicide terrorism, the United States should return to what he calls offshore balancing in the Persian Gulf area.

He says during the 1970's and 1980's, the United States successfully managed its interests in the region by not permanently stationing troops in Muslim countries, but maintaining the ability to rapidly deploy military forces to hot spots when necessary.

Mr. Pape says the United States should develop the same strategy to defeat suicide terrorism in Iraq. "Over the next year, we should transfer responsibility for Iraq's army to the Iraqi government, and then we should begin a systematic withdrawal of ground forces, not in a hasty way, but, so (that), over the next two or three years, we transition to a situation, where the Iraqi government is in charge of its army, and the United States has excellent relations with that new government," he said.

Mr. Pape has presented his findings to members of the U.S. Congress, and hopes his research will help policymakers, as they continue efforts to boost the nation's defenses against suicide terrorism. There has been no immediate response from Congressional leaders to Mr. Pape's findings.

X. Iraq Insurgents

Who Are the Insurgents?

Sunni Arab Rebels in Iraq

Building a profile of a typical anti-coalition Sunni Arab insurgent in Iraq is a daunting task. Demographic information about the insurgents is fragmented, and the rebels themselves are marked more by their heterogeneity than by their homogeneity. Drawing from a wide array of sources, however, we can try to piece together a view of their primary motivations for taking up arms against the U.S.-led occupation.

Sunni insurgents generally claim one of three primary identity-based impetuses for their anti-American and antigovernment violence: Ba'th Party membership or affiliation with Saddam's regime, adherence to Islam, or tribal interests, values, and norms.

Secular/ideological, tribal, and moderate Islamist concerns are not necessarily mutually exclusive and often are even mutually reinforcing.

Many ex-army officers, security force personnel, and Ba'th Party members lost their privileged status in the new Iraq and remain bitter, angry, and frustrated. This fact, combined with the perceived humiliation of being forced to live under foreign occupation and, worse still, the prospect of longer-term Shi'i supremacy, led many to take up arms.

In strictly economic terms, many Sunni Arab tribes suffered following the war. While a number of tribes had once earned money through large-scale transborder smuggling, such activity has become increasingly dangerous and difficult, as U.S. troops have instituted measures to cut off all unregulated cross-border movement. Additionally, some tribes that had previously relied on payments from Saddam for "good" behavior found no such patronage from the Coalition Provisional Authority, which was not inclined to buy them off in this manner.

By the end of 2003, U.S. military officials noted that some insurgents were attacking them to avenge the spilled blood of relatives, whether killed by accident or in guerilla attacks. In effect, U.S. success on the battlefield, while deterring some, had on other occasions only served to perpetuate the insurgency.

In the last decade of Saddam's rule, many young Iraqi men, having realized that the Ba'th Party had lost its ideological coherence, turned away from the party's original ideas toward a new set of beliefs. They adopted an alternative ideology, namely, fundamentalist Islam based essentially on the thought of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood.

Many young Iraqi Sunni Arabs were inspired specifically by the work of the Iraqi Muslim Brother Muhammad Ahmad al-Rashid. On the one hand, al-Rashid demonstrated a pragmatic approach to political action, while on the other he very clearly stated that eventually jihad with the sword is the way of the true Muslim.

The ultraradical Salafis and Wahhabis are distinct from Iraq's moderate and even some otherwise radical Islamists. While an accord may eventually be reached between a future democratic Iraqi government and moderate and certain radical Islamist groups, the beliefs of the Salafis or Wahhabis will never allow for compromise.

The Iraqi government may be able to substantially reduce the insurgency by appealing to the secular, tribal, and non-Salafi Islamist groups through policies that address their primary concern: the status of Sunni Arabs in the new Iraq.

Such policies should include meaningful participation in the formulation of the permanent constitution, even though Sunni Arab representation in the National Assembly is very low, and political guarantees that oil revenues will be shared equitably, that Iranian influence will not be allowed to penetrate into Iraq, that Iraq will not become an Islamic republic, and that Sunni and Shi'i Islam will be equally respected by the state. Further, steps should be taken to ensure that Sunnis (as well as Kurds, Turkomans, and Christians) are not discriminated against in the job market or in the choice of infrastructure upgrades.

I don't know why they call these people INSURGENTS. In my mind, they are TERRORISTS, plain and simple. Suicide Bombers, car bombers and people who sneak around sitting up road-side bombs are TERRORISTS. It appears that about half of these "so-called" Insurgents are from Iraq and rest are sneaking across the borders of Syria, Iran and Saudi Arabia. It is hard to believe that the Iraq Insurgents would be killing their own people. But these radical Muslims will kill anybody and they are not afraid of dying. Some of these idiots are trying to get themselves killed so they can go to Paradise. Remember the 72 virgins!!

XI. Recruiting and Funding the Terrorists

What country is the primary source of funding for these Islamic extremists (Terrorists)?

