Al Qaeda's peace plan!

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

...Or rather, the plan of a self-appointed peace envoy who presumes to speak on behalf of the entire Al Qaeda (if such an organization really exists, as opposed to being a mere label which most extremists tend to stick to themselves at this point). Anyway, behold the ingenious plan:

http://edition.cnn.com/2012/09/10/world/meast/zawahiri-peace-plan/index.html

It has bullet points, OMG!

• U.S. and West to stop intervening in Muslim lands
• U.S. to stop interfering in Muslim education
• U.S. to end the war on Islam
• U.S. to release all Islamist prisoners.

Oh, he even has some instructions for his fellow Islamists, who should change their behavior and act nicely from now on:

• Stop attacks on Western and U.S. interests
• Protect legitimate Western and U.S. interests in Muslim lands
• Stop provoking the U.S. and the West

I say that's brilliant! And I wish him good luck with that!

Apparently, for some mysterious reason this guy believes he's in a unique position to end all the violence throughout all the Middle East and elsewhere around the world, simply by being Ayman al-Zawahiri's beloved brother. Like a Messiah, kindof. Well, sure, he hasn't met his famous bro for many years, since he has spent 14 years in Egyptian prison on charges of terrorism and conspiring for the Sadat assassination in 1981 (charges he keeps denying to this very day). But, on the other hand, Ayman is his brother, man! He must listen to him!

"I do not represent a particular group. My role is of a mediator between them and the West". Them, in this case, being "all Islamists". What's left for us is to wait and hope that his brother will listen to him, and peace and love between East and West will reign from now on, forever and ever.

By the way, Osama bin Laden did come up with a similar "peace" proposal back in 2004. It even had some bullet points, similar to this plan here. Obviously that worked pretty well for him. Maybe because he spent most of that typing space to rant about Halliburton and Bush, which, we have to admit, might've been quite fashionable at the time, but was more suitable for a Michael Moore "documentary", rather than a plan worth wasting anything beyond a cursory glance upon.

Comments

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

U.S. and West to stop intervening in Muslim lands
• U.S. to stop interfering in Muslim education
• U.S. to end the war on Islam
• U.S. to release all Islamist prisoners.


Those sound a lot like the reasons we were attacked on 9/11/01 in the first place.

Islam is so delicate.

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

I thought they attacked us because they hate our freedomz.

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

Based on the results(Patriot Act, spying on U.S. citizens, etc.) I concluded that W and Congress hated our freedoms even more.

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

Good point:

Drone strikes on "supposed" terrorists claiming civilian lives as "collateral"; keeping Guantanamo open where prisoners are held indefinitely without trial; warrantless wiretapping and government mining for people's electronic communications; warrant to kill US citizens on suspicions of being terrorist-related; demanding from other countries the extradition of online whistleblowers for spreading sensitive information...

W's successor doesn't seem to have improved things as much as we were led to "hope" and "believe".

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

Its not like everyone in our military industrial complex was willing to give peace a chance when Obama took office.

But, he's definitely a war president now.

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

Curiously, some of the generals in your military look the most prone to giving peace a chance, like Petraeus (correct me if I'm wrong), and Powell (probably now feeling extremely guilty for being part of Rumsfeld's bullshit campaign that led to the war).

It has been said that every prez ought to have fought at least one war in their tenure. Those with two terms, probably two wars. W had 2 terms, started 2 wars. Obama? If Libya could count as a war, in case he gets a 2nd term, Iran looks like the most likely next target. Or Syria.

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

I've noticed the uptick in 'Iran is close to unlocking Secret Death Ray achievement' stories of late.

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

Gives you a sense of deja vu, doesn't it?

People have an attention span of mice.

[terminator44.livejournal.com]

If you count East Africa (http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/01/battleground-africa/) and Yemen, then that's another two.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

The irony is that at one point US society held a standing army to be a menace to liberty and the survival of the Republic and paying for a school like West Point was the subject of regular and acrimonious debate. Things do change, all right. Not necessarily or even primarily for the better, however.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

I don't know, when was the last POTUS who wasn't a war-time president?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Depending on what qualifies as a war.........arguably none of them.

[vehemencet-t.livejournal.com]

Calvin Coolidge ;)

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

Democrats have to keep up the pretenses of a Strongman America or they get gutted and I've yet to see a President who didn't look on the expansion of Executive Orders, etc. and decide to dial that back. So, secrecy and expanded privilege is a plate they all gorge upon with gusto.

Sadly, like the attempted closing of Guantanamo, dems & repubs close ranks to keep our abuses of power and the Patriot Acts that allow them, fully in force.

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

Democans and Republicrats. Those people are slaves to various industrial moguls, media magnates and geopolitical gurus. On both sides of this imaginary divide. Their respective think-tanks are what set their policies, not viceversa. Just a glimpse at the list of major party sponsors (both parties) and the major lobbyist presence on Capitol Hill is enough to figure out who's who in this game. Of course, efforts are now being made to conceal the former, through this fancy thing called super-PAC.

The rest is just dust that's being constantly thrown into people's eyes and ears. Also, more bread and more circuses to keep them happy and not ask too many questions.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

That man was promising to expand the Afghanistan War from 2007. If people didn't pay attention to those promises.......

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

Correction: he was promising to focus on Afghanistan so that war could be brought to a conclusion properly.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

A totalitarian regime never has problems with terrorists, because if anyone raises a hand against it, the dictator will just have their villages slaughtered and razed to the last brick and the ringleaders strangled to death with piano wire. In exchange for no terrorism, people are just denied all genuine freedom and smothered in the embrace of the government in every aspect of their life, to the point of having mini-microphones in their soup. In such a case the cure is far worse than the disease.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

Sounds familiar from our commie times. 99% security in exchange for 1% freedom.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's about the size of it.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

From: http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig5/raimondo1.html "The Objectivist Death Cult"

The idea that Osama bin Laden and his cohorts, sitting in a cave somewhere in Afghanistan, suddenly came upon a copy of the Bill of Rights, and were so outraged that they decided to put a big dent in the New York City skyline is absolute nonsense. The last time we had a problem with these people was back in the late eighteenth century, when the Barbary pirates decided to hijack American shipping. To imagine that, suddenly, the Muslim world has decided to go on a crusade against America because we’re so rational, so tolerant, so wonderful, and so free is narcissism, pure and simple – and just plain wrong.


..... As anyone who examines what bin Laden and his allies have actually said – and Scheuer's recent book, Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror, is a rich source of information on this subject – the Islamists are up in arms over five issues of major import:

US support for Israel that keeps Palestinians in the Israelis' thrall
US and other Western troops on the Arabian Peninsula
US support for Russia, India, and China against their Muslim militants
US pressure on Arab energy producers to keep oil prices low
US support for apostate, corrupt, and often tyrannical Muslim governments

In short: They are over here, because we are over there.

Chalmers Johnson, the foreign policy analyst, has popularized the concept of "blowback" – the unintended consequences of government action in the international arena. It is an idea that ought to be all too familiar to libertarians, who are second to none in tracing the origins of these consequences when it comes to government intervention in domestic affairs. We face a worldwide insurgency directed at the American homeland as a direct consequence of our interventionist foreign policy.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

• U.S. to stop interfering in Muslim education

GOD DAMN YOU RICHARD DAWKINS!

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

That reminds me of the National Lampoon's swearing out ceremony for Dick Nixon on The Missing White House Tapes album.

BTW, it has been said that Afghan Communist attempts to educate girls was the straw that broke the camel's back for the Muj.

[dexeron.livejournal.com]

Hey now, Dawkins is British.

[airiefairie.livejournal.com]

That should explain the funny accent. =)