Quittin' Time in Afghanistan By Eric Margolis August 23, 2009 "Toronto Sun" -- An election held under the guns of a foreign occupation army cannot be called legitimate or democratic. This week's stage-managed vote in Afghanistan for candidates chosen by western powers is unlikely to bring either peace or tranquility to this wretched nation that has suffered 30 years of war. The Taliban and its nationalist allies rejected the vote as a fraud designed to validate continued foreign occupation and open the way for western oil and gas pipelines. The Taliban, which speaks for many of Afghanistan's majority Pashtun, said it would only join a national election when U.S. and NATO troops withdraw. After all the pre-election hoopla and agitprop in Afghanistan, we come out the same door we went in. The amiable U.S.-installed leader, Hamid Karzai, may remain in office, powerless. Yet Washington is demanding its figurehead achieve things he simply cannot do. Meanwhile, Karzai's regime is engulfed by corruption and drug dealing. Real power remains with strongmen from the Tajik and Uzbek minorities and local, drug-dealing tribal warlords who are paid by Washington to pretend to support Karzai. Behind the Tajiks and Uzbeks stand their patrons, Russia, India and Iran. Afghanistan's Pashtun tribes, which make up 55% of the population, are largely excluded from power. They were the West's closest allies and foot soldiers ("freedom fighters") during the 1980s war against the Soviets. The Taliban arose during the chaotic civil war of the early 1990s as a rural, mostly Pashtun religious movement to stop the wide-scale rape of women, impose order, and fight the drug-dealing Afghan Communists. The so-called "terrorist Taliban" received U.S. funding until four months before 9/11. Washington cut off aid after the Taliban made the fatal error of giving a major pipeline deal to an Argentine rather than U.S. oil firm for which Hamid Karzai once reportedly worked as a consultant. Oil pipeline The current war in Afghanistan is not about democracy, women's rights, education or nation building. Al-Qaida, the other excuse, barely exists. Its handful of members long ago decamped to Pakistan. The war really is about oil pipeline routes and western domination of the energy-rich Caspian Basin. Afghanistan is a three-legged ethnic stool. Take away the Pashtun leg and stability is impossible. There will be neither peace nor stability in Afghanistan until all ethnic groups are enfranchised. The West must cease backing minority Tajiks and Uzbeks against majority Pashtun -- who deserve their rightful share of power and spoils. The solution to this unnecessary war is not more phoney elections but a comprehensive peace agreement among ethnic factions that largely restores the status quo before the 1970 Soviet invasion. That means a weak central government in Kabul (Karzai is ideal for this job) and a high degree of autonomy for self-governing Pashtun, Tajik, Uzbek and Hazara regions. Government should revert to the old "loya jirga" system of tribal sit downs, where decisions are made by consensus, often after lengthy haggling. That is the way of the Afghans and of traditional Islamic society. All foreign soldiers must withdraw. Create a diplomatic "cordon sanitaire" around Afghanistan's borders, returning it to its traditional role as a neutral buffer state. The powers now stirring the Afghan pot -- the U.S., NATO, India, Iran, Russia, the Communist Central Asian states -- must cease meddling. They have become part of the Afghan problem. Afghans must be allowed to slowly resolve their differences the traditional Afghan way, even if it initially means blood. That's unavoidable. The only way to end the epidemic of drug trading is to shut border crossings to Pakistan and the Central Asian states. But those nation's high officials, corrupted by drug money, will resist. We can't solve Afghanistan's social or political problems by waging a cruel and apparently endless war. A senior British general just warned his troops might have to stay for another 40 years. (He later retracted). The western powers, Canada included, have added to the bloody mess in Afghanistan. Time to go home. © 2009 The Toronto Sun

Amina Sis, I am not a sis, I am bro. Please go ahead, sorry for late response. Have the Somali Pirates been created and are being used for strategic purposes by Israel who has several submarines in the Red Sea?, Is there any connection with the recent sinking of a Somali Merchant Cargo ship that was sank mysteriously in the gulf of Aden.? Read the following article . Fact Or Fiction? Did Mossad Hijack Russian Ship to Stop Iran Arms Shipment? By The Jerusalem Post August 23, 2009 " Jerusalem Post" --- The mystery surrounding the hijacking of a Russian freighter in July has taken a new twist with reports claiming the pirates were acting in league with the Israeli Mossad secret service in order to halt a shipment of modern weapon systems hidden on board and destined for Iran. While Israeli and Russian officials dismissed the reports, accounts published in the Russian media sounded more like a spy thriller than a commercial hijacking. "There is something fishy about this whole story, no doubt about it," Israel's former deputy defense minister Ephraim Sneh told The Media Line. "But I can't comment further on this." The Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta reported over the weekend that the vessel Arctic Sea had been carrying x-55 cruise missiles and S300 anti-aircraft rockets hidden in secret compartments among its cargo of timber and sawdust. The eight alleged hijackers originally claimed to be environmentalists when they boarded the ship in the Baltic Sea in Swedish waters on July 24. The Russian navy eventually tracked it down three weeks later and recaptured it near the West African archipelago of Cape Verde on August 17, thousands of miles from its original destination of Algeria. The eight alleged hijackers were charged late Friday with kidnapping and piracy, the Interfax news agency reported. Russian authorities have declined from revealing further information about the motives of the hijackers. But Dmitri Rogozin, Russian ambassador to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, said that allegations that the Arctic Sea had been smuggling weapons was "fantasy" and "ridiculous." The Russian newspaper Pravda's website reported that the ship had been smuggling cruise missiles to Iran on a well-worn path via Algeria, but a "power that has relations with Ukraine" had prevented this. The Novaya Gazeta reported that the hijackers had been operating on behalf of the Mossad. It also reported that the motive for the visit to Moscow by President Shimon Peres the day after the Russians recaptured the vessel had been an urgent request to his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev to refrain from supplying Iran with weapons. Israeli officials dismissed the reports as "classical conspiracy theories," but defense experts noted that Israel has a record of hijacking foreign vessels bearing arms to its enemies. "This appears as the classical conspiracy theory. I didn't see any evidence for it and so we aren't going to comment," said Yigal Palmor, a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem. A spokeswoman for President Peres also dismissed the report, saying that the visit had been planned long in advance. Brig.-Gen. (ret.) Shlomo Brom, a senior research fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies, did not rule out Israel covert action against Iranian efforts to acquire nuclear arms, but seriously suspected Israel would take action against Russian ships. "It seems that it's full of mystery since everything surrounding Russia is mysterious. And if it's mysterious they dump it on Israel," Brom told The Media Line. Brom, a retired senior intelligence officer, added he did not believe it could enhance the Mossad's image since it appeared to be a failed hijacking. Israel relies heavily on intelligence. Naval intelligence monitors vessels together with other agencies in order to detect suspicious behavior of ships around the world. It was this way that Naval intelligence was able to detect the PLO arms ship Karine A in 2002. They noticed its log was not entirely in keeping with a cargo ship and correlated to other intelligence to build a picture of an arms shipment in the making. The weapons had originated in Iran. Israeli security agents routinely stage surprise at-sea boardings of ships headed to Israeli ports to search for terrorists, contraband and stowaways. In March, Israeli forces reportedly struck a weapons convoy in Sudan, some 1,400 kilometers from the country's borders. According to the CBS, the weapons were intended for Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Nearly 40 people were killed in that attack.

Oz Girl, I really respect your candid admission of faithlessness, doubt and confusion, few Nomads on these boards have such guts, now let us tackle your questions. To treat your problem professionally, please explain to me how you have lost your faith ( Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Hidnu, Falun-Gong) , if you had a faith, what was it, I mean the quality? how were you raised? what did you believe about God, Satan and the next life? The better you describe your condition, the better I can attempt to help you, if that is what you are looking for. Be as frank as possible. Nur

An e-Nuri Business Venture Development The Spiritual Out-Patient Clinic Nomads Our health is taking a serious beating these days due to genetically altered, chemically preserved , artificially processed colored and preserved foods. While these chemicals do their wonders inside our bodies, spawning reactions that can corrode your car engine in a minute, we calmly sit back on our soft couches in our chemically cooled and heated homes using remote controlled gadgets to open our garage doors, operate our refrigerators TV and turn lights on and off without getting up from our soft sofas, all these factors adding to our bad health. Our bodies which are designed by Allah to take abuse to an extent, can only take so much, once the threshold of abuse is crossed, safety mechanisms fail, we feel sick, we throw up or feel like we are on a carousel at Disney in dizziness, we rush to the nearby hospital for help where the Doctor (Dr. WOL?) diagnosis our condition and shakes her head in disbelief. " Mr. Calool Weyne, your condition is serious, your blood cholesterol level is high, liver functions are alarmingly showing serious deterioration, you need to change your diet, to detoxify your blood in order to save your vital organs, its sad that you are only 29 years old " says the internist. That was your body That was your body on bad diet and no exercise That was a Potato couch . Your body is just the window dressing for your soul, the essence of creation and being, have you noticed how we Somalis refer to a dead person " Meytka" the minute he/she passes away? no longer do we refer to that body as a person, the person is gone, leaving behind a bag of fat and weeping relatives behind, the soul departed its body, the abused vehicle of the soul to meet its maker in heaven. Our soul, just like our body, takes a similar blow from an stealthy enemy, Satan, who corrupts its inner files with wrong messages and visions. Without a periodic deletion of these bad files, our souls become so corrupted, we can act and utter words that show how far our soul has deteriorated, i know of one such person in my own family, a young and a promising person, who slowly lost a very valuable healthy soul to Satan, descending from the height of the Himalayas in faith, to the lowest point of an aimless animal. That person is now dead spiritually, alive physically, but Allah gives life to the dead, however, it just dawned on me, how could I have missed the signs of that persons ailment and sickness? it took a long period of time until one day, I was face to face with a complete stranger, someone I knew so much turned to someone i have never met. In memory of that person, I imagined the establishment of a clinic to save dear individuals in our lives, so that we can offer our help before it is too late. Unlike bodily ailments, the spiritual illness is not felt, in contrast, it is enjoyable, and fun, today, I was discussing business with a dear friend whose shining dark black beard kept shrinking every time I see him, while his wallet kept growing bigger and his preoccupation with the worldly desires is noticeably increasing. Change in our spiritual health is very stealthy, our actions can be the best way to monitor our spiritual condition at any given time, unfortunately, there are no diagnostic gadgets in malls to measure our iimaan pressure gauge to ward off an spiritual mental stroke. Based on the above observations, e-Nuri and associates are warning Nomads on this water hole, to either shape up, or ship out to the next life unprepared for a torment that will make a day in Nairobi's refugee camp as pleasant as a serene resort in Palau. In the coming days, we shall look deeply into the ailments of the soul, how to diagnose them, how to cure them and how to regularly check up on the vital signs of deterioration fo the spiritual values that justifies our existence on this planet in the first place. InshaAllah, we will take you to a tour behind the clinics doors to show you how we are preparing to receive spiritual patients who are in dire need to be seen and treated. till then, please pass the word to your family and friends, e-Nuri Doctors will even make house calls for those sick Nomads unable to visit the clinic for an extra fee, a Duaa. Please take the following self test: 1. If you find out today that you have six months to live from your Doctor, what would be your priorities? 2. How much time and effort do you spend about your own desires compared to wellbeing of the needy, relatives and humanity in general? 3. Your prayers are the litmus test of first defense line against Satan, how are they? quantity and quality? .................... ..........to be continued Nur 2005 e-Nuri Spiritual Healing Clinics When Part of You Is dying.