It's Saudi Arabia and its network of charities and the like. The argument I make is that there is an undercurrent of terror and fanaticism that go hand in hand in the Afghanistan-Pakistan arc, and extend all the way to Uzbekistan. And you can see reflections of it in Bosnia, in Kosovo, in Indonesia, in the Philippines.

For instance, in one madrassa in Pakistan, I interviewed 70 Malaysian and Thai students who are being educated side by side with students who went on to the Afghan war and the like. These people return to their countries, and then we see the results in a short while. ... At best, they become hot-headed preachers in mosques that encourage fighting Christians in Nigeria or in Indonesia. And in a worst case, they actually recruit or participate in terror acts.

What you're saying is that, if we wanted to look for the causes of what's happened -- Al Qaeda and the movement worldwide -- we would have to look to the schools, to the educational system which Saudi Arabia has fostered in the Islamic world?

... In order to have terrorists, in order to have supporters for terrorists, in order to have people who are willing to interpret religion in violent ways, in order to have people who are willing to legitimate crashing yourself into a building and killing 5,000 innocent people, you need particular interpretations of Islam.

Those interpretations of Islam are being propagated out of schools that receive organizational and financial funding from Saudi Arabia. In fact, I would push it further: that these schools would not have existed without Saudi funding. They would not have proliferated across Pakistan and India and Afghanistan without Saudi funding. They would not have had the kind of prowess that they have without Saudi funding, and they would not have trained as many people without Saudi funding.

What is a madrassa?

It's a seminary. It's where students of different ages, as young as nine or ten, go to learn religious education and to be schooled first of all in reading and then in religious studies. In the old times, it substituted for regular elementary education and higher education, and ultimately produces quote, unquote, clerics. In other words, scholars, preachers, you know, religious community leaders who conduct the religious affairs of a community.

But you're saying the influence of the Saudis in these schools has been to create a certain kind of Islam, not your mainstream Islam?

Well, first of all, because of the Afghan war, we have a new kind of madrassa emerging in Pakistan-Afghanistan area

and throughout Central Asia.

They've been spreading throughout Central Asia, but there have been Central Asian students, Filipino students, Indonesian students, Nigerian students, Arab students, thanks to scholarship funding provided from Persian Gulf and Saudi Arabia, that have been going to these schools.

Now these Afghan madrassas, how they differ from the traditional madrassas is that they were not really so much concerned about scholarship. They were more concerned about training religious fighters who would go into the Afghan field and fight. I mean, the phenomenon of Taliban, meaning religious seminary students--

Who are they? Are they budding preachers? Are they scholars? How much scholarship do they have? Are they better trained in throwing grenades than interpreting religious law? These are all open questions.

So you have the whole rise of, if you would, Islamic West Points, or Islamic military camps, Islamic guerilla camps along the border, which mix a dosage of Islam with a lot of military training. Then they also train a new generation of mosque leaders and clerics who go open their own madrassas or go populate mosques from Jakarta to Rabat.

But I thought that in the 1980s, when the Saudis started to really spend a lot of money on this, that they were doing this in a sense with our approval to help isolate Iran and the rise of fundamentalist Shi'ism?

Yes. Well, the first generation of madrassas, [from] which many of these Northern Alliance people also came, were organized to fight the Afghan war against the Soviet Union. This was obviously the cause.

So they were basically recruiting schools?

They were recruiting, organizing schools which also use Islamic ideology as a way of creating a very efficient guerilla army with a very clear anti-communist ideology.

So what's wrong with that?

Nothing. We're dealing with the sort of unintended consequences of that, and particularly because the United States didn't really properly clean up after it left Afghanistan.

Who goes to these madrassas?

They are recruited from among the lower classes and lower-middle classes. In the Afghan-Pakistan arena, there are members of Pashtun tribes who enroll in these madrassas. There are peasant children from the peasant backgrounds. And occasionally there are also lower middle-class children they are very able to recruit among people in Pakistan particularly who don't have any access to any other kind of schooling. ...

That's why the ideology that's propagated by these schools is so significant in shaping minds in the Muslim world. So if regular schooling is not schooling people, and schools that propagate fanaticism are schooling people, it doesn't take a brain surgeon to figure out what would be the impact on society.

I think that one of the tragedies of this story is that the Saudi Arabians exported their problem by financing the schools, the madrassas, all through the Islamic world. I saw this in Uzbekistan a few years after Uzbekistan got out of the Soviet Union, became an independent state in cities like Tashkent and Samarkand, where the Saudis were funding these schools teaching Koranic studies and creating a class of people for whom education was simply the Holy Book, the Koran.

... What happened here was that the Saudi Arabian government had two wings. The mainland Saudi leadership went into financial issues, defense issues, and they controlled the elite establishment in order to purchase support. From the more fundamentalist religious groups, they gave certain other ministries, the religious ministries, education ministries, to more fundamentalist Islam leaders. And that's how the split occurred.

