On Mon, Jan 26, 2009 at 8:39 AM, Judah McAuley <[email protected]> wrote:
> You are totally evading my questions. But lets follow your line of > evasion and say it is a social movement because it does share many > attributes with social movements. In particular, the largely Muslim > anti-Western movement is highly decentralized. It spans many groups > (Al Qeda being the most well known here) with a couple of well known > figure heads (see OBL) but who have little vertical structure and no > great organization besides a social/religious agreement on jihad > against the West. > That was Dana's line of evasion, but I'll play along. > > Lets say that Bin Laden and Zawahiri surrender. Do you think that is > going to stop Al Qeda? Or any other radical Muslim group? Would that > be enough to repeal the Patriot Act and stop warrantless domestic > spying? What if we just killed Bin Laden and Zawahiri? > The only way it works is if Al Qaeda actually becomes a legitimate social movement. I think the odds of that happening are just about zero. > Oddly enough, Bin Laden has said what it would take for him to lay > down his arms against the US and Britain. I don't trust him or take > him at his word but he at least knows what his end game is. > > What's yours? What's what? My end game? They de-arm and become a legitimate social movement, or we continue to kill them in such large numbers that eventually people figure out that joining Al Qaeda is a poor choice. Of course, that means we have to help fix the underlying problems in the Muslims world - poverty, ignorance, and lack of political freedom. It's a generational challenge. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Adobe® ColdFusion® 8 software 8 is the most important and dramatic release to date Get the Free Trial http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;207172674;29440083;f Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:286669 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.5