After the creation of the " Sufi Militia" by architects of New World Order, two new Iraq Style incidence have already taken place, the attack of worshipers in a Mosque in Galkacyo, and Lower Shabelle recently. The perpetrators of these crimes are paid agents, possibly Qaybdid trained criminal warlords, not the Sufi, nor the resistance, their plan is to restart the old clan war of 1991 in which they have done pretty the same thing to unsuspecting Somali clans right after the collapse of the Siad Barre regime. Somalis of both sides do not buy this type of Shia Sunni Massacre Iraq style, simply because, no Somali in his right mind have the cold blooded nerve to shoot and kill worshipers in the first night of Ramadan. Ethiopian Assassination agents are roaming Somalia to inflame the civil war, Somalis should be on the look out for suspicious groups in their midst. Nur

The US War against Iraq The Destruction of a Civilization By James Petras August 21, 2009 "ICH" -- The US seven-year war and occupation of Iraq is driven by several major political forces and informed by a variety of imperial interests. However these interests do not in themselves explain the depth and scope of the sustained, massive and continuing destruction of an entire society and its reduction to a permanent state of war. The range of political forces contributing to the making of the war and the subsequent US occupation include the following (in order of importance): The most important political force was also the least openly discussed. The Zionist Power Configuration (ZPC), which includes the prominent role of long-time, hard-line unconditional Jewish supporters of the State of Israel appointed to top positions in the Bush Pentagon (Douglas Feith and Paul Wolfowitz ), key operative in the Office of the Vice President (Irving (Scooter) Libby), the Treasury Department (Stuart Levey), the National Security Council (Elliot Abrams) and a phalanx of consultants, Presidential speechwriters (David Frum), secondary officials and policy advisers to the State Department. These committed Zionists ‘insiders’ were buttressed by thousands of full-time Israel-First functionaries in the 51 major American Jewish organizations, which form the President of the Major American Jewish Organizations (PMAJO). They openly stated that their top priority was to advance Israel’s agenda, which, in this case, was a US war against Iraq to overthrow Saddam Hussein, occupy the country, physically divide Iraq, destroy its military and industrial capability and impose a pro-Israel/pro-US puppet regime. If Iraq were ethnically cleansed and divided, as advocated by the ultra-right, Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu and the ‘Liberal’ President Emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations and militarist-Zionist, Leslie Gelb, there would be more than several ‘client regimes’. Top Zionist policymakers who promoted the war did not initially directly pursue the policy of systematically destroying what, in effect, was the entire Iraqi civilization. But their support and design of an occupation policy included the total dismemberment of the Iraqi state apparatus and recruitment of Israeli advisers to provide their ‘expertise’ in interrogation techniques, repression of civilian resistance and counter-insurgency. Israeli expertise certainly played a role in fomenting the intra-Iraqi religious and ethnic strife, which Israel had mastered in Palestine. The Israeli ‘model’ of colonial war and occupation – the invasion of Lebanon in 1982 – and the practice of ‘total destruction’ using sectarian, ethno-religious division was evident in the notorious massacres at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Beirut, which took place under Israeli military supervision. The second powerful political force behind the Iraq War were civilian militarists (like Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Cheney) who sought to extend US imperial reach in the Persian Gulf and strengthen its geo-political position by eliminating a strong, secular, nationalist backer of Arab anti-imperialist insurgency in the Middle East. The civilian militarists sought to extend the American military base encirclement of Russia and secure control over Iraqi oil reserves as a pressure point against China. The civilian militarists were less moved by Vice President Cheney’s past ties with the oil industry and more interested in his role as CEO of Halliburton’s giant military base contractor subsidiary Kellogg-Brown and Root, which was consolidating the US Empire through worldwide military base expansion. Major US oil companies, who feared losing out to European and Asian competitors, were already eager to deal with Saddam Hussein, and some of the Bush’s supporters in the oil industry had already engaged in illegal trading with the embargoed Iraqi regime. The oil industry was not inclined to promote regional instability with a war. The militarist strategy of conquest and occupation was designed to establish a long-term colonial military presence in the form of strategic military bases with a significant and sustained contingent of colonial military advisors and combat units. The brutal colonial occupation of an independent secular state with a strong nationalist history and an advanced infrastructure with a sophisticated military and police apparatus, extensive public services and wide-spread literacy naturally led to the growth of a wide array of militant and armed anti-occupation movements. In response, US colonial officials, the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agencies devised a ‘divide and rule’ strategy (the so-called ‘El Salvador solution’ associated with the former ‘hot-spot’ Ambassador and US Director of National Intelligence, John Negroponte) fomenting armed sectarian-based conflicts and promoting inter-religious assassinations to debilitate any effort at a united nationalist anti-imperialist movement. The dismantling of the secular civilian bureaucracy and military was designed by the Zionists in the Bush Administration to enhance Israel’s power in the region and to encourage the rise of militant Islamic groups, which had been repressed by the deposed Baathist regime of Saddam Hussein. Israel had mastered this strategy earlier: It originally sponsored and financed sectarian Islamic militant groups, like Hamas, as an alternative to the secular Palestine Liberation Organization and set the stage for sectarian fighting among the Palestinians. The result of US colonial policies were to fund and multiply a wide range of internal conflicts as mullahs, tribal leaders, political gangsters, warlords, expatriates and death squads proliferated. The ‘war of all against all’ served the interests of the US occupation forces. Iraq became a pool of armed, unemployed young men, from which to recruit a new mercenary army. The ‘civil war’ and ‘ethnic conflict’ provided a pretext for the US and its Iraqi puppets to discharge hundreds of thousands of soldiers, police and functionaries from the previous regime (especially if they were from Sunni, mixed or secular families) and to undermine the basis for civilian employment. Under the cover of generalized ‘war against terror’, US Special Forces and CIA-directed death squads spread terror within Iraqi civil society, targeting anyone suspected of criticizing the puppet government – especially among the educated and professional classes, precisely the Iraqis most capable of re-constructing an independent secular republic. The Iraq war was driven by an influential group of neo-conservative and neo-liberal ideologues with strong ties to Israel. They viewed the success of the Iraq war (by success they meant the total dismemberment of the country) as the first ‘domino’ in a series of war to ‘re-colonize’ the Middle East (in their words: “to re-draw the map”). They disguised their imperial ideology with a thin veneer of rhetoric about ‘promoting democracies’ in the Middle East (excluding, of course, the un-democratic policies of their ‘homeland’ Israel over its subjugated Palestinians). Conflating Israeli regional hegemonic ambitions with the US imperial interests, the neo-conservatives and their neo-liberal fellow travelers in the Democratic Party first backed President Bush and later President Obama in their escalation of the wars against Afghanistan and Pakistan. They unanimously supported Israel’s savage bombing campaign against Lebanon, the land and air assault and massacre of thousands of civilians trapped in Gaza, the bombing of Syrian facilities and the big push (from Israel) for a pre-emptive, full-scale military attack against Iran. The US advocates of sequential and multiple simultaneous wars in the Middle East and South Asia believed that they could only unleash the full strength of their mass destructive power after they had secured total control of their first victim, Iraq. They were confident that Iraqi resistance would collapse rapidly after 13 years of brutal starvation sanctions imposed on the republic by the US and United Nations. In order to consolidate imperial control, American policy-makers decided to permanently silence all independent Iraqi civilian dissidents. They turned to the financing of Shia clerics and Sunni tribal assassins, and contracting scores of thousands of private mercenaries among the Kurdish Peshmerga warlords to carry out selective assassinations of leaders of civil society movements. The US created and trained a 200,000 member Iraqi colonial puppet army composed almost entirely of Shia gunmen, and excluded experienced Iraqi military men from secular, Sunni or Christian backgrounds. A little known result of this build up of American trained and financed death squads and its puppet ‘Iraqi’ army, was the virtual destruction of the ancient Iraqi Christian population, which was displaced, its churches bombed and its leaders, bishops and intellectuals, academics and scientists assassinated or driven into exile. The US and its Israeli advisers were well aware that Iraqi Christians had played a key role the historic development of the secular, nationalist, anti-British/anti-mo narchist movements and their elimination as an influential force during the first years of US occupation was no accident. The result of the US policies were to eliminate most secular democratic anti-imperialist leaders and movements and to present their murderous net-work of ‘ethno-religious’ collaborators as their uncontested ‘partners’ in sustaining the long-term US colonial presence in Iraq. With their puppets in power, Iraq would serve as a launching platform for its strategic pursuit of the other ‘dominoes’ (Syria, Iran, Central Asian Republics…). The sustained bloody purge of Iraq under US occupation resulted in the killing 1.3 million Iraqi civilians during the first 7 years after Bush invaded in March 2003. Up to mid-2009, the invasion and occupation of Iraq has officially cost the American treasury over $666 billion. This enormous expenditure attests to its centrality in the larger US imperial strategy for the entire Middle East/South and Central Asia region. Washington’s policy of politicizing and militarizing ethno-religious differences, arming and encouraging rival tribal, religious and ethnic leaders to engage in mutual bloodletting served to destroy national unity and resistance. The ‘divide and rule’ tactics and reliance on retrograde social and religious organizations is the commonest and best-known practice in pursuing the conquest and subjugation of a unified, advanced nationalist state. Breaking up the national state, destroying nationalist consciousness and encouraging primitive ethno-religious, feudal and regional loyalties required the systematic destruction of the principal purveyors of nationalist consciousness, historical memory and secular, scientific thought. Provoking ethno-religious hatreds destroyed intermarriages, mixed communities and institutions with their long-standing personal friendships and professional ties among diverse backgrounds. The physical elimination of academics, writers, teachers, intellectuals, scientists and professionals, especially physicians, engineers, lawyers, jurists and journalists was decisive in imposing ethno-religious rule under a colonial occupation. To establish long-term dominance and sustain ethno-religious client rulers, the entire pre-existing cultural edifice, which had sustained an independent secular nationalist state, was physically destroyed by the US and its Iraqi puppets. This included destroying the libraries, census bureaus, and repositories of all property and court records, health departments, laboratories, schools, cultural centers, medical facilities and above all the entire scientific-literary- humanistic social scientific class of professionals. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi professionals and family members were driven by terror into internal and external exile. All funding for national, secular, scientific and educational institutions were cut off. Death squads engaged in the systematic murder of thousands of academics and professionals suspected of the least dissent, the least nationalist sentiment; anyone with the least capacity to re-construct the republic was marked. The Destruction of a Modern Arab Civilization Independent, secular Iraq had the most advanced scientific-cultural order in the Arab world, despite the repressive nature of Saddam Hussein’s police state. There was a system of national health care, universal public education and generous welfare services, combined with unprecedented levels of gender equality. This marked the advanced nature of Iraqi civilization in the late 20th century. Separation of church and state and strict protection of religious minorities (Christians, Assyrians and others) contrasts sharply with what has resulted from the US occupation and its destruction of the Iraqi civil and governmental structures. The harsh dictatorial rule of Saddam Hussein thus presided over a highly developed modern civilization in which advanced scientific work went hand in hand with a strong nationalist and anti-imperialist identity. This resulted especially in the Iraqi people and regime’s expressions of solidarity for the plight of the Palestinian people under Israeli rule and occupation. A mere ‘regime change’ could not extirpate this deeply embedded and advanced secular republican culture in Iraq. The US war planners and their Israeli advisers were well aware that colonial occupation would increase Iraqi nationalist consciousness unless the secular nation was destroyed and hence, the imperial imperative to uproot and destroy the carriers of nationalist consciousness by physically eliminating the educated, the talented, the scientific, indeed the most secular elements of Iraqi society. Retrogression became the principal instrument for the US to impose its colonial puppets, with their primitive, ‘pre-national’ loyalties, in power in a culturally purged Baghdad stripped of its most sophisticated and nationalistic social strata. According to the Al-Ahram Studies Center in Cairo, more that 310 Iraqi scientists were eliminated during the first 18 months of the US occupation – a figure that the Iraqi education ministry did not dispute. Another report listed the killings of more than 340 intellectuals and scientists between 2005 and 2007. Bombings of institutes of higher education had pushed enrollment down to 30% of the pre-invasion figures. In one bombing in January 2007, at Baghdad’s Mustansiriya University 70 students were killed with hundreds wounded. These figures compelled the UNESCO to warn that Iraq’s university system was on the brink of collapse. The numbers of prominent Iraqi scientists and professionals who have fled the country have approached 20,000. Of the 6,700 Iraqi university professors who fled since 2003, the Los Angeles Times reported than only 150 had returned by October 2008. Despite the US claims of improved security, the situation in 2008 saw numerous assassinations, including the only practicing neurosurgeon in Iraq’s second largest city of Basra, whose body was dumped on the city streets. The