So the Saudi government was, to a certain extent, pursuing internally inconsistent policies throughout this period -- reaching out to the West with sophisticated, well educated, internationally minded leaders like its foreign minister, like its ambassador in Washington and others. At the same time, it was funding with this vast oil revenue a different set of efforts: education, which was narrowly based in the Koran. ...

My conclusion - the Saudi Arabian government is two-faced and cannot be trusted.

XII. Racial Profiling

This gets my blood pressure up!! Not racial profiling but the lack of racial profiling.

To ensure we Americans never offend anyone - - - - particularly fanatics intent on killing us - airport screeners will not be allowed to profile people. They will continue random searches of 80-year-old women, little kids, airline pilots with proper identification, Secret Service agents who are members of the President's security detail, 85-year old Congressmen with metal hips, and Medal of Honor winning former Governors.

Let's pause a moment and take the following test.

In 1972 at the Munich Olympics, athletes were kidnapped and massacred

by:

(a) Olga Corbett

(b) Sitting Bull

(c) Arnold Schwartzeneger

(d) Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

In 1979,the U.S. embassy in Iran was taken over by:

(a) Lost Norwegians

(b) Elvis

(c) A tour bus full of 80-year-old women

(d) Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

During the 1980's a number of Americans were kidnapped in Lebanon by:

(a) John Dillinger

(b) The King of Sweden

(c) The Boy Scouts

(d) Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

In 1983, the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut was blown up by:

(a) A pizza delivery boy

(b) Pee Wee Herman

(c) Geraldo Rivera making up for a slow news day

(d) Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40.

In 1985 the cruise ship Achilles Lauro was hijacked, and a 70 year old American passenger was murdered and thrown overboard by:

(a) The Smurfs

(b) Davy Jones

(c) The Little Mermaid

(d) Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40.

In 1985 TWA flight 847 was hijacked at Athens, and a U.S. Navy diver was murdered by:

(a) Captain Kid

( b) Charles Lindbergh

(c) Mother Teresa

(d) Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

In 1988, Pan Am Flight 103 was bombed by:

(a) Scooby Doo

(b) The Tooth Fairy

(c) Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid who had a few sticks of dynamite left over from the train job.

(d) Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

In 1993 the World Trade Center was bombed the first time by:

(a) Richard Simmons

(b) Grandma Moses

(c) Michael Jordan

(d) Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

In 1998, the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed by:

(a) Mr. Rogers

(b) Hillary, to distract attention from Wild Bill's women problems

(c) The World Wrestling Federation to promote its next villain: "Mustapha the Merciless"

(d) Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

On 9/11/01, four airliners were hijacked and destroyed and thousands of people were killed by:

(a) Bugs Bunny, Wiley E. Coyote, Daffy Duck, and Elmer Fudd

(b) The Supreme Court of Florida

(c) Mr. Bean

(d) Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

In 2002 the United States fought a war in Afghanistan against:

(a) Enron

(b) The Lutheran Church

(c) The NFL

(d) Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

In 2002 reporter Daniel Pearl was kidnapped and murdered by:

(a) Bonny and Clyde

(b) Captain Kangaroo

(c) Billy Graham

(d) Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

Hmmm... nope, no patterns anywhere here to justify profiling! Aren’t you getting sick of this kind of crap? Maybe some day, in this great land of ours where we are supposed to be governed "By the People, For the People" we will actually have a say in some of these government issues. Remember, when they come to take your gun away, you may as well kiss your ass goodbye.

Here is a good article on Racial Profiling written by Michelle Malkin. I agree with her!

Racial profiling: A matter of survival

By Michelle Malkin

When our national security is on the line, "racial profiling" — or more precisely, threat profiling based on race, religion or nationality — is justified. Targeted intelligence-gathering at mosques and in local Muslim communities, for example, makes perfect sense when we are at war with Islamic extremists.

Yet, last week, the FBI came under fire for questioning Muslims in Seattle about possible terrorist ties. Members of a local mosque complained to Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., who called for a congressional investigation of the FBI's innocuous tactics. The American Civil Liberties Union of Washington accused the agency of "ethnic profiling."

But where else are federal agents supposed to turn for help in uncovering terrorist plots by Islamic fanatics: Buddhist temples? Knights of Columbus meetings? Amish neighborhoods?

Some might argue that profiling is so offensive to fundamental American values that it ought to be prohibited, even if the prohibition jeopardizes our safety. Yet many of the ethnic activists and civil-liberties groups who object most strenuously to the use of racial, ethnic, religious and nationality classifications during war support the use of similar classifications to ensure "diversity" or "parity" in peacetime.

The civil-rights hypocrites have never met a "compelling government interest" for using racial, ethnicity or nationality classifications they didn't like, except when that compelling interest happens to be the nation's very survival.

