Passenger Ignites Explosive on NWA/DL flight Flight 253

[Evan]

their goal is simple: kill in the name of allah.

That's quaint, but wrong.

They want us to stay out of their affairs. Their goal is to banish any non-Muslim presence from their sacred lands and to return them to hard-line Islamic law. Their method is terrorism (because obviously a naval blockade or pincer movement is out of the question). Their strategy is to inspire intolerance and fear on both sides, to 'purify' the Islamic world, and ultimately to reign over their own people through fear and strict punishment.

But we see the propagation and defense of universal human rights as part of our affairs. And we have an industrial and strategic dependence on that part of the world.

If we removed all of our people from the Islamic nations of the world tomorrow, I truly believe the attacks against us would stop. But then they would direct their terror against moderate Muslims. Human rights abuses would escalate, particularly against women. Sectional violence would escalate in an endless battle for dominance. And they would have nukes. So we can't do that.

[EconomyClass]

Someone, I think Christiane Amanpour, compared America now to the UK a century ago. The subtext was "since we are the only superpower, we can't stand aloof of squabbles anywhere in the world". Whoever it was failed to recognize verbally that UK was an EMPIRE when it was meddling everywhere. Why is it our obligation, even if you buy the premise that we are a singular superpower, to insure peace everywhere? Right now I'd say we do it to protect business interests. Granted, our freedom to travel everywhere might suffer if we stand back and let people make war, but I'm not sure I'm going to give up my freedoms here at home to protect someone else's freedom to travel. Let that someone pay for protection to a security company.

Now there's another possible issue. Our peculiar system might not stand in such a world. So it could be the shakiness of our cultural arrangement is what is really threatened. We might be "free" at home, but the cost is for others to not be free elsewhere.

[TeeVee]

That's quaint, but wrong.

They want us to stay out of their affairs. Their goal is to banish any non-Muslim presence from their sacred lands and to return them to hard-line Islamic law. Their method is terrorism (because obviously a naval blockade or pincer movement is out of the question). Their strategy is to inspire intolerance and fear on both sides, to 'purify' the Islamic world, and ultimately to reign over their own people through fear and strict punishment.

But we see the propagation and defense of universal human rights as part of our affairs. And we have an industrial and strategic dependence on that part of the world.

If we removed all of our people from the Islamic nations of the world tomorrow, I truly believe the attacks against us would stop. But then they would direct their terror against moderate Muslims. Human rights abuses would escalate, particularly against women. Sectional violence would escalate in an endless battle for dominance. And they would have nukes. So we can't do that.

quaint? heh!

sorry buddy, you are sadly mistaken. the muslims we are talking about want you dead, unless of course you are muslim. they want all jews dead. they want israel wiped out. they want christians dead or converted. note, all non-muslims are "infidels." the spread of radicalized islam is not evangelical. it is jihadist. and a jihad seeks death not "leave me be."

i hate to use this word, and i don't mean to insult by it, but your position is somewhat uninformed.

in the years between Russia's (USSR's) departure from Afghanistan, no westerners were interfering. we left them alone. what happened? oh yeah, they lived peacefully, respected their women, and generally became normal functioning members of the international community. NOT!

tell me about their sacred lands, please. jews and christians live side by side in their historically holy land and don't fight, they lob rockets at each other. not to mention the inescapable truth that islam is the johnny come lately of religion. too bad their claim to "sacred lands" came hundreds of years after the judeo-christian "claims."

anyway, we are way off-topic...

[Evan]

i hate to use this word, and i don't mean to insult by it, but your position is somewhat uninformed.

TeeVee, your comic-book understanding of Middle-Eastern conflicts and the mindset and motives of radical Islam humbles me.

[SYDCBRWOD]

not to mention the inescapable truth that islam is the johnny come lately of religion. too bad their claim to "sacred lands" came hundreds of years after the judeo-christian "claims."

Is this point important? It's not as though the muslim religion was set up a week ago as a cover for current actions... Both religions have been traced through millenia.

I think you and Evan are both right to some extent. I believe the Quoran does speak of the muslim faith as being the only acceptable faith and for there to be no other. Some have chosen to see this as the religious "green light" to wipe out all infidels regardless (Tee Vee this is where you are correct). 90% of muslims are happy to live alongside other faiths, as they see the Quoran as a set of rules and guidelines (much the same way as moderate christianity views the bible) not an absolute guide to how to live your life.

And before we christian's start getting all "holier than thou", many of the biblical teachings (particularly Old Testament) are not exactly what you'd call civilised.

[TeeVee]

TeeVee, your comic-book understanding of Middle-Eastern conflicts and the mindset and motives of radical Islam humbles me.

comic book understanding? your ad hominem response says it all....

[TeeVee]

Is this point important? It's not as though the muslim religion was set up a week ago as a cover for current actions... Both religions have been traced through millenia.