raw data on the Iraqi academics, scientists and professionals assassinated by the US and allied occupation forces and the militias and shadowy forces they control is drawn from a list published by the Pakistan Daily News (www.daily.pk) on November 26, 2008. This list makes for very uncomfortable reading into the reality of systematic elimination of intellectuals in Iraq under the meat-grinder of US occupation. Assassinations The physical elimination of an individual by assassination is an extreme form of terrorism, which has far-reaching effects rippling throughout the community from which the individual comes – in this case the world of Iraqi intellectuals, academics, professionals and creative leaders in the arts and sciences. For each Iraqi intellectual murdered, thousands of educated Iraqis fled the country or abandoned their work for safer, less vulnerable activity. Baghdad was considered the ‘Paris’ of the Arab world, in terms of culture and art, science and education. In the 1970’s and 80’s, its universities were the envy of the Arab world. The US ‘shock and awe’ campaign that rained down on Baghdad evoked emotions akin to an aerial bombardment of the Louvre, the Sorbonne and the greatest libraries of Europe. Baghdad University was one of the most prestigious and productive universities in the Arab world. Many of its academics possessed doctoral degrees and engaged in post-doctoral studies abroad at prestigious institutions. It taught and graduated many of the top professionals and scientists in the Middle East. Even under the deadly grip of the US/UN-imposed economic sanctions that starved Iraq during the 13 years before the March 2003 invasion, thousands of graduate students and young professionals came to Iraq for post-graduate training. Young physicians from throughout the Arab world received advanced medical training in its institutions. Many of its academics presented scientific papers at major international conferences and published in prestigious journals. Most important, Baghdad University trained and maintained a highly respected scientific secular culture free of sectarian discrimination – with academics from all ethnic and religious backgrounds. This world has been forever shattered: Under US occupation, up to November 2008, eighty-three academics and researchers teaching at Baghdad University had been murdered and several thousand of their colleagues, students and family members were forced to flee. The Selection of Assassinated Academics by Discipline The November 2008 article published by the Pakistan Daily News lists the names of a total of 154 top Baghdad-based academics, renowned in their fields, who were murdered. Altogether, a total of 281 well-known intellectuals teaching at the top universities in Iraq fell victim to the ‘death squads’ under US occupation. Prior to the US occupation, Baghdad University possessed the premier research and teaching medical faculty in the entire Middle East attracting hundreds of young doctors for advanced training. That program has been devastated during the rise of the US-death squad regime, with few prospects of recovery. Of those murdered, 25% (21) were the most senior professors and lecturers in the medical faculty of Baghdad University, the highest percentage of any faculty. The second highest percentage of butchered faculty were the professors and researchers from Baghdad University’s renowned engineering faculty (12), followed by the top academics in the humanities (10), physical and social sciences (8 senior academics each), education (5). The remaining top academics murdered at Baghdad University spread out among the agronomy, business, physical education, communications and religious studies faculties. At three other Baghdad universities, 53 senior academics were slaughtered, including 10 in the social sciences, 7 in the faculty of law, 6 each in medicine and the humanities, 9 in the physical sciences and 5 in engineering. Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld’s August 20, 2002 pre-invasion joke, “…one has to assume they (scientists) have not been playing ‘tiddlywinks’(a child’s game)”( justifying the bloody purge of Iraq’s scientists in physics and chemistry. An ominous signal of the academic bloodletting that followed the invasion. Similar bloody purges of academics occurred in all the provincial universities: 127 senior academics and scientists were assassinated at the various well-regarded universities in Mosul, Kirkuk, Basra and elsewhere. The provincial universities with the highest number of murdered senior faculty members were in cities where the US and British military and their Kurdish mercenary allies were most active: Basra (35), Mosul (35), Diyala (15) and Al-Anbar (11). The Iraqi military and allied death squads carried out most of the killing of academics in the cities under US or ‘allied’ control. The systematic murder of academics was a nation-wide, cross-disciplinary drive to destroy the cultural and educational foundations of a modern Arab civilization. The death squads carrying out most of these assassinations were primitive, pre-modern, ethno-religious groups ‘set loose’ or instrumentalized by US military strategists to wipe out any politically conscious intellectuals and nationalist scientists who might pursue an agenda for re-building a modern, secular society and independent, unified republic. In its panic to prevent the US invasion, the Iraqi National Monitoring Directorate provided a list, which identified over 500 key Iraqi scientists to the UN on December 7, 2002. There is little doubt that this list became a core element in the US military’s hit list for eliminating Iraq’s scientific elite. In his notorious pre-invasion speech to the United Nations, Secretary of State Colin Powell cited a list of over 3,500 Iraqi scientists and technicians who would have to be ‘contained’ to prevent their expertise from being used by other countries. The US had even created a ‘budget’ of hundreds of millions of dollars, drawn from the Iraqi ‘Oil for Food’ money held by the United Nations to set up ‘civilian re-education’ programs to re-train Iraqi scientists and engineers. These highly touted programs were never seriously implemented. Cheaper ways of containing what one American policy expert termed Iraq’s ‘excess scientists, engineers and technicians’ in a Carnegie Endowment Paper (RANSAC Policy Update April 2004) became clear. The US had decided to adopt and expand the Israeli Mossad’s covert operation of assassinating selected key Iraqi scientists on an industrial scale. The US ‘Surge’ and ‘Peak Assassination’ Campaigns: 2006-2007 The high tide of terror against academics coincides with the renewal of the US military offensive in Baghdad and in the provinces. Of the total number of assassinations of Baghdad-based academics for which a date is recorded (110 known intellectuals slaughtered), almost 80% (87) occurred in 2006 and 2007. A similar pattern is found in the provinces with 77% of a total of 84 scholars murdered outside of capital during the same period. The pattern is clear: the murder rate of academics grows as the occupying US forces organize a mercenary Iraqi military and police force and provide money for the training and recruitment of rival Shia and Sunni tribesmen and militia as a means of decreasing American casualties and of purging potential dissident critics of the occupation. The terror campaign against academics intensified in mid-2005 and reached its peak in 2006-2007, leading to the mass flight of tens of thousands of Iraqi scholars, scientists, professionals and their families overseas. Entire university medical school faculties have become refugees in Syria and elsewhere. Those who could not afford to abandon elderly parents or relatives and remained in Iraq have taken extraordinary measures to hide their identities. Some have chosen to collaborate with the US occupation forces or the puppet regime in the hope of being protected or allowed to immigrate with their families to the US or Europe, although the Europeans, especially the British are disinclined to accept Iraqi scholars. After 2008, there has been a sharp decline in the murder of academics – with only 4 assassinated that year. This reflects the massive flight of Iraqi intellectuals living abroad or in hiding rather than any change of policy on the part of the US and its mercenary puppets. As a result, Iraq’s research facilities have been decimated. The lives of those remaining support staff, including technicians, librarians and students have been devastated with few prospects for future employment. The US war and occupation of Iraq, as Presidents Bush and Obama have declared, is a ‘success’ – an independent nation of 23 million citizens has been occupied by force, a puppet regime is ensconced, colonial mercenary troops obey American officers and the oil fields have been put up for sale. All of Iraq’s nationalist laws protecting its patrimony, its cultural treasures and national resources, have been annulled. The occupiers have imposed a ‘constitution’ favoring the US Empire. Israel and its Zionist flunkies in the Administrations of both Bush and Obama celebrate the demise of a modern adversary…and the conversion of Iraq into a cultural-political desert. In line with an alleged agreement made by the US State Department and Pentagon officials to influential collectors from the American Council for Cultural Policy in January 2003, the looted treasures of ancient Mesopotamia have ‘found’ their way into the collections of the elite in London, New York and elsewhere. The collectors can now anticipate the pillage of Iran. Warning to Iran The US invasion, occupation and destruction of a modern, scientific-cultural civilization, such as existed in Iraq, is a prelude of what the people of Iran can expect if and when a US-Israeli military attack occurs. The imperial threat to the cultural-scientific foundations of the Iranian nation has been totally absent from the narrative among the affluent Iranian student protesters and their US-funded NGO’s during their post-election ‘Lipstick Revolution’ protests. They should bear in mind that in 2004 educated, sophisticated Iraqis in Baghdad consoled themselves with a fatally misplaced optimism that ‘at least we are not like Afghanistan’. The same elite are now in squalid refugee camps in Syria and Jordan and their country more closely resembles Afghanistan than anywhere else in the Middle East. The chilling promise of President Bush in April 2003 to transform Iraq in the image of ‘our newly liberated Afghanistan’ has been fulfilled. And reports that the US Administration advisers had reviewed the Israeli Mossad policy of selective assassination of Iranian scientists should cause the pro-Western liberal intellectuals of Teheran to seriously ponder the lesson of the murderous campaign that has virtually eliminated Iraqi scientists and academics during 2006-2007. Conclusion What does the United States (and Britain and Israel) gain from establishing a retrograde client regime, based on medieval ethno-clerical socio-political structures in Iraq? First and foremost, Iraq has become an outpost for empire. Secondly, it is a weak and backward regime incapable of challenging Israeli economic and military dominance in the region and unwilling to question the ongoing ethnic cleansing of the native Palestinian Arabs from Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza. Thirdly, the destruction of the scientific, academic, cultural and legal foundations of an independent state means increasing reliance on the Western (and Chinese) multinational corporations and their technical infrastructure – facilitating imperial economic penetration and exploitation. In the mid 19th Century, after the revolutions of 1848, the conservative French sociologist Emil Durkheim recognized that the European bourgeoisie was confronted with rising class conflict and an increasing anti-capitalist working class. Durkheim noted that, whatever its philosophical misgivings about religion and clericalism, the bourgeoisie would have to use the myths of traditional religion to ‘create’ social cohesion and undercut class polarization. He called on the educated and sophisticated Parisian capitalist class to forego its rejection of obscurantist religious dogma in favor of instrumentalizing religion as a tool to maintain its political dominance. In the same way, US strategists, including the Pentagon-Zionists, have instrumentalized the tribal-mullah, ethno-religious forces to destroy the secular national political leadership and advanced culture of Iraq in order to consolidate imperial rule – even if this strategy called for the killing off of the scientific and professional classes. Contemporary US imperial rule is based on supporting the socially and politically most backward sectors of society and applying the most advanced technology of warfare. Israeli advisers have played a major role in instructing US occupation forces in Iraq on the practices of urban counter-insurgency and repression of civilians, drawing on their 60 years of experience. The infamous massacre of hundreds of Palestinian families at Deir Yasin in 1948 was emblematic of Zionist elimination of hundreds of productive farming villages, which had been settled for centuries by a native people with their endogenous civilization and cultural ties to the soil, in order to impose a new colonial order. The policy of the total deracination of the Palestinians is central to Israel’s advise to the US policymakers in Iraq. Their message has been carried out by their Zionist acolytes in the Bush and Obama Administrations, ordering the dismemberment of the entire modern Iraqi civil and state bureaucracy and using pre-modern tribal death squads made up of Kurds and Shia extremists to purge the modern universities and research institutions of that shattered nation. The US imperial conquest of Iraq is built on the destruction of a modern secular republic. The cultural desert that remains (a Biblical ‘howling wilderness’ soaked in the blood of Iraq’s precious scholars) is controlled by mega-swindlers, mercenary thugs posing as ‘Iraqi officers’, tribal and ethnic cultural illiterates and medieval religious figures. They operate under the guidance and direction of West Point graduates holding ‘blue-prints for empire’, formulated by graduates of Princeton, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Yale and Chicago, eager to serve the interests of American and European multi-national corporations. This is called ‘combined and uneven development’: The marriage of fundamentalist mullahs with Ivy League Zionists at the service of the US. http://www.afterdown ingstreet.org/warcri minals

Urban bro. As per a fatwaa by Sheikh IBn Baaz Raximuhu Allah, its permissible for the following reasons: 1. Priority is for the hearing of the Quraan, not the source 2. Its the same, reading from memory or from a copy of Quraan or other media When boing down, its suggested that you put the Quraan on a nearby surface, that allows you to pick up as you rise. Wallahu Aclam Nur

Paragon Sins have hierarchy, and speaking about Allah without knowledge tops the charts of major sins, its by far the most severe sin one can commit against Allah as its potential damage in misleading people from the right path is far greater than all other sins combined. In my opinion, this is the main reason for its severity. As the author wrote, Allah SWT says in Surah Al Acraaf: Say (O Muhammad ): "(But) the things that my Lord has indeed forbidden are 1.Al­Fawahish (great evil sins, every kind of unlawful sexual intercourse, etc.) whether committed openly or secretly, sins (of all kinds), 2. oppression, 3. joining partners (in His Sovereignty) with Allah for which He has given no authority, 4. and saying things about Allah of which you have no knowledge." As you can see from this verse, severity of the sins are building up from the lightest sin to the heaviest, even heavier than blatant Shirk, since the latter is inclusive of Shirk. It is a COMPOUND. If a person does not know, she/he should ask a knowledgeable person as Allah said in Surah Naxl and Furqaan " Fas al bihi khabiiraa" " Fas aluu ahlal dhikri in kuntum laa taclamuun" meaning, ask a knowledgeable person if you are ignorant. Wallaahu Aclam Nur