Missed opportunities

Consider what happened in summer 2001, when Phoenix FBI agent Kenneth Williams urged his superiors to investigate militant Muslim men whom he suspected of training in U.S. flight schools as part of al-Qaeda missions.

Williams' recommendation was rejected, FBI Director Robert Mueller later said, partly because of concerns that the plan could be viewed as discriminatory racial profiling.

Mueller acknowledged that if Williams' Phoenix profiling memo had been shared with the agency's Minneapolis office, which had unsuccessfully sought a special intelligence warrant to search suspected terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui's laptop computer, the warrant might have been granted.

If the FBI had taken Williams' advice, the feeling of some Arabs and Muslims might have been hurt. But the Twin Towers might still be standing and 3,000 innocent people might be alive today.

Absolutists who oppose national-security profiling often invoke the World War II experience of Japanese-Americans. When asked whether the 12 Muslim chaplains serving in the armed forces should be vetted more carefully than military rabbis or priests, Sarah Eltantawi of the Muslim Public Affairs Council raised the specter of Japanese internment.

The analogy is ridiculous. The more extensive screening of 12 military officers is a far cry from the evacuation of 112,000 individuals on the West Coast. The targeted profiling of Muslims serving in sensitive positions is not a constitutional crisis.

Some argue that the dismissal of charges against Army Capt. James Yee, a former Muslim chaplain who ministered to enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and was initially suspected of espionage, undermines the case for profiling of any kind. Not at all. As the Defense Department has acknowledged, the military's 12 Muslim chaplains were trained by a radical Wahhabi school and were certified by a Muslim group founded by Abdurahman Alamoudi, who was charged in September 2003 with accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars from Libya, a U.S.-designated sponsor of terrorism. These associations cannot be ignored.

Unfortunately, the Pentagon caved in to Eltantawi and her fellow travelers. Rather than focus exclusively on the 12 Muslim chaplains, it pressed forward with a review of all 2,800 military chaplains.

The refusal to be discriminating was, as Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., acknowledged, the "height of politically correct stupidity."

Smoke-and-mirrors arguments

In the wake of 9/11, opponents of profiling have shifted away from arguing against it because it is "racist" and now claim that it endangers security because it is a drain on resources and damages relations with ethnic and religious minorities, thereby hampering intelligence-gathering. These assertions are cleverly fine-tuned to appeal to post-9/11 sensibilities, but they are unfounded and disingenuous. The fact that al-Qaeda is using some non-Arab recruits does not render profiling moot. As long as we have open borders, Osama bin Laden will continue to send Middle East terrorists here by land, sea and air. Profiling is just one discretionary investigative tool among many.

Post-9/11, the belief that racial, religious and nationality profiling is never justified has become a dangerous bugaboo. It is unfortunate that loyal Muslims or Arabs might be burdened because of terrorists who share their race, nationality or religion. But any inconvenience is preferable to suffering a second mass terrorist attack on American soil.

XIII. President Bush's Speech on Iraq and Terrorism

President Addresses Nation, Discusses Iraq, War on Terror

Fort Bragg, North Carolina

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. Please be seated. Good evening. I'm pleased to visit Fort Bragg, "Home of the Airborne and Special Operations Forces." It's an honor to speak before you tonight.

My greatest responsibility as President is to protect the American people. And that's your calling, as well. I thank you for your service, your courage and your sacrifice. I thank your families, who support you in your vital work. The soldiers and families of Fort Bragg have contributed mightily to our efforts to secure our country and promote peace. America is grateful, and so is your Commander-in-Chief.

The troops here and across the world are fighting a global war on terror. The war reached our shores on September the 11th, 2001. The terrorists who attacked us -- and the terrorists we face -- murder in the name of a totalitarian ideology that hates freedom, rejects tolerance, and despises all dissent. Their aim is to remake the Middle East in their own grim image of tyranny and oppression -- by toppling governments, by driving us out of the region, and by exporting terror.

To achieve these aims, they have continued to kill -- in Madrid, Istanbul, Jakarta, Casablanca, Riyadh, Bali, and elsewhere. The terrorists believe that free societies are essentially corrupt and decadent, and with a few hard blows they can force us to retreat. They are mistaken. After September the 11th, I made a commitment to the American people: This nation will not wait to be attacked again. We will defend our freedom. We will take the fight to the enemy.

Iraq is the latest battlefield in this war. Many terrorists who kill innocent men, women, and children on the streets of Baghdad are followers of the same murderous ideology that took the lives of our citizens in New York, in Washington, and Pennsylvania. There is only one course of action against them: to defeat them abroad before they attack us at home. The commander in charge of coalition operations in Iraq -- who is also senior commander at this base -- General John Vines, put it well the other day. He said: "We either deal with terrorism and this extremism abroad, or we deal with it when it comes to us."

