Thought-provoking article about Al-Qaeda

[shamrock_uk]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4171213.stm

[Stratos]

Interresting read!

Unless al-Qaeda get their hands on WoMD, I don't see them as such a big threat as some people make them out to be. The "only" (note the "") thing they can do to cause direct harm, for the time being, is to kill alot of civilians.

If you think about it, al-Qaeda is nothing more than a loosely organized group of ruthless criminals. I don't think they have what it takes to really change something.

[Animal]

Originally posted by Stratos: If you think about it, al-Qaeda is nothing more than a loosely organized group of ruthless criminals.

Sounds like the US government.

[Aragorn1]

Nah, the US government are really well organized criminals!!

[johnny]

Originally posted by Stratos: Interresting read! Unless al-Qaeda get their hands on WoMD, I don't see them as such a big threat as some people make them out to be. The "only" (note the "") thing they can do to cause direct harm, for the time being, is to kill alot of civilians. If you think about it, al-Qaeda is nothing more than a loosely organized group of ruthless criminals. I don't think they have what it takes to really change something.

They have already made some big changes, they made the whole world gone paranoid

[John D Harris]

Originally posted by Aragorn1: Nah, the US government are really well organized criminals!!

Animal is right, they are not that well organized, they just look like it.

[John D Harris]

from the article OK, so al-Qaeda does not exist as a highly organised and structured group. But it is a terrifically powerful ideology, which makes it even more dangerous. No - the extreme Islamist ideas are dangerous, as Madrid, Bali and 11 September showed, but to portray them as a terrifying new viral form of terrorism is also part of the politics of fear. If one looks at the history of the Islamist movement and its ideas it is clear that its high point came in the late 80s when it seemed on the verge of success across the Muslim world. But then in the 1990s Islamism failed dramatically in its attempts to create revolutions because the ideas failed to inspire the masses. They did not appeal to the majority of people. The attacks on 11 September were not the expression of a confident and growing movement, they were acts of desperation by a small group frustrated by their failure which they blamed on the power of America. It is also important to realise that many within the Islamist movement were against this strategy.

(I found this to be interesting, if I read correctly the writer says he was answering/addressing points raised from correspondence.)

Is not the "terrifically powerful ideology" of Al Queada, "the extreme Islamist ideas"? Which the writer says are dangerous. Would this not be simular to saying "the SS was not dangerous, it was the ideology of the Nazi's that was dangerous". What was the motovation the caused the SS to come about if not Nazism? What was the motovation that caused Al Quaeda to come about if not "the extreme Islamist ideas"?

Over all it is an interesting read of another's opinion.

[Stratos]

I think what the writer meant was that al-Q's ideology is nothing new and that it is not as powerful and "seductive" to young muslims as some people in the West like to believe.

[John D Harris]

Originally posted by Stratos: I think what the writer meant was that al-Q's ideology is nothing new and that it is not as powerful and "seductive" to young muslims as some people in the West like to believe.

You maybe right there Stratos, I didn't see it that way, But "Hale" I'm not the final arburator. I can agree with that, if that is what he meant, since things in this world rarely are what they seem. [img]smile.gif[/img]