US Recruits Death Squads C.I.A. Sought Blackwater’s Help in Plan to Kill Jihadists By Mark Mazzetti August 20, 2009 "New York Times" --- August 19, 2009 -- WASHINGTON — The Central Intelligence Agency in 2004 hired outside contractors from the private security contractor Blackwater USA as part of a secret program to locate and assassinate top operatives of Al Qaeda, according to current and former government officials. Executives from Blackwater, which has generated controversy because of its aggressive tactics in Iraq, helped the spy agency with planning, training and surveillance. The C.I.A. spent several million dollars on the program, which did not successfully capture or kill any terrorist suspects. The fact that the C.I.A. used an outside company for the program was a major reason that Leon E. Panetta, the C.I.A.’s director, became alarmed and called an emergency meeting in June to tell Congress that the agency had withheld details of the program for seven years, the officials said. It is unclear whether the C.I.A. had planned to use the contractors to actually capture or kill Qaeda operatives, or just to help with training and surveillance in the program. American spy agencies have in recent years outsourced some highly controversial work, including the interrogation of prisoners. But government officials said that bringing outsiders into a program with lethal authority raised deep concerns about accountability in covert operations. Officials said the C.I.A. did not have a formal contract with Blackwater for this program but instead had individual agreements with top company officials, including the founder, Erik D. Prince, a politically connected former member of the Navy Seals and the heir to a family fortune. Blackwater’s work on the program actually ended years before Mr. Panetta took over the agency, after senior C.I.A. officials themselves questioned the wisdom of using outsiders in a targeted killing program. Blackwater, which has changed its name, most recently to Xe Services, and is based in North Carolina, in recent years has received millions of dollars in government contracts, growing so large that the Bush administration said it was a necessary part of its war operation in Iraq. It has also drawn controversy. Blackwater employees hired to guard American diplomats in Iraq were accused of using excessive force on several occasions, including shootings in Baghdad in 2007 in which 17 civilians were killed. Iraqi officials have since refused to give the company an operating license. Several current and former government officials interviewed for this article spoke only on the condition of anonymity because they were discussing details of a still classified program. Paul Gimigliano, a C.I.A. spokesman, declined to provide details about the canceled program, but he said that Mr. Panetta’s decision on the assassination program was “clear and straightforward.” “Director Panetta thought this effort should be briefed to Congress, and he did so,” Mr. Gimigliano said. “He also knew it hadn’t been successful, so he ended it.” A Xe spokeswoman did not return calls seeking comment. Senator Dianne Feinstein, the California Democrat who leads the Senate Intelligence Committee, also declined to give details of the program. But she praised Mr. Panetta for notifying Congress. “It is too easy to contract out work that you don’t want to accept responsibility for,” she said. The C.I.A. this summer conducted an internal review of the assassination program that recently was presented to the White House and the Congressional intelligence committees. The officials said that the review stated that Mr. Panetta’s predecessors did not believe that they needed to tell Congress because the program was not far enough developed. The House Intelligence Committee is investigating why lawmakers were never told about the program. According to current and former government officials, former Vice President Dick Cheney told C.I.A. officers in 2002 that the spy agency did not need to inform Congress because the agency already had legal authority to kill Qaeda leaders. One official familiar with the matter said that Mr. Panetta did not tell lawmakers that he believed that the C.I.A. had broken the law by withholding details about the program from Congress. Rather, the official said, Mr. Panetta said he believed that the program had moved beyond a planning stage and deserved Congressional scrutiny. “It’s wrong to think this counterterrorism program was confined to briefing slides or doodles on a cafeteria napkin,” the official said. “It went well beyond that.” Current and former government officials said that the C.I.A.’s efforts to use paramilitary hit teams to kill Qaeda operatives ran into logistical, legal and diplomatic hurdles almost from the outset. These efforts had been run by the C.I.A.’s counterterrorism center, which runs operations against Al Qaeda and other terrorist networks. In 2002, Blackwater won a classified contract to provide security for the C.I.A. station in Kabul, Afghanistan, and the company maintains other classified contracts with the C.I.A., current and former officials said. Over the years, Blackwater has hired several former top C.I.A. officials, including Cofer Black, who ran the C.I.A. counterterrorism center immediately after the Sept. 11 attacks. C.I.A. operatives also regularly use the company’s training complex in North Carolina. The complex includes a shooting range used for sniper training. An executive order signed by President Gerald R. Ford in 1976 barred the C.I.A. from carrying out assassinations, a direct response to revelations that the C.I.A. had initiated assassination plots against Fidel Castro of Cuba and other foreign politicians. The Bush administration took the position that killing members of Al Qaeda, a terrorist group that attacked the United States and has pledged to attack it again, was no different from killing enemy soldiers in battle, and that therefore the agency was not constrained by the assassination ban. But former intelligence officials said that employing private contractors to help hunt Qaeda operatives would pose significant legal and diplomatic risks, and they might not be protected in the same way government employees are. Some Congressional Democrats have hinted that the program was just one of many that the Bush administration hid from Congressional scrutiny and have used the episode as a justification to delve deeper into other Bush-era counterterrorism programs. But Republicans have criticized Mr. Panetta’s decision to cancel the program, saying he created a tempest in a teapot. “I think there was a little more drama and intrigue than was warranted,” said Representative Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee. Officials said that the C.I.A. program was devised partly as an alternative to missile strikes using drone aircraft, which have accidentally killed civilians and cannot be used in urban areas where some terrorists hide. Yet with most top Qaeda operatives believed to be hiding in the remote mountains of Pakistan, the drones have remained the C.I.A.’s weapon of choice. Like the Bush administration, the Obama administration has embraced the drone campaign because it presents a less risky option than sending paramilitary teams into Pakistan. Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company

^ Any explanation for this? I can't think of one Somalia under Shareef will be an Ethiopian Protectorate, and Warlord Qaybdid and his ilk are the real trustees for the task of bringing Somalia's last troublesome real estate piece under Ethiopian Protectorate for foreign invstors. Here is the Inorganic Chemistry of a similar government to that of Sharif and Sharmarke, Complete with warlords, drugs, corruption and of course, American Media and Military Support. Karzai and Warlords Mount Massive Vote Fraud Scheme "The biggest fear is Karzai ends up as an incredibly illegitimate figure, and we end up owning Afghanistan and propping up an illegitimate government." >>>>Australian counterinsurgency specialist David Kilcullen By Gareth Porter August 19, 2009 -- WASHINGTON, Aug 19 (IPS) - Afghanistan's presidential election has long been viewed by U.S. officials as a key to conferring legitimacy on the Afghan government, but Afghan President Hamid Karzai and his powerful warlord allies have planned to commit large-scale electoral fraud that could have the opposite effect. Two U.S.-financed polls published during the past week showed support for Karzai falls well short of the 51 percent of the vote necessary to avoid a runoff election. A poll by Glevum Associates showed Karzai at 36 percent, and a survey by the International Republican Institute had him at 44 percent of the vote. Those polls suggest that Karzai might have to pad his legitimate vote total by much as 40 percent to be certain of being elected in the first round. But Karzai has been laying the groundwork for just such a contingency for many months. By all accounts, he has forged political alliances with leading Afghan warlords who control informal militias and tribal networks in the provinces to carry out a vote fraud scheme accounting for a very large proportion of the votes. Karzai chose Muhammad Qasim Fahim, the ethnic Tajik warlord who had been vice-president and defence minister in his government until the 2004 elections, as his running mate. In return for their support, he promised Hazara warlords Haji Muhammad Moheqiq and Karim Khalili that new provinces would be carved out from largely Hazara districts in Ghazni and Wardak provinces, as reported by Richard Oppel of the New York Times. The socio-political structure of Afghanistan remains so hierarchical that warlords can deliver very large blocs of votes to Karzai by telling their followers to vote for him, and in some provinces - especially in the Pashtun south - by forcing local tribal elders to cooperate in voter fraud schemes. The system in which warlords pressure tribal elders to deliver the vote for Karzai was illustrated by a village elder in Herat province who said he had been threatened by a local commander with "very unpleasant consequences" if the residents of his village did not vote for Karzai, according to the Institute for War and Peace Reporting. As early as last May, the country's independent election monitoring organisation, the Free and Fair Election Foundation of Afghanistan (FEFA), had documented a suite of voter registration practices that laid the groundwork for massive voter fraud. FEFA observers, who observed voter registration in 194 of 400 voting registration centres in four provinces during one stage of the process, found that nearly 20 percent of the voters registered, on average, were under age – in many cases as young as 12 years old. It is now estimated that 17 million voter registration cards have been issued, which means that nearly 3.5 million cards may have been issued to children. FEFA observers also found rampant distribution of multiple voting cards. During the third phase of registration, they observed at least four incidents of such abuses in 85 percent of the centres. The voter registration staff was seen handing out cards even before applicants had been registered. In one case, the FEFA observers saw about 500 voting cards being given to a single individual. Another element in the Karzai scheme involves the registration of women without their actually being physically present, often on the basis of lists of names given to the registration officials. The list system for registering women was found in 99 percent of registration stations in Paktika province and 90 percent of those in Zabul and Khost provinces. During the final phase of the registration, many centres were found to be allowing males to take the registration books home, where they supposedly obtained the fingerprints of the women. In some of the most insecure and traditional provinces, such as Logar and in Nuristan, more than twice as many cards were issued to women as to men in 2009, and in Paktika, Paktia and Khost, 30 percent more women were registered than were men. In Kandahar women represent 44 percent of those with voting cards. The young female MP Fawzia Koofi told The Australian that such levels of women registered could not be genuine. The result has been to create a vast pool of voting cards, very few of which will be used by women to vote. Reports by journalists about the acquisition of voting cards by the local strongmen indicate that this distribution of voting cards to people who would not vote was part of a plan to stuff the ballot boxes to increase the vote for Karzai. The Times of London quoted a tribal elder in Marja district of Helmand province last week as saying that the warlord and former governor Sher Mohammad Akhudzada was organising the vote for Karzai in the province, and that he and other tribal elders were responsible for buying voting cards from voters who had registered. Independent analyst Alex Strick van Linschoten, who is based in Kandahar, has reported schemes using police to purchase voter registration cards in several districts in the province. Writing in the New York Times magazine Aug. 9, Elizabeth Rubin reported that an unnamed political figure in Kandahar told her in June he had manufactured 8,000 voter "fake" registration cards that had sold for 20 dollars each. Some observers believe that various factors may constrain Karzai's effort to use warlords to swing the election. Former U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Ronald E. Neumann told IPS he is counting on the use of indelible ink on the voters' fingers to make it impossible for people to vote more than once. He recalls, however, that the "indelible" ink used in the 2005 election turned out to be washable after all. Neumann also hopes the existence of the Election Complaints Commission, an independent body with three international members nominated by the United Nations, will be a check on massive vote fraud. That body investigates complaints of voter fraud and has the right under Afghan election law to order the invalidation or recounting of votes or even the conducting of new polling where it finds evidence of fraud. But it has no sub-national presence and will be heavily dependent on the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC), which handles all the documentary evidence pertaining to such complaints. More problematic is the fact that the IEC is not "independent" of the Karzai regime at all. Its seven members were all appointed by Karzai, and its chairman has made no secret of his partisan support for the president. The IEC will likely seek to cover up complaints of major fraud, and the complaints body may not be able to do much about it. Neumann put the odds of an election that would be "good enough" in the eyes of the Afghans at "50-50". But counterinsurgency specialists are more pessimistic. Larry Goodson of the U.S. Army College, who was on the U.S. Central Command team that worked on a detailed plan for Afghanistan and Pakistan earlier this year, told IPS, "The reality is there is going to be a lot of cheating and fraud." Goodson said the danger for the United States in the Karzai election plan is that it "could be perceived by Afghans as promoting the legitimisation of someone who is widely perceived as illegitimate." Australian counterinsurgency specialist David Kilcullen, who will shortly become a senior adviser to Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, declared at the U.S. Institute of Peace Aug. 6, "The biggest fear is Karzai ends up as an incredibly illegitimate figure, and we end up owning Afghanistan and propping up an illegitimate government." Gareth Porter is an investigative historian and journalist specialising in U.S. national security policy. The paperback edition of his latest book, "Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam", was published in 2006. Copyright © 2009 IPS-Inter Press Service. All rights reserved.