Our mission in Iraq is clear. We're hunting down the terrorists. We're helping Iraqis build a free nation that is an ally in the war on terror. We're advancing freedom in the broader Middle East. We are removing a source of violence and instability, and laying the foundation of peace for our children and our grandchildren.

The work in Iraq is difficult and it is dangerous. Like most Americans, I see the images of violence and bloodshed. Every picture is horrifying, and the suffering is real. Amid all this violence, I know Americans ask the question: Is the sacrifice worth it? It is worth it, and it is vital to the future security of our country. And tonight I will explain the reasons why.

Some of the violence you see in Iraq is being carried out by ruthless killers who are converging on Iraq to fight the advance of peace and freedom. Our military reports that we have killed or captured hundreds of foreign fighters in Iraq who have come from Saudi Arabia and Syria, Iran, Egypt, Sudan, Yemen, Libya and others. They are making common cause with criminal elements, Iraqi insurgents, and remnants of Saddam Hussein's regime who want to restore the old order. They fight because they know that the survival of their hateful ideology is at stake. They know that as freedom takes root in Iraq, it will inspire millions across the Middle East to claim their liberty, as well. And when the Middle East grows in democracy and prosperity and hope, the terrorists will lose their sponsors, lose their recruits, and lose their hopes for turning that region into a base for attacks on America and our allies around the world.

Some wonder whether Iraq is a central front in the war on terror. Among the terrorists, there is no debate. Hear the words of Osama Bin Laden: "This Third World War is raging" in Iraq. "The whole world is watching this war." He says it will end in "victory and glory, or misery and humiliation."

The terrorists know that the outcome will leave them emboldened, or defeated. So they are waging a campaign of murder and destruction. And there is no limit to the innocent lives they are willing to take.

We see the nature of the enemy in terrorists who exploded car bombs along a busy shopping street in Baghdad, including one outside a mosque. We see the nature of the enemy in terrorists who sent a suicide bomber to a teaching hospital in Mosul. We see the nature of the enemy in terrorists who behead civilian hostages and broadcast their atrocities for the world to see.

These are savage acts of violence, but they have not brought the terrorists any closer to achieving their strategic objectives. The terrorists -- both foreign and Iraqi -- failed to stop the transfer of sovereignty. They failed to break our Coalition and force a mass withdrawal by our allies. They failed to incite an Iraqi civil war. They failed to prevent free elections. They failed to stop the formation of a democratic Iraqi government that represents all of Iraq's diverse population. And they failed to stop Iraqis from signing up in large number with the police forces and the army to defend their new democracy.

The lesson of this experience is clear: The terrorists can kill the innocent, but they cannot stop the advance of freedom. The only way our enemies can succeed is if we forget the lessons of September the 11th, if we abandon the Iraqi people to men like Zarqawi, and if we yield the future of the Middle East to men like Bin Laden. For the sake of our nation's security, this will not happen on my watch.

A little over a year ago, I spoke to the nation and described our coalition's goals in Iraq. I said that America's mission in Iraq is to defeat an enemy and give strength to a friend -- a free, representative government that is an ally in the war on terror, and a beacon of hope in a part of the world that is desperate for reform. I outlined the steps we would take to achieve this goal: We would hand authority over to a sovereign Iraqi government. We would help Iraqis hold free elections by January 2005. We would continue helping Iraqis rebuild their nation's infrastructure and economy. We would encourage more international support for Iraq's democratic transition, and we would enable Iraqis to take increasing responsibility for their own security and stability.

In the past year, we have made significant progress. One year ago today, we restored sovereignty to the Iraqi people. In January 2005, more than 8 million Iraqi men and women voted in elections that were free and fair, and took time on -- and took place on time. We continued our efforts to help them rebuild their country. Rebuilding a country after three decades of tyranny is hard, and rebuilding while at war is even harder. Our progress has been uneven, but progress is being made.

We're improving roads and schools and health clinics. We're working to improve basic services like sanitation, electricity, and water. And together with our allies, we'll help the new Iraqi government deliver a better life for its citizens.

In the past year, the international community has stepped forward with vital assistance. Some 30 nations have troops in Iraq, and many others are contributing non-military assistance. The United Nations is in Iraq to help Iraqis write a constitution and conduct their next elections. Thus far, some 40 countries and three international organizations have pledged about $34 billion in assistance for Iraqi reconstruction. More than 80 countries and international organizations recently came together in Brussels to coordinate their efforts to help Iraqis provide for their security and rebuild their country. And next month, donor countries will meet in Jordan to support Iraqi reconstruction.