I think you and Evan are both right to some extent. I believe the Quoran does speak of the muslim faith as being the only acceptable faith and for there to be no other. Some have chosen to see this as the religious "green light" to wipe out all infidels regardless (Tee Vee this is where you are correct). 90% of muslims are happy to live alongside other faiths, as they see the Quoran as a set of rules and guidelines (much the same way as moderate christianity views the bible) not an absolute guide to how to live your life.

And before we christian's start getting all "holier than thou", many of the biblical teachings (particularly Old Testament) are not exactly what you'd call civilised.

what is important is that muslims, at least radicalized ones for now, do not believe anyone else has the right to what THEY believe is THEIR holy lands. while jews and christians both lay "claim" to certain common areas, they manage to co-exist. they are tolerant. there should be no tolerance for intolerants.

under nebulous "international legal principles" there are well recognized property rights. so if you want to follow the "law" the muslims have lost "their holy lands."

people like Evan choose to make the conflict much more complex than it really is. people like Evan get killed trying to appease radicals, because they fail to see that the jihadist doesnt want to negotiate, doesnt want to be "left alone" they want him dead.

let's pray they remain marginalized and meddled with.

[EconomyClass]

There may be a danger here of hindsight wisdom, but when I think about it, is the official story of why Umar F.A. was in Yemen credible to an average intelligence? "To study Arabic". With the thousands of options for that in the world, why choose a society in which everything is breaking down? Why not study Arabic in a stable society with few dangers? Would Hercule Poirot nod and say "that makes sense"? I think it set off warning bells for his father.

What I'm wondering, to make it explicit, is can we buy the notion that nothing was known to justify picking Umar out of the 550,000 in the watch list and consider him as a no-fly candidate? Or is it possible that such absurdities have happened in the past with the no-fly list that now people think it better to resist adding names lest it turn out to be an infant or dead person? That's a predictable danger after an extreme swing one way, that you should expect an equally extreme swing the other.

It also makes me really curious what it takes to get your name on a list of 550,000 "interesting persons". Intuitively, I find that number to be a little high. Certainly, it is a mass big enough one could get lost in it.

[Evan]

people like Evan choose to make the conflict much more complex than it really is. people like Evan get killed trying to appease radicals, because they fail to see that the jihadist doesnt want to negotiate, doesnt want to be "left alone" they want him dead.

Exactly where do I state that I want to 'appease radicals'?

If you read the lines instead of reading between them, you will see that I stated the reasons why we cannot appease them. You confuse knowing the enemy's motives for sympathizing with them. That's so... Dick Cheney of you.

[pelican98]

It's sad that America seems to be kept afloat by the export of militarism and security technology/private contractors, in other words global peace and stability would mean bad news for what seems to be holding the economy.
There was a piece on 'the Colbert report' last night on the company stocks for airport scanning machines going through the roof since the chrismas "event", thanks to the corporate media noise.
It makes me think of Charlie Chaplin "The Kid" where he is a Glazier and sends his adopted son down the block armed with stones to break folks windows and then shows up right on cue to get the gig fixing the damage http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MUBrClhgks.

[hugo_leimann]

"It makes me think of Charlie Chaplin "The Kid"" by "pelican98"
Hey, and this off topic remmember me some recent best seller book by cognitive scientist George Lakoff "Don't Think of an Elephant" Chelsea Green Publishing, 2004

[EconomyClass]

That's so... Dick Cheney of you.

Good one, Evan. You make that up or is it a new meme?

[pelican98]

"It makes me think of Charlie Chaplin "The Kid"" by "pelican98"
Hey, and this off topic remmember me some recent best seller book by cognitive scientist George Lakoff "Don't Think of an Elephant" Chelsea Green Publishing, 2004

I won't engage you in, as a first poster and a new comer you could be trolling, and in any case arguing what is or isn't on topic would be off topic.

[EconomyClass]

This article shows the difficulty of the concept of "uprooting the enemy at its source" presents.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/09/world/middleeast/09diplo.html

We can't eliminate the pollution. We just have to make sure it doesn't escape to pollute the streams we care about. That shouldn't be total rocket science. I think one of the big problems is just the extreme volume of the flow of air traffic. It is so much that the system is stretched to keep it moving. Maybe there is a need to lower expectations for how fast one can move from place to place. People need to expect realistically in the amount of time it takes. Till now, people have been led to believe that safety can be maintained without keeping them in lines for more than fifteen minutes. Maybe the realistic expectation should be more. Maybe 45 minutes in line is the minimum that can meet the needs of safety. If so, go expecting that and you won't be frustrated.

[EconomyClass]

Be kinda dumb for another would-be bomber to ride that flight. But, who knows, maybe they aren't all geniuses.