I am around my dear sis, Ramadan kareem to you! I am back again these days, but as a bread winner when I have a heavy load of work, I disappear, and then reappear to shake the discussions on SOL Islam page. You write: although I worry that we have a fundamental disagreement over the basics. Can you list these fundamentals so we can crack their mysteries, don't worry sis, inshAllah we will narrow the gap, I am pretty sure with if both of us are seeking happiness in this life and next, if on that much of basics we agree, then there is nothing to worry about, I'll have you smiling in no time. Nur

Raamsade You write: what happens to those who don't worship God? First let us define Worship as per Merriam-Webster: Etymology: Middle English worshipe worthiness, respect, reverence paid to a divine being, from Old English weorthscipe worthiness, respect, from weorth worthy, worth + -scipe -ship Now let us ask, why Worship? Answer, because, Allah is Sovereign, and you are dependent on Him, so you need to pay respect, due to His worthiness to you as a source of sustenance, and well being in this life and next. In the secular sense, if you are either a plaintiff or a defendant in a court of law you are obliged to pay respect to the bench,as it represents the law, which emanated from the constitution which in turn is articles of incorporation of the Sovereign State. Any disrespect to the bench is construed as a contempt to the Sovereignty of the State which is the opposite of due respect or in our religious case, reverence. You write: Created myself? I'm sorry but how does that work? How can I create myself if I don't even exist? You see Raamsade, you either exist or you dont. If you don't exist, sorry, I meant to discuss with a human, not a computer. If You exist, you have either created yourself or you are created. Since you dont believe in a god that created you, it follows that you believe that you have created yourself. Your forte being in circualr logic, you ask me: How can I create myself if I dont exist? Please make up you mind. You write: Second, life in general doesn't have a purpose but my life does. It is a purpose I have created. What you are saying is: 1. Life doesn't have a purpose. 2. I am a living thing and part of life. 3. I have a purpose 4. I create my purpose Do you see how confused this is? Please tell me what is the purpose that you have created for yourself? You write: Third, the universe didn't begin as a "freak" but if it did, so what? You have no trouble in believing in a Uncreated God, why do you find difficult to accept uncreated (or freakishly created) Universe? OK, you are saying that Universe did not begin as a freak accident, which implies a creator. You are saying that the Universe may have started itself in a freak accident, this logic is flawed, saaxib: 1. Are you and the purpose you said that you created the same? If Yes, then its equally possible that the purpose can also create you, in this case, the purpsoe represents " Intelligence" If you say, NO, then, God and the Universe can not be on this playing field, they are different, which makes it imperative that the decuctive and inductive logic we use for this universe and its creation can not hold water for GOD. You write: Burden of proof lies with the claimant, in other words those who -- like you -- claim there is a God and afterlife to prove it. I don't have to resolve anything since there is no good reason to do so in the first place. True, but First, if in a court I can not prove my case it doesn't mean I don't have a case. Second, let us assume that you lived during Moses' time, and you have witnessed the Exodus and the miracles he performed to free the oppressed Israelite from the cruel Pharaoh, or you have witnessed Jesus Christ quickening the dead, healing the leper etc, would you have accepted these as proof of God's existence? You write: And God didn't create me (my parents did) or the Universe. Which one saaxib, don't be wishy washy. To Create means to bring something that didn't exist to being. If that is the case, then, whoever created you needs to have some know-how, since you are a very complicated organism and your creation requires sophisticated processes. Creation therefore requires effort and knowledge which your parents did not have as they were also forced by biological desires of sex to get it over with, which leaves the Universe as the only other viable choice that may have created you according to you. Is the Universe Intelligent? If Yes, then, is it eternal? if yes, then, you must believe in God. If NO, then, you are contradicting yourself, since something that is not intelligent can not create a sophisticated organism like you. Nur

Akhi, Wa sunna ka mid ah sunanka Allah in dadka ay isku aragti noqonin, laakin, haddii aan yeelanno hal cabbir (miqyaas )oon ku qiyaasno taladeenna oo dhan, aragtida wey isu soo dhawaan kartaa, dabadeedna, wasiilada wexey ku dhismi doontaa aragtidaas meel dhexaadka ah ( markii la soo gaabsho meesha togga kala qaybiya talooyinka ( GAP)laga kala taagan yahay) Nur

I've just read in the news that Australian authorities have followed the US in listing the Somali based Shabab movement in Somalia as a "terror group". The classification is political not judicial, which means the same Aussie administration or next can retract that classification. The legal and moral question that I am soliciting from the SOL audience is what constitutes "Terrorism"? The following paper discusses the issue scholarly, its very long, but worth your time, please read the article and share your views on this politicized terminology. Note: I found the article very interesting with the exception that I do not believe like the authors that Osama Bin Laden was responsible for 911. Overwhelming evidence shows that a shadowy governmental group may have been behind it to advance an international government policy targeted at the Islamic World in particular, nevertheless the article is educational from the economic perspective of " Terrorism" specially when one considers that the 911 architects may have been driven by economic gains in the form of control of Oil Resources. Nur JOURNAL OF DIPLOMATIC LANGUAGE (2005) On the Problematic Definition of Terrorism* Zagros Madjd-Sadjadi Department of Economics The University of the West Indies, Mona zagros.madjdsadjadi@ uwimona.edu.jm & C. Daniel Vencill Professor of Economics Former Director, Criminal Justice Program San Francisco State University dvencill@sfsu.edu. * This paper is a revised portion of a larger paper presented at the Western Economics Association 76th Annual Meeting in San Francisco in July 2001 entitled "New Security Issues and the Dark Side of Globalization: Transnational Crime, Drug Smuggling, Terrorism, Money Laundering, and the Stealth of Nations." The authors wish to thank Professors Todd Sandler, University of Southern California, and Lee Endress, University of Hawaii, Asia Pacific Center for Security Studies, who were the discussants on this paper when it was first presented and made valuable comments. Any errors of omission or commission lie solely with the authors. ABSTRACT This article explores the question of how 'terrorism' is defined in international diplomatic and military discourse, and how that definition influences responses to the issue. It traces how the term has evolved from describing a political tactic employed by states to reinforce existing regimes to a method of attacking legitimate governments and societies in an effort to bring about regime change. It explores the problem with trying to define terrorism in a systematic fashion, and potential conflicts involving the political goals of those doing the defining. Examining seven different definitions proffered by the US government for the term, it shows that, while there is considerable overlap, each also defines terrorism in such a way as to include certain acts and exclude others that are covered by the other definitions. None of the existing definitions meet the criterion of defining terrorism in a systematic fashion that is internally consistent. Some definitions attempt to criminalize certain legitimate actions of political protest or refuse to acknowledge terrorism's political protest roots. Moreover each definition fails to address the need for legitimate freedom fighting in societies. The authors propose just such a definition, by beginning with a discussion of what terrorism is, and is not, and proceeding from that discussion to devise an internally consistent and broad-based definition that acknowledges the legitimacy of civil rebellion when conducted in a proper fashion. By using economic theory to analyze the situation, it is demonstrated that without a proper definition the incentives of terrorists will be to strike at the civilian heartland, while the goal should be to get them to concentrate on solely military targets. I will send my terror before you, and will throw into confusion all the people. --Exodus 23:27 This was the first time in history that war has ever been declared on an abstract noun --A British wit on hearing that President Bush had declared war on terrorism in the wake of 9/11 Terrorism is what the bad guys do --Brian Jenkins, one of the most respected experts on terrorism On the Problematic Definition of Terrorism--Introduct ion and Historical Background James Bovard (2003) reports that terror was used as a political tactic for the first time during the French Revolution. Certainly terror was used for thousands of years by despots to crush resistance groups, but Robespierre and the revolutionaries were the first to claim to be idealists for maximizing citizen oppression. Terrorism obviously means to terrify, and the term derives from the Latin, terrere, to cause to tremble. Thus the term was applied to the assault on civil order during the "reign of terror" in the French Revolution at the end of the Eighteenth Century. Robespierre ranted that terror is "justice prompt, severe and inflexible," "an emanation of virtue," and "a natural consequence of the general principle of democracy." For him, terror tactics were a model of "the despotism of liberty against tyranny," and justified the guillotining of thousands of the landed aristocracy. Bovard informs us "by the mid-twentieth century, the term 'terrorism' was routinely used to condemn those who attack politicians, government forces, or established regimes. The Nazis denounced French Resistance saboteurs as terrorists. Terrorism has permeated Middle East conflicts since the 1940s, when Menachem Begin and his Irgun gang helped drive the British out of Palestine by blowing up the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, killing 91 people.. In the 1950s, Algerians terrorized Paris and other French cities, eventually driving the French out of northern Africa and ending colonial rule. The U.S. revved up its military intervention in Vietnam to deal with what the Kennedy administration perceived as a 'small war of terrorism and political subversion' by a few thousand Viet Cong. In the late 1960s, Palestinians became the premier terrorists in the Western world: the kidnapping of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics in Munich heralded the era of televised political murders and media spectacles providing free publicity for terrorist groups. Definitions lead to foreign policy and are not merely "semantics" or splitting hairs. The definition of terrorism allows U.S. agents to identify, track, arrest, detain (and torture) "terrorists." The beginning of the second Bush administration has brought renewed attention to the importance of a rigorous, official definition of "torture" for geopolitics. The Justice Department recently broadened its definition of torture, significantly retreating from a memorandum in August 2002 that defined torture extremely narrowly and said the President could ignore domestic and international prohibitions against torture in the name of national security. The new definition appeared in a memo posted on the department's Web site. The new definition largely dismisses the 2002 definition, especially the part that asserted that mistreatment rose to the level of torture only if it produced severe pain equivalent to that associated with organ failure or death. The issue apparently is whether the old definition led to the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba (Braven 2004; Lewis 2005). A related concern is the use of the tactic "renditions" in dealing with those defined as terrorists. This approach, commonly used by the CIA, is to transfer captives and terrorist suspects apprehended outside the U.S. to third countries that have agreed to hold them indefinitely and without public proceedings or transparency. The transfers, called "renditions," depend on arrangements between the US and other countries, such as Egypt, Jordan and Afghanistan, that agree to have local security services hold certain terror suspects in their facilities for interrogation by CIA and foreign liaison officers. Some have alleged that these renditions, under definitions and legal bureaucratic guidelines, have become essentially kidnapping. Former CIA director George Tenet in his testimony before Congress, has concluded that renditions are an effective method of disrupting terrorist cells and "persuading" detainees to reveal vital information on terrorist plans (Priest 2005) It has been argued that President Reagan was determined to elevate antiterrorism to a major driving force of U.S. geopolitical policy. Reagan initiated this campaign by redefining a "terrorist attack" to include any threat of a terrorist attack. This data manipulation more than doubled the statistics on international terrorist incidents over the previous decade from 3,336 to 7000. The Reagan administration pestered the CIA to redefine terrorism to include "all acts of violence intended to impact a wider audience than the victims of violence" (Mohr 1981). Bovard (2003, p. 10) states that this expansive definition would have placed the American icons Robert E. Lee and George Washington onto the terrorist watch list. Philosophical Question: Can there be a true and correct definition of terrorism - an abstract concept with no real presence? Furthermore, typology presents problems: there are as many typologies of terrorism as there are definitions. We may be able below to build a model as an alternative to definitions. Terrorism is comprised of a variety of activities, not a singly defined action. A typology can capture a range of terrorist activities better than most definitions. Alex Schmid (1983, p. 70-110) was able to synthesis various definitions. A unique definition cannot possibly account for all the potential uses of "terrorism." Yet, a number of elements are common to leading definitions, and most definitions of terrorism have two characteristics: someone is terrorized, and the meaning of the term is derived from terrorists' targets and victims. In a conglomerated definition and empirical analysis finds 22 elements common to most definitions, and he forms a definition containing 13 of those elements. Terrorism is a method of combat in which the victims serve as symbolic targets, and violent actors are able to produce a chronic state of fear by employing violence outside the realm of normative behavior. Their goal is to reach in an audience beyond the immediate victim pool and bring about a change of public attitudes and actions. In the academic literature, Jenkins (1984) defines terrorism as the use or threatened use of force designed to bring about a political change. Laqueur (1987, p. 72) defines terrorism as an act that constitutes the illegitimate use of force to achieve a political objective by targeting innocent people. In a more recent work, Laqueur (1999) settles on a simple definition, only arguing that meanings and definitions fluctuate with history. He says terrorism is a form of political or criminal violence using military tactics to change behavior through fear. Legal definitions may also contain internal contradictions. Under the legal guidelines of the U.S., some groups can be labeled as terrorists, while other groups engaged in the exact same behavior may be described as legitimate revolutionaries. It is possible that terrorism cannot be defined unless the act, target, and possibility of success are all analyzed and specified. With this definition, freedom fighters use legitimate military methods to attack legitimate political targets. The actions can be legitimized when they have some possibility of winning the conflict. Terrorists fail to meet this legitimacy test in one of three ways: military methods, military targets, and some chance of victory. Diplomatic Implications of the Definition Definitions pose a major problem because of the U.S. policy of not negotiating with terrorists. Making concessions to terrorists raises the problem of empowering them or even inspiring other potential terrorists (creating an "appeasement cycle"). However, we have a history of negotiating with Khadafy, often cited as a terrorist with a long history of promoting terrorism. Some analysts allege that we can negotiate with a nation, even a rogue state, but not with a terrorist network, which is not state sponsored. Networks lack embassies or formal legal status and therefore present a practical problem for diplomats, even assuming willingness to negotiate. Nevertheless, policy discussions about terrorism focus on the fact that terrorist cells and networks are key to the dangers confronting us. Negotiations with terrorist networks may be necessary because these networks are elusive and difficult to fight. Engaging in battle with terrorist networks requires inventing new tactics that radically differ from those we have traditionally employed against national armies or even against states that "harbor" terrorists and their training sites. Negotiating with terrorist networks necessitates an increased level of innovation and flexibility. We must accept the fact that there might never be a "treaty" signed. But, negotiations may result in a tacit agreement among the combatants, after which terrorist attacks almost entirely cease, and our forces begin a genuine exodus from affected countries. At the very least, we need to consider and debate a theory and policy of network diplomacy to augment nation-state diplomacy. Currently, the most prominent thinker in this area is John Arquilla, professor of defense analysis at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. His position is, the fight against terrorism could go on indefinitely unless the U.S. adopts imaginative new strategies. He has stated, "…we do have a chance of winning outright before terrorists can acquire weapons of mass destruction. If we ever decided to wage 'netwar' (i.e., network-style conflict) against the terrorists with smaller, more nimble units of action, more flexible forces, we would have a real capability to rip al Qaeda apart, cell by cell." Arquilla also stated, "President Bush has also shown a surprisingly deft diplomatic touch on occasion. He reeled in Moammar Khadafy with the promise of restoring normal relations in return for Libya's renunciation of all illicit weapons development activities. In his recent videotapes, Osama bin Laden has used a fair amount of conciliatory language. In one he promised not to attack European countries as long as they stayed out of or withdrew from the U.S.