Whatever our differences in the past, the world understands that success in Iraq is critical to the security of our nations. As German Chancellor Gerhard Schr der said at the White House yesterday, "There can be no question a stable and democratic Iraq is in the vested interest of not just Germany, but also Europe." Finally, we have continued our efforts to equip and train Iraqi security forces. We made gains in both the number and quality of those forces. Today Iraq has more than 160,000 security forces trained and equipped for a variety of missions. Iraqi forces have fought bravely, helping to capture terrorists and insurgents in Najaf and Samarra, Fallujah and Mosul. And in the past month, Iraqi forces have led a major anti-terrorist campaign in Baghdad called Operation Lightning, which has led to the capture of hundreds of suspected insurgents. Like free people everywhere, Iraqis want to be defended by their own countrymen, and we are helping Iraqis assume those duties.

The progress in the past year has been significant, and we have a clear path forward. To complete the mission, we will continue to hunt down the terrorists and insurgents. To complete the mission, we will prevent al Qaeda and other foreign terrorists from turning Iraq into what Afghanistan was under the Taliban, a safe haven from which they could launch attacks on America and our friends. And the best way to complete the mission is to help Iraqis build a free nation that can govern itself, sustain itself, and defend itself.

So our strategy going forward has both a military track and a political track. The principal task of our military is to find and defeat the terrorists, and that is why we are on the offense. And as we pursue the terrorists, our military is helping to train Iraqi security forces so that they can defend their people and fight the enemy on their own. Our strategy can be summed up this way: As the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down.

We've made progress, but we have a lot of -- a lot more work to do. Today Iraqi security forces are at different levels of readiness. Some are capable of taking on the terrorists and insurgents by themselves. A large number can plan and execute anti-terrorist operations with coalition support. The rest are forming and not yet ready to participate fully in security operations. Our task is to make the Iraqi units fully capable and independent. We're building up Iraqi security forces as quickly as possible, so they can assume the lead in defeating the terrorists and insurgents.

Our coalition is devoting considerable resources and manpower to this critical task. Thousands of coalition troops are involved in the training and equipping of Iraqi security forces. NATO is establishing a military academy near Baghdad to train the next generation of Iraqi military leaders, and 17 nations are contributing troops to the NATO training mission. Iraqi army and police are being trained by personnel from Italy, Germany, Ukraine, Turkey, Poland, Romania, Australia, and the United Kingdom. Today, dozens of nations are working toward a common objective: an Iraq that can defend itself, defeat its enemies, and secure its freedom.

To further prepare Iraqi forces to fight the enemy on their own, we are taking three new steps: First, we are partnering coalition units with Iraqi units. These coalition-Iraqi teams are conducting operations together in the field. These combined operations are giving Iraqis a chance to experience how the most professional armed forces in the world operate in combat.

Second, we are embedding coalition "transition teams" inside Iraqi units. These teams are made up of coalition officers and non-commissioned officers who live, work, and fight together with their Iraqi comrades. Under U.S. command, they are providing battlefield advice and assistance to Iraqi forces during combat operations. Between battles, they are assisting the Iraqis with important skills, such as urban combat, and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance techniques.

Third, we're working with the Iraqi Ministries of Interior and Defense to improve their capabilities to coordinate anti-terrorist operations. We're helping them develop command and control structures. We're also providing them with civilian and military leadership training, so Iraq's new leaders can effectively manage their forces in the fight against terror.

The new Iraqi security forces are proving their courage every day. More than 2,000 members of Iraqi security forces have given their lives in the line of duty. Thousands more have stepped forward, and are now training to serve their nation. With each engagement, Iraqi soldiers grow more battle-hardened, and their officers grow more experienced. We've learned that Iraqis are courageous and that they need additional skills. And that is why a major part of our mission is to train them so they can do the fighting, and then our troops can come home.

I recognize that Americans want our troops to come home as quickly as possible. So do I. Some contend that we should set a deadline for withdrawing U.S. forces. Let me explain why that would be a serious mistake. Setting an artificial timetable would send the wrong message to the Iraqis, who need to know that America will not leave before the job is done. It would send the wrong message to our troops, who need to know that we are serious about completing the mission they are risking their lives to achieve. And it would send the wrong message to the enemy, who would know that all they have to do is to wait us out. We will stay in Iraq as long as we are needed, and not a day longer.

Some Americans ask me, if completing the mission is so important, why don't you send more troops? If our commanders on the ground say we need more troops, I will send them. But our commanders tell me they have the number of troops they need to do their job. Sending more Americans would undermine our strategy of encouraging Iraqis to take the lead in this fight. And sending more Americans would suggest that we intend to stay forever, when we are, in fact, working for the day when Iraq can defend itself and we can leave. As we determine the right force level, our troops can know that I will continue to be guided by the advice that matters: the sober judgment of our military leaders.

The other critical element of our strategy is to help ensure that the hopes Iraqis expressed at the polls in January are translated into a secure democracy. The Iraqi people are emerging from decades of tyranny and oppression. Under the regime of Saddam Hussein, the Shia and Kurds were brutally oppressed, and the vast majority of Sunni Arabs were also denied their basic rights, while senior regime officials enjoyed the privileges of unchecked power. The challenge facing Iraqis today is to put this past behind them, and come together to build a new Iraq that includes all of its people.