- led coalition. In his October message he went further, taking the position that al Qaeda would not strike again if attacks on Muslims ceased." (San Francisco Chronicle 2005) The U.S. diplomatic approach can be revealed clearly from evidence that our representatives to the United Nations have, for decades, been adamant that "state terrorism" is impossible as a practical matter. During the Reagan Administration, 1981-1989, it was popular to define terrorism in terms of national policy and point to terrorist states-those that used terrorism to attack American interests. It is more likely that terrorist groups are not and never were controlled by "sponsor states." Diplomacy Strategies and Existing Policy In December 2004, the Report of the UN Secretary-General's High-Level Panel for Threats, Challenges and Change was released. It stated (United Nations 2004, p. 51, emphasis added): The United Nations ability to develop a comprehensive strategy has been constrained by the inability of Member States to agree on an anti-terrorism convention including a definition of terrorism. This prevents the United Nations from exerting its moral authority and from sending an unequivocal message that terrorism is never an acceptable tactic, even for the most defensible of causes. The same document states that various elements need to be incorporated into a definition of terrorism, but it stops short of providing a blanket definition. Another definition given by Rear Admiral Yedidia Groll-Yaari (1998), Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for the Israeli Navy is that "Terrorism is the unlawful potentially or intended lethal attack against non-combatant and innocent persons at random, or a selective such attack on specific individuals in their public capacity, intended to prevent or promote the pursuit of a public cause or causes." An Islamic scholar, Ayatullah Shaykh Muhammad 'Ali Taskhiri (1987), defined terrorism as "an act carried out to achieve an inhuman and corrupt (mufsid) objective, and involving threat to security of any kind, and violation of rights acknowledged by religion and mankind." The United Kingdom defines terrorism in its Terrorism Act of 2000 as: (1) In this Act "terrorism" means the use or threat of action where- (a) the action falls within subsection (2), (b) the use or threat is designed to influence the government or to intimidate the public or a section of the public, and © the use or threat is made for the purpose of advancing a political, religious or ideological cause. (2) Action falls within this subsection if it- (a) involves serious violence against a person, (b) involves serious damage to property, © endangers a person's life, other than that of the person committing the action, (d) creates a serious risk to the health or safety of the public or a section of the public, or (e) is designed seriously to interfere with or seriously to disrupt an electronic system. (3) The use or threat of action falling within subsection (2) which involves the use of firearms or explosives is terrorism whether or not subsection (1)(b) is satisfied. In each of these cases, terrorism would encompass different things. Groll-Yaari would require that the action be illegal while the other two definitions do not require that to be the case (although the British definition might be construed as intending to cover only crimes, it does not explicitly have such a requirement). The British definition explicitly allows for actions taken against computer systems whereas this appears to be beyond the scope of the definitions given by the other two respondents. Taskhiri's definition requires that the act violate rights acknowledged both by mankind and by religion whereas neither of the other two definitions make such a requirement. Indeed, it could be argued under one or more of these definitions that the African National Congress engaged in terrorism under Nelson Mandela and that Mahatma Gandhi also practiced terrorism. In fact, Mandela was a terrorist under virtually all definitions given by various States. He was a policy-level member of Umkhonto we Sizwe, and a document found at Rivonia on 11 July 1963 (http://www.anc.org. za/ancdocs/history/m k/mayibuye.html) details the goals of the organization, making it clear that the future Nobel Prize winner was a member of a terrorist organization and, therefore, a terrorist himself: "The white state has thrown overboard every pretence of rule by democratic process. Armed to the teeth it has presented the people with only one choice and that is its overthrow by force and violence." Gandhi can also be considered a terrorist under the British definition because violence is not a prerequisite of terrorism. A case could be made that his march to the sea to make salt involved "serious damage to property" in that it attempted to bring down the salt monopoly in India. That his actions were political is a stated fact and it certainly was designed to influence the government. One Country Struggles to Define Terrorism Defining terrorism is problematic even within a country. The United States government operates with at least seven different, and somewhat conflicting, definitions. In addition, there are several subcategories of terrorism that merit their own definitions. The US State Department, in its Patterns of Global Terrorism Report uses Section 2656f of Title 22 of the United States Code (22 U.S.C. § 2656f), which defines terrorism as: Premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience. This section further defines a terrorist group as "any group practicing, or that has significant subgroups that practice, international terrorism." A second definition is given by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Terrorism is the "unlawful use of force or violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives" (Federal Bureau of Investigation 1996, p. 3). A third definition is proffered by the Public Report of the Vice President's Task Force on Combating Terrorism (Vice President's Task Force on Combating Terrorism 1986, p. 1) which, although noting, "neither the United States nor the United Nations has adopted official definitions of terrorism", nevertheless used the following definition: Terrorism is the unlawful use or threat of violence against persons or property to further political or social objectives. It is usually intended to intimidate or coerce a government, individuals or groups, or to modify their behavior or politics. The fourth definition comes from the Department of Defense Technical Information Center's Dictionary of Military Terms (2004): The calculated use of unlawful violence or threat of unlawful violence to inculcate fear; intended to coerce or to intimidate governments or societies in the pursuit of goals that are generally political, religious, or ideological. A fifth definition is found in the Immigration and Naturalization Act 212 (a)(3)(B) calling terrorism: any activity which is unlawful under the laws of the place where it is committed (or which, if committed in the United States, would be unlawful under the laws of the United States or any State) and which involves any of the following: (I) The highjacking or sabotage of any conveyance (including an aircraft, vessel, or vehicle). (II) The seizing or detaining, and threatening to kill, injure, or continue to detain, another individual in order to compel a third person (including a governmental organization) to do or abstain from doing any act as an explicit or implicit condition for the release of the individual seized or detained. (III) A violent attack upon an internationally protected person (as defined in section 1116(b)(4) of title 18, United States Code) or upon the liberty of such a person. (IV) An assassination. (V) The use of any- (a) biological agent, chemical agent, or nuclear weapon or device, or (b) explosive or firearm (other than for mere personal monetary gain), with intent to endanger, directly or indirectly, the safety of one or more individuals or to cause substantial damage to property. (VI) A threat, attempt, or conspiracy to do any of the foregoing. A sixth definition is found in the Homeland Security Act of 2002. Terrorism is: any activity that-- (A) involves an act that-- (i) is dangerous to human life or potentially destructive of critical infrastructure or key resources; and (ii) is a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State or other subdivision of the United States; and (B) appears to be intended-- (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping. A seventh definition, slightly different that above, is found in Executive Order on Terrorist Financing, September 24, 2001, promulgated by President George W. Bush: (d) the term "terrorism" means an activity that - (i) involves a violent act or an act dangerous to human life, property, or infrastructure; and (ii) appears to be intended - (A) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (B) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or © to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, kidnapping, or hostage-taking Examining each of these definitions, one can see that virtually any action can be defined as terrorism, or can be excluded from the definition, depending on the desired result. For example, while five of the seven definitions specify that the action must be "unlawful", the first definition used by the State Department contains no such distinction. Although most of the definitions speak to motives of the participants, the Homeland Security Act merely requires that the action appear to be motivated to alter policy or intimidate a population. Most definitions deal with actions that are directed at society or the government but the Immigration and Nationality Act's definition would include all forms of murder that are not financially motivated and involve use of a firearm or explosive. Most definitions discuss the use of violence, but the Homeland Security Act of 2002 could include under the label of terrorism the releasing of a computer virus that included a message in it arguing for world peace. Cyberterrorism, Ecoterrorism, and Narcoterrorism In addition to the main concept of terrorism, there are at least three major subcategories defined by law enforcement in the United States. These subcategories are Cyber-terrorism, Eco-terrorism, and Narco-terrorism. Each is an attempt to widen the definition of terrorism in such a way as to encompass events that are not normally characterized as terrorist. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has given not one, but three, different definitions of Cyber-terrorism: A criminal act perpetrated by the use of computers and telecommunications capabilities, resulting in violence, destruction and/or disruption of services to create fear by causing confusion and uncertainty within a given population, with the goal of influencing a government or population to conform to particular political, social or ideological agenda. (Lourdeau 2004) The use of Cyber tools to shut down critical national infrastructures (such as energy, telecommunications, transportation, or government operations) for the purpose of coercing or intimidating a government or civilian population. (Kerr 2000) Terrorism that initiates, or threatens to initiate, the exploitation of or attack on information systems. (Lewis 1999) Another definition has been offered by a member of the FBI laboratory, Mark M. Pollitt, in a unpublished and undated paper entitled "Cyberterrorism: Fact or Fantasy." In that paper Pollitt (undated, p. 10-11) argues: "Cyberterrorism is the premeditated, politically motivated attack against information, computer systems, computer programs, and data which result in violence against noncombatant targets by sub national groups or clandestine agents." His definition is almost universally and erroneously given as the FBI definition despite the following advisory warning that appears on the first page of the document: "It does not represent the policy, opinions, or conclusions of the United States Government or of the Federal Bureau of Investigation." The FBI has defined eco-terrorism as The use or threatened use of violence of a criminal nature against innocent victims or property by an environmentally-orie nted, subnational group for environmental-politi cal reasons, or aimed at an audience beyond the target, often of a symbolic nature" (Jarboe 2002) The Drug Enforcement Administration has adopted the following definition for narco-terrorism: DEA defines narco-terrorism as a subset of terrorism, in which terrorist groups, or associated individuals, participate directly or indirectly in the cultivation, manufacture, transportation, or distribution of controlled substances and the monies derived from these activities. Further, narco-terrorism may be characterized by the participation of groups or associated individuals in taxing, providing security for, or otherwise aiding or abetting drug trafficking endeavors in an effort to further, or fund, terrorist activities (Hutchinson 2002). The Practical Problem of the Definition A proper definition is critical not only to prosecute individuals responsible for terrorism but also to properly inform the public as to their obligations. Even if an individual does not conduct a terrorist action, the United States has stated that providing material assistance to a "terrorist organization" is also a crime. Title 22 of the United States Code requires the State Department to publish an annual report on terrorism, including a list of terrorism countries. The State Department's most recent annual report is entitled Patterns of Global Terrorism 2003. For an online version of the Report, see the State Department's web site at http://www.state.gov /s/ct/rls/pgtrpt/200 3/. Reports typically classify terrorism as either domestic (common in countries such as Algeria, Sri Lanka, India, and Pakistan) or international (defined in 22 U.S.C. § 2656f as "terrorism involving citizens or the territory of more than one country." On October 8, 1997, Secretary of State Madeline Albright designated 30 foreign organizations as terrorist groups. Interestingly, the IRA and the PLO were not included in this list, perhaps because of their roles in then-pending peace talks in Northern Ireland and Israel, respectively. However, they are now back on the list. The list includes more than 20 Islamic organizations and one far-right Israeli group that was previously considered two separate entities. With the end of the cold war and collapse of the Soviet Union and the economic and social upheavals in Iran, Iraq, Libya, Cuba, and other "sponsor states," traditional terrorist organizations have found themselves without state sponsorship (with the exception of the continuing support from Iran), and in need of alternative sources of financial resources. Hence, drug trafficking, arms smuggling, kidnapping, extortion, and other illegal activities, have become the primary alternative support sources for transnational criminal organizations (TCOs). As a result of the end of the cold war, certain strategic economic warfare moves and sanctions, and international cooperation between western powers, rogue state terrorist budgeting has likely declined. In