They're doing that by building the institutions of a free society, a society based on freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of religion, and equal justice under law. The Iraqis have held free elections and established a Transitional National Assembly. The next step is to write a good constitution that enshrines these freedoms in permanent law. The Assembly plans to expand its constitutional drafting committee to include more Sunni Arabs. Many Sunnis who opposed the January elections are now taking part in the democratic process, and that is essential to Iraq's future.

After a constitution is written, the Iraqi people will have a chance to vote on it. If approved, Iraqis will go to the polls again, to elect a new government under their new, permanent constitution. By taking these critical steps and meeting their deadlines, Iraqis will bind their multiethnic society together in a democracy that respects the will of the majority and protects minority rights.

As Iraqis grow confident that the democratic progress they are making is real and permanent, more will join the political process. And as Iraqis see that their military can protect them, more will step forward with vital intelligence to help defeat the enemies of a free Iraq. The combination of political and military reform will lay a solid foundation for a free and stable Iraq.

As Iraqis make progress toward a free society, the effects are being felt beyond Iraq's borders. Before our coalition liberated Iraq, Libya was secretly pursuing nuclear weapons. Today the leader of Libya has given up his chemical and nuclear weapons programs. Across the broader Middle East, people are claiming their freedom. In the last few months, we've witnessed elections in the Palestinian Territories and Lebanon. These elections are inspiring democratic reformers in places like Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Our strategy to defend ourselves and spread freedom is working. The rise of freedom in this vital region will eliminate the conditions that feed radicalism and ideologies of murder, and make our nation safer.

We have more work to do, and there will be tough moments that test America's resolve. We're fighting against men with blind hatred -- and armed with lethal weapons -- who are capable of any atrocity. They wear no uniform; they respect no laws of warfare or morality. They take innocent lives to create chaos for the cameras. They are trying to shake our will in Iraq, just as they tried to shake our will on September the 11th, 2001. They will fail. The terrorists do not understand America. The American people do not falter under threat, and we will not allow our future to be determined by car bombers and assassins.

America and our friends are in a conflict that demands much of us. It demands the courage of our fighting men and women, it demands the steadfastness of our allies, and it demands the perseverance of our citizens. We accept these burdens, because we know what is at stake. We fight today because Iraq now carries the hope of freedom in a vital region of the world, and the rise of democracy will be the ultimate triumph over radicalism and terror. And we fight today because terrorists want to attack our country and kill our citizens, and Iraq is where they are making their stand. So we'll fight them there, we'll fight them across the world, and we will stay in the fight until the fight is won. (Applause.)

America has done difficult work before. From our desperate fight for independence to the darkest days of a Civil War, to the hard-fought battles against tyranny in the 20th century, there were many chances to lose our heart, our nerve, or our way. But Americans have always held firm, because we have always believed in certain truths. We know that if evil is not confronted, it gains in strength and audacity, and returns to strike us again. We know that when the work is hard, the proper response is not retreat, it is courage. And we know that this great ideal of human freedom entrusted to us in a special way, and that the ideal of liberty is worth defending.

In this time of testing, our troops can know: The American people are behind you. Next week, our nation has an opportunity to make sure that support is felt by every soldier, sailor, airman, Coast Guardsman, and Marine at every outpost across the world. This Fourth of July, I ask you to find a way to thank the men and women defending our freedom -- by flying the flag, sending a letter to our troops in the field, or helping the military family down the street. The Department of Defense has set up a website -- AmericaSupportsYou.mil. You can go there to learn about private efforts in your own community. At this time when we celebrate our freedom, let us stand with the men and women who defend us all.

To the soldiers in this hall, and our servicemen and women across the globe: I thank you for your courage under fire and your service to our nation. I thank our military families -- the burden of war falls especially hard on you. In this war, we have lost good men and women who left our shores to defend freedom and did not live to make the journey home. I've met with families grieving the loss of loved ones who were taken from us too soon. I've been inspired by their strength in the face of such great loss. We pray for the families. And the best way to honor the lives that have been given in this struggle is to complete the mission.

I thank those of you who have re-enlisted in an hour when your country needs you. And to those watching tonight who are considering a military career, there is no higher calling than service in our Armed Forces. We live in freedom because every generation has produced patriots willing to serve a cause greater than themselves. Those who serve today are taking their rightful place among the greatest generations that have worn our nation's uniform. When the history of this period is written, the liberation of Afghanistan and the liberation of Iraq will be remembered as great turning points in the story of freedom.

After September the 11th, 2001, I told the American people that the road ahead would be difficult, and that we would prevail. Well, it has been difficult -- and we are prevailing. Our enemies are brutal, but they are no match for the United States of America, and they are no match for the men and women of the United States military.

May God bless you all.

XIV. My Views and Conclusions on Iraq and Terrorism

We are at WAR. All terrorists World-wide must be tracked down and killed or put away. We cannot rest until this is done. People who are preaching that the terrorist attacks are America's own fault are only helping the terrorists and should SHUT UP! If they don't like it here in America, go find a better country. Remember, our President said "You are either with us or you are with the terrorists". This goes for other countries too. It is going to take a World-wide effort to stop these radical Muslim terrorists. They want to kill all non-Muslims where ever you might live. It won't be easy, but all freedom "loving" nations must unite and stop these idiots.

I support the President and other leaders of this country and would go to Iraq to fight the terrorists if they asked me to do it. With that said, I have some different ideas on how to WIN THIS WAR on TERRORISM and the first thing I would do is withdraw the troops from Iraq. We could "occupy" Iraq forever and never kill all the unhappy Iraqi citizens and the Islamic Terrorists who are fighting us. We don't want to "turn tail and run" either, so the Government needs to use the power of the press to convince Americans and other countries that the US lead coalition has successfully completed their mission in Iraq and be withdrawing the troops in an orderly fashion. This withdrawal should not take more than one year. In the mean time, we must step up the training of the Iraqi military and police force. They have got to run and protect their own country. They can probably do it better than we can. Once we are out, there won't be so many terrorist attacks. They primarily want to kill Americans and other non-Muslims who are occupying Iraq. There never has been and there never will be complete peace in this region. Let them get back to killing each other instead of our Soldiers. Actually, we should remove our bases from all Muslim countries. They will cause more problems than they are worth.

So, how are we going to fight these terrorists?

First of all, our military (including the Reserves and National Guard) needs to be re-trained to fight terrorists. There is a "transformation" going on in the military today, but they are still training soldiers to fight Wars like we have always done – one country against another country. This is not going to work any more. The military must be trained specifically to fight terrorists. This requires a different type of training. Bring in a bunch of ex-terrorists to help with the training. The military thinking process must change.

Countries that support terrorists and terrorism must know they are in BIG TROUBLE. This means economically and militarily. Funding to terrorists must be cutoff. Let's do something about Saudi Arabia, who is the biggest supporter and provider of funds to terrorist organizations World-wide. Terrorist training camps in any country will be bombed and Special Commando Squads will be sent in to finish the job and get out quickly. Leaders of these countries will be "black-balled" and all financial aid will be cutoff.

The next thing that needs to be done, immediately, is to SECURE OUR BORDERS. It is too easy for terrorists to enter this country. Border patrols must be beefed up and we need to start using the military to help. Our docks need special attention. We have been concentrating on the "bad guys" coming in by air and not so much coming in by ship or boat. This is very IMPORTANT! Next, we must identify and get all the "illegals" out of this country. Start with the young illegal Muslin men who are most likely to be terrorists. The Government should use profiling and every other means available in order to accomplish this task. If a person does not belong in this country, send them back to where they come from. Every effort should be made to help hard-working immigrants to get the necessary papers etc. to stay in this country legally.

The U.S. must reduce it's dependants on foreign oil - especially from the mid-east countries. The oil we do have should not be exported to other countries. I read where we are exporting Alaskan oil to Japan. Why? Any excess oil should be stockpiled. Alternate energy sources must be explored. Battery and Hydrogen powered cars need to be improved and put on the market soon. More nuclear power plants should be built to provide electrically power for our cities. We have the technology to run these plants safely and we must secure them against terrorist attacks. While we are at it, we must secure our water supply. This needs to be done now! Our Government must use all resources available to protect American citizens.

Next, we must get our friends back. A lot of countries were against the War in Iraq. Our leaders must do whatever is necessary to make amends and to get along with the other countries of the World. This is a small World and we need all the help we can get to defeat terrorism. The United States can no longer be the World's Police Force. We must respect and work together with the other countries of the World. If these other countries support terrorism, that is a different story – the rest of the World must make life as miserable as possible for these places.

Muslims World-wide must standup and denounce terrorism. The vast majority of Muslims are law-abiding citizens who don't believe in killing innocent people. I researched over one hundred websites on the Muslim Religion and I didn't see or read about even one Muslim denouncing these acts of terrorism. Why is this? They state that they are peace loving and against suicide but that is as far as they will go. The Muslim Religion does have leaders doesn't it? These Muslim leaders need to clarify how the Quran should be interrupted. It is not okay to kill non-Muslims. It should be against the Quran to kill anybody. Setup some strict rules on Jihad. Every time a Muslim kills a non-Muslim, he cannot claim it was done in the name of JIHAD. It is not okay to kill yourself. If you blow yourself up, you are not going to Paradise and your not going to get 72 virgins. You are going to HELL! Muslims must get along with non-Muslims!! In fact, law-abiding Muslims must help the rest of the World fight these terrorists and help defeat terrorism.