order for the aggregate production of terrorist acts to stay constant or even to increase, budget substitution must occur, which in this context implies much higher levels of entrepreneurial crime, philanthropic terrorism (bin Laden), or new alliances between transnational criminal groups, organized crime, former military hierarchies, and terrorists to share and acquire targets, labor and capital, information, networks, and weapons. At any rate, the distinction between terrorist groups pursuing long run political objectives and the TCOs pursuing short-run economic objectives has blurred, and both groups are increasingly forming strategic coalitions to further their own joint income or utility maximization. This merger of terrorism and criminal organizations is particularly troubling for those interested in civil liberties. If terrorism is a criminal act, the use of military force to combat it is an unprecedented trampling on the very fabric of democratic institutions. If it is instead an act of war, then the use of police forces to prosecute it is equally problematic. Military forces who are captured and commit war crimes are tried by military tribunals. Civilian courts try civilians engaged in criminal action. Crucial differences include the presumption of innocence, rights of the accused, and the prohibition of torture. The ability to decide, on an ex post facto basis, how and where to try terrorists implies jurisdictional "shopping" and a decline in the impartiality of the state. Indeed, the US has signed and ratified the UN Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment and the US Supreme Court unanimously ruled in Brown v. Mississippi (1936) that evidence provided under torture is inadmissible at trial. Though ratification was carried out with several reservations and declarations, most of these were carried out to ensure compliance with the US Constitution as opposed to attempting to circumvent it. In addition, the US specifically stated that the carrying out of the death penalty per se was not subject to the Convention. Article 15 of that Convention specifies "(e)ach State Party shall ensure that any statement which is established to have been made as a result of torture shall not be invoked as evidence in any proceedings, except against a person accused of torture as evidence that the statement was made." Yet, the US government argues that it can use torture to determine whether to detain individuals indefinitely at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and, by extension, whether to punish them (Sniffen 2004). The question of whether terrorism is a crime or not has implications for American policy using the military. The 1878 Posse Comitatus Act prohibits the use of the Army (and, by extension, the Air Force as that branch of the military service was spun off from the Army) in the enforcement of civilian law. This is enshrined in 18 U.S.C. § 1385. Towards a New Definition So how does one define terrorism? It often appears as though the term is used almost casually, as though any foreign or major attack on the United States is a terrorist action. Indeed, the Oklahoma City Bombing, the attack on the USS Cole, the 1993 and 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center, and the bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut all have one common element: before any claim of responsibility was made-each of these was derided as a terrorist action. Even the actions at Columbine have been described as terrorist. However, the attack on Columbine while calculated and acting against civilian targets was not a terrorist action, it was a common crime. Thus, we need to establish clear guidelines as to what is terrorism and what is not. This is not merely an academic exercise. It is, instead, an activity that is best performed prior to engaging the terrorist. If terrorism is not a war crime, the military should not be involved in its elimination and terrorists should be accorded all legal rights and privileges associated with their constitutional protections. On the other hand, if it is a war crime, the police should not be involved and terrorists should be treated as either prisoners of war or war criminals depending on the circumstances. Yet many governments-the United States in particular-persist in attempting to do both, and this activity diminishes the rights of all Americans and reduces the ability of the United States to combat terrorism effectively. While many would argue that terrorism ought to be concerned only with violence against the person, we, as economists, argue that large-scale actions against infrastructure may carry with them costs to society and terror within a population that are far greater than that felt by the death of any single individual (Landsburg 2004). Thus, we argue that a terrorist definition should include activities such as large-scale disruption of telecommunications or computer networks. The definition should deal with the characteristics of terrorist organizations to encourage them to act more like military ones, allowing the use of military action against them. It should deliberately not include the military on active duty. Otherwise, the attack on Pearl Harbor would end up being classified as "terrorist" instead of an "act of war" because it was initiated prior to a formal declaration of war. However, this is what the US policy now states (United States Department of State 2004, p. 12): "We also consider as acts of terrorism attacks on military installations or on armed military personnel when a state of military hostilities does not exist at the site, such as bombings against US bases in Europe, the Philippines, or elsewhere." In addition, actions taken by Iraqi forces loyal to Saddam Hussein could be classified as terrorist following US declarations of victory even if they otherwise met the definitions of acting as military forces within the scope of the Geneva Conventions. Indeed, any proper definition of terrorism should allow for the expansion of the Geneva Conventions to account for these organizations. It should hold governments responsible as well for acts that would be considered terrorist in nature. Indeed, if it were not for definitions that omit State culpability, actions taken by the United States government in overthrowing the democratically-elect ed Chilean government of Salvador Allende in 1973 and the 1984 mining of Sandino harbor in Nicaragua would be considered terrorist. At the same time, it should not allow a government to essentially define away the rights of another government to legitimate self-defense when attempting to occupy another's territory nor should it allow a government to argue that countries that it does not recognize have no legitimate right of self-defense. The case of Taiwan comes to mind immediately. Not recognized by most countries as an independent nation, the fact that the government of Taiwan in furtherance of its political goals constitutes a clear and present threat of violence to the Chinese mainland, even if only in self-defense, places its actions in the realm of terrorism by most definitions. This is clearly nonsensical. It should not specify that acts need to be "unlawful" because that will allow for the definition of terrorism to be whatever a government chooses it to be. Any attack becomes unlawful if it is perpetrated against the government but no action taken by a government could therefore considered terrorist. Finally, if one adopts the concept of terrorism as crime, there is no reason to deal with terrorists as a separate entity. As the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (2000/2001, p. iii) states, "In accordance with U.S. counterterrorism policy, the FBI considers terrorists to be criminals." However, terrorists do not consider themselves to be accountable under the law. They regard the United States government as an illegitimate force and, therefore, would view attacks by that government as terrorist under this definition. What is needed is a common definition so that all will play by the same rules. Thus, we adopt the following definition: Terrorism is a war crime involving: (a) the use of any weapon of mass destruction outlawed by international law or. (b) an attempted or successful attack deliberately directed against civilian persons or property or military personnel who are (1) either out of uniform and acting in their civilian capacities or (2) who have surrendered, which is undertaken in a manner unauthorized by either international law or by the laws of the country in which the attack occurs by another country's forces or by members of an organization previously known to the government as promoting the use of such attacks and having as their central objective the prevention or causation of social or political change for the purposes of halting or affecting such change. Actions by members of an organization previously known to the government as promoting the use of such attacks and having as their central objective the prevention or causation of social or political change for the purposes of halting or affecting such change are considered legitimate military actions when they are directed solely against military targets and do not involve the use of weapons of mass destruction. Such legitimate military actions are considered acts of war and are not war crimes. Members of such organizations shall be covered by the Geneva Conventions and will be considered prisoners of war provided they are commanded by a person responsible for his or her subordinates and otherwise conduct their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war even if they fail to have a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance and fail to carry their arms openly. Let's take apart this definition. Terrorism may show itself in any form of attack. It could be the introduction of "supermoney," a counterfeit currency designed to destroy the financial system in a country. It could be an attack on the computer network of a country or it could be bombing a school bus or government building. However, it is not an attack against any military force or personnel unless those military personnel are out of uniform and acting in their civilian capacities or the activity would ordinarily break international law, such as the use of chemical weapons or killing those who have surrendered. Thus, the definition covers the taking of hostages. The definition covers only organizations that are defined as potentially terrorist in advance of the action taking place or by the forces of another country. It also covers the actions of any State acting within its borders that uses a weapon of mass destruction. The important thing is that someone cannot claim to be a terrorist organization after the fact. The action must be deliberately directed towards the civilian persons or property and not merely kill civilians due to collateral damage. It allows a field of operations for the terrorist organization that is considered a legitimate act of war and renders this activity immune from criminal prosecution, although not from military retribution. At the same time, terrorists who refuse to operate within the sphere of operations will be considered to be war criminals and will be subject to trial by military tribunal or at the World Criminal Court in The Hague. In so defining terrorism, we can now deal with it without infringing on the rights and liberties of our civilian population. It provides for a means to legitimize activity against a government organization only to the extent that it places boundaries on permissible targets. Without having such boundaries, an attack on a military installation and an attack on a school carry the same penalties. As such, since the attack on the school will cause more terror in the civilian population at less potential cost to the terrorist organization, attacks on civilian targets can be expected to be undertaken with greater frequency than if one were to legitimize the attack against the military target. As the ability to defend a military target is far greater than a civilian one, one would hope that directing terrorists towards "hard" targets would be preferable to directing them towards the "soft" ones. From Car Bombs to Truck Bombs to the Terrorist Financial Multiplier of Trophy Targeting. It may be that the IRA invented and perfected the car bomb. One clear feature of modern terrorism is the ability to achieve fantastically large benefit/cost ratios utilizing asymmetrical warfare, suicide attacks and unprecedented "force multipliers." Douglas Farah (2004) states, it was the truck bombs as a terrorist strategy that most impressed bin Laden, because they led to the U.S. withdrawal from Lebanon. We had no short-run counter-strategy. The 1983 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut killed 63 people, and the truck bombing six months later that destroyed the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, killed 190 American soldiers. Bin Laden was hoping similar attacks could drive the U.S. from Saudi Arabia. This strategic tool remains a major threat today. The Naval Research Laboratory warned that if a 90-ton tanker car carrying chlorine crashed during a Fourth of July celebration at the National Mall, it could kill 100,000 people in 30 minutes (New York Times 2005, p. 8). Osama bin Laden, the arch terrorist, has shown the importance of diplomacy between terrorist movements and groups. OBL engineered the Hezbollah-al Qaeda alliance-"a strategic partnership, indicative of a major shift in terrorist thinking." This move was designed to increase terrorist leveraging of economic resources and human capital, and increased the potential of the force multiplier. Farah (2004, p. 126-132) states, "It was also during his time in Sudan (1994) that bin Laden made a historic but much overlooked decision with far-reaching implications. As part of his emerging strategy, he set aside the deep historical religious rift between his own Sunni Muslim group, which dominates Saudi Arabia, and those of the Shi'ite Muslim, who dominate Iran, Syria, and Lebanon. For centuries the two groups have remained hostile to and warred with each other. Hezbollah would provide explosives, training, and other military expertise to the newly minted al Qaeda organization, while al Qaeda provided money and foot soldiers for Hezbollah operations." Alliances increase bargaining power in future strategic negotiations. Alliances furnish an exchange of technology, communications infrastructure, cross-recruiting sources, intelligence, weapons access, and network power. Fundamentalist, jihadist groups will continue to form alliances to alter the payoff matrix in a way that moves our dominant strategy to a position where withdrawal of military presence from Arab countries becomes the Nash equilibrium. The OBL organization is fully aware of the benefits of imposing a "terrorist tax" on all U.S. capitalist business enterprise activities at home and abroad. Both taxes to support homeland defense and the implicit taxes of private expenditures for system redundancy, dispersal of office staff, backup computers at remote sites, and risk-analysis based security systems, all combine to raise production costs, lower worker productivity, shift our aggregate production function downward, raise consumer prices, and slow the process of globalization. Increasing "panic costs" also imposes lost profits to several economic sectors, and may lead to "no confidence" waves affecting federal governance. Osama bin Laden himself remarked at the huge terrorist multiplier and impact on financial markets, of the 9/11 attack (especially on New York City). The direct impact of nearly 3,000 killed outright, and destruction of the World Trade Center, the impact on our airline industry and the New York economy (and perhaps lengthening the recession), produced in excess of $200 billion in damages. Thus, with a bin Laden investment of $500,000, the multiplier ($200,000,000,000/$5 00,000) = 400,000 to one. One could also think of this as the benefit/cost ratio of a single well-coordinated and successfully planned attack. Apparently, not all the funds allocated by bin Laden were used: Farah reports that some of the 19 terrorists wired excess funds earmarked for the attack-which would could be reinvested or used as cell seed money for future attacks-back to the source country, Sudan, in the hours before the 9/11 attack. The investment cycle and planning phase for such "trophy attacks" can apparently be up to 8 years. This is the time between the original 1993 attack on the WTC and the ultimate attack on 9/11. Long gestation periods such as this tend to make the U.S. feel relatively safe and complacent that homeland defense is working. But, for fundamentalist jihadist strategy, time is not measured the same way as in the West. For these groups, the Crusades and their injustice happened only yesterday. As highly cost-effective as terrorists attacks prove to be, they still require substantial aggregate funding. If al Qaeda cells are operating in 80 different countries, this integrated, global operation requires extensive financing and ongoing money laundering. Usually, laundering involves steps of transforming, layering, and reintegration of illegal-source dollars. In the case of terrorism, it is the reverse: legal source money may be transformed into funding of criminal activities. Or illegal funds from "conflict diamonds," or taxes on illegal drug production, may be transmitted in secret form to terrorist cells. According to Farah (2004, p. 141), U.S. officials now estimate that Islamic extremist groups operating in the U.S. have raised hundreds of millions of dollars-and perhaps more than a billion-since the mid-1980s. Diplomatic cooperation among many countries, and their central banks, is essential to detect and staunch terrorist financing. Since the U.S. has been unable to disrupt money movements in support of illegal drugs, it is doubtful we can trace and detect terrorist cell financing on any international scale. Some states refuse to cooperate diplomatically. One of bin Laden's biggest investments in Sudan was to jointly capitalize, with the ruling National Islamic Front (NIF) officials, the al-Shamal Islamic Bank. Bin Laden's investment in this bank was $50 million. The bank continues to operate today. Its owners deny any connection to terrorists. (Farah 2004, p. 126-7.) We also know that terrorist cells can be "self-financing" via in-country crime such as identity theft, credit card fraud, robbery, and other scams. This means that one mode of cutting off funding is akin to squeezing a balloon. It displaces the financing to another arena, but has no long-run impact on terrorist funding. It may be necessary to define terrorism in a fashion that describes a production function that includes various inputs of materials, human capital, labor, fixed capital, communications infrastructure, financial market access and continuous funding of secret money. The production function is combined with a strategy to maximize gains, combined with optimal counter-moves of target state's agents. Both the U.S. and terrorists groups continually attempt to alter the payoff matrix drastically; the result could likely be a stalemate in the game's solution-an endless war on terrorism with escalating stakes. This often happens in repetitive games with multiple agents. Suppose terrorist groups are not and never were controlled by state sponsors. Nevertheless, without tacit rogue state support and financial secrecy, their efficiency would be quite diminished, and their production function quite impaired. Theocratic state government backing of anti-American views is certainly a factor in ensuring a very elastic supply function of terrorist recruits. Different counter-strategies imply different resource combinations or input substitutions. A Game-Theory Model Game theory is the study of how people behave then they are placed in situations that require them to interact with others. It presupposes that each person "must first know the decision of the other agents before knowing which decision is best for herself." (Jehle and Reny 2001, p. 267) Since such information is inherently unknown in most cases each person must adopt a policy of examining the potential actions of each of the other participants in the situation in order to determine the best course of action for herself. Several game-theoretic and rational choice models of terrorism exist and Sandler and Hartley (1995, p. 305-335) provide a good survey of the literature. The essential feature of a game-theoretic model is the assumption that both parties are rational and, therefore, seek to maximize the difference between their individual benefits and costs when considering an action. A terrorist organization has as its central purpose to cause damage to the country that it attacks. This damage can take many forms. First, any action undertaken by the country to "harden" its targets against terrorist activity generates benefits for the terrorist because it imposes costs on the country. Second, any action undertaken by the terrorist that causes damage to the country increases benefits for the terrorist. On the other hand, actions taken against the terrorist by the country increases costs for the terrorist. A country will respond to a terrorist action in one of three ways: negotiation, retaliation (offensive), or conciliation. Ironically, a conciliatory gesture can increase costs for the terrorist by reducing the number of people willing to join the terrorist organization because the country has accepted some of the demand if the government is able to make it appear that the conciliation was not the result of the terrorist activity. As the terrorist organization becomes more successful in its endeavors, it is forced to abandon terrorism because the political will of the populace has turned. For example, in Northern Ireland, when Sinn Fein, the Irish Republican Army's political wing, has had political success, it has usually corresponded with a reduction in the use of the paramilitary forces. Negotiation, on the other hand, causes an increase in benefits for the terrorist (e.g., payment for hostages) even when that payoff is in terms of advancement of the terrorist goals (as it appears as though the goals are being met as a result of the terrorist activity). Retaliation increases costs for both sides because it expends resources. The terrorist, on the other hand, has five choices: (1) attack a civilian non-hardened target; (2) attack a civilian hardened target; (3) attack a military non-hardened target; (4) attack a military hardened target; (5) do nothing. Obviously, the nation would prefer to do nothing and have the terrorist do nothing. We will assume the following conditions exist. 1) Terrorists receive more benefit from attacking military targets than non-military targets but the cost is also higher, so the net gain is ambiguous. 2) There are an infinite number of possible civilian targets but a finite number of military ones. Games are played sequentially. The first move is from the government, which must decide whether to harden a target or do nothing. Assuming that the decision is to harden a target, the result is a cost to the government, designated as a. The terrorist organization thereby receives a certain amount of benefit, designated as b. The reason the terrorist organization receives benefits is because hardening a target is tantamount to acknowledging the terrorist organization can inflict damage on the target. Therefore, the terrorist organization achieves at least some of the terror it is seeking. After hardening the target, the terrorist will move. If the terrorists attack a non-hardened civilian target, they will receive an expected benefit of c at a cost of d. Similarly if the terrorist attacks a non-hardened military target, they will receive an expected benefit of e at a cost of f. Hardened targets result in the same expected benefit but at a higher cost, h (which is more than the cost to the government of hardening them). The costs and benefits for each type of activity are described below: .................... ............ Benefit Cost Attack civilian hardened target c d+h Attack military hardened target e f+h Attack civilian non-hardened target c d Attack military non-hardened target e f We know that the following is true based on our assumptions: e > c, f > d. Under these circumstances the terrorist will never attack a hardened civilian target because there are an infinite number of non-hardened civilian targets, each of which costs less to attack. The difference between the cost of attacking a hardened versus a non-hardened target is h (assuming an equally likely response from the government no matter if the target is hardened or non-hardened). What is critical to learn, however, is that unless the government announces stiffer penalties for one type of attack than another, the government is powerless to determine which target (civilian or military) will be attacked. It is for this reason that we suggest that the government impose greater costs on terrorists when civilian targets are attacked than when military ones are. Finally, we have the government's response. Retaliation imposes costs on both the terrorist organization and the government. Conciliation costs the government while providing the terrorist organization with ambiguous benefits, while negotiation (often done in secret or, if done in open, almost always coupled with a cease-fire or truce agreement) usually has a lower cost to the government than conciliation but clearly provides the terrorist organization with benefits. Doing nothing may not cost as much as retaliation but it is often more costly to the government than negotiation because of the public perception that nothing is being accomplished. Thus, we can set up the payoffs and costs as follows: Cost to Government Cost to Terrorist Benefit to Terrorist Retaliation j k Negotiation l m Conciliation n p Do Nothing o In this case, j > o > l > n, while k > p (if p is a net cost) and m > p (if p is a net benefit). In each of these games, the terrorist and the government are relative gains maximizers but there are information asymmetries. First, the government does not know what the payoff matrix for the terrorist looks like. Although the government would like the payoff to the terrorist to be low, it must estimate what the payoff looks like and use that as its best guess. On the other hand, the terrorist typically has better knowledge of the government cost than the government has of the terrorist cost and benefit structure. This gap in knowledge can be expected to decrease over time as the government acquires information about the terrorists goals and costs through inferences based on its actions (Lapin and Sandler 1993). As such, we come up with several random numbers to cover the expected payoffs for each side and generate a game. We are now ready to define the payoffs from the game. In doing so, we will assume that the government is an unbiased estimator of the terrorist threat. This may not be entirely accurate because governments may find it in their interest to overemphasize or underemphasize terrorist activity depending on how the political winds are blowing. However, given the difficulty of determining the exact amount of bias in predictions of terrorist activity, it is a better assumption to take the unbiased perspective. Scenario 1: Government hardens target (resulting in a cost of A and an expected utility to the terrorist of b, where b is a random number with mean B and variance ß). It should be obvious that the government will not harden a target when b > A. The terrorist receives utility B. Terrorist decides to attack non-hardened civilian target, resulting in utility C and cost D, provided C>D and C-D > net utility provided from attacking non-hardened military target (or hardened military target if all military targets have been hardened). Government calculates net terrorist utility as c, where c is a random number with mean C-D and variance ?. Government retaliates against terrorist, inflicting damage K on the terrorist (estimated by the government as k, where k is a random number with mean K and variance d) at a cost of J to the government. Scenario 2: Government hardens target. Terrorist decides to attack non-hardened civilian target. Government negotiates with terrorist. This costs the government L, while bringing the terrorist a benefit of M. Thus, total government net benefit is the difference between the perceived cost to the terrorist and the cost to the government. Scenario 3: Government hardens target. Terrorist decides to attack non-hardened civilian target. Government does nothing. Scenario 4: Conciliation. This costs the government n and the government perceives the terrorist will receive a benefit of p. In this particular game, the response is completely based upon perceived losses and gains in this one step. The government may announce that it will always retaliate against terrorist but that threat is only credible if k - J > m - L and k - J > p - N and k - J > O. In other words, if the government can undertake a retaliation at relatively low cost, it will undertake it but, as cost to retaliate rises, the government is likely to turn to one of the other strategies. Since the only strategy that unambiguously results in a reduction in the terrorist's net benefit (after costs) is retaliation, it is the only strategy that can forestall an attack. However, since the government does not know what the terrorist's costs and benefits are, at the margin where the terrorist's costs and benefits are such that the terrorist would anticipate a response, the government may not respond. Alternatively even when the terrorist is certain that the government will not respond, the government may still respond with retaliation. This uncertainty will raise the likelihood of terrorist action. Thus, the better the government can understand the terrorist, the less ambiguous will be the response and the greater the likelihood of forestalling a threat in the first place. Now we can look at the other side of the game, the hardening of targets. Since the terrorist receives some benefit from target hardening and it costs the government without reducing the chances of a civilian target being sought, the hardening of civilian targets is never a viable option unless the expected value to the terrorist of a particular civilian target from attack is far greater than the expected value of another target when both targets cost the same amount to harden. Otherwise, it is unwise to harden civilian targets. At the same time, it is unwise to harden military targets because this will only make civilian targets more attractive. In the single case where different civilian targets have different expected terrorist values associated with then, the government will again likely overharden or underharden targets because of the uncertainty involved. In either case, terrorist net benefit after costs will be raised. Indeed, the single best response is to provide a uniformly greater cost to civilian targets over military ones by altering the definition of terrorism to reduce costs to terrorists in attacking military targets and raise them when they attack civilian ones. For example, if we treat attacks on military targets as legitimate wartime measures but civilian targets as unacceptable criminal actions, the proper incentive structure will be generated. This does not mean that we are ceding anything to terrorists because individuals captured during time of war may be held until a ceasefire is negotiated as prisoners of war. Conclusion Economic theory suggests that rational individuals think at the margin. Assuming that terrorists are rational in that they deliberately choose policies that maximize their own utility (no matter how warped others may find those goals that generate utility), economic theory would suggest that a modification of the definition of terrorism is warranted so as to allow attacks on military installations at a lower juridical cost than that imposed when terrorists attack civilian targets. If we make the penalties the same, only the civilians will suffer and the cost to defend the homeland will invariably rise. Furthermore, if a clear delineation is not made between "acceptable" and "unacceptable" terrorist actions, the line between terrorism and common criminality will become increasingly blurred and it may become impossible to successfully disentangle the military function from the police function of the State. References Bovard, James (2003), Terrorism and Tyranny: Trampling Freedom, Justice and Peace to Rid the World of Evil, Palgrave Macmillan, NY Bravin, Jess (2004), "U.S. Revamps Policy on Torture of War Prisoners: Legal Guidance Criticizes Aggressiveness of Old Rules, Redefines 'Severe Pain,' Wall Street Journal, December 31. Department of Defense Technical Information Center (2004). Department of Defense Dictionary of Military Terms. Department of State (2004). Patterns of Global Terrorism 2003. Farah, Douglas (2004), Blood from Stones: The Secret Financial Network of Terror, Broadway Books, New York. Federal Bureau of Investigation (1996), Terrorism in the United States. ______ (2000/2001). Terrorism in the United States. Groll-Yaari, Yedidia. "Defining Terrorism" in Murray Wolfson, ed., The Political Economy of War and Peace, Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1998, pp. 29-48. Hutchinson, Asa (2002). Administrator, Drug Enforcement Administration, Congressional Testimony Before the Senate Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on Technology, Terrorism, and Government Information, March 13. Jarboe, James F. (2002). Domestic Terrorism Section Chief, Counterterrorism Division, FBI Testimony Before the House Resources Committee, Subcommittee on Forests and Forest Health, February 12 on "The Threat of Eco-Terrorism" Jehle, Geoffrey A. and Philip J. Reny (2001). Advanced Microeconomic Theory, Second Edition. Boston: Addison-Wesley Longman. Jenkins, Brian (1985), International Terrorism: The Other World War. Rand Corp., Santa Monica, CA Kerr, Donald M. (2000). Assistant Director, Laboratory Division, FBI Testimony Before the United States Senate, The Committee on the Judiciary, September 6 on "Carnivore Diagnostic Tool" Stephen Landsburg (2004), "Feed the Worms Who Write Worms to the Worms - The Economic Logic of Executing Computer Hackers," Slate, May 26. http://slate.msn.com /id/2101297/ Lapan, Harvey E. and Todd Sandler (1993), "Terrorism and Signalling," European Journal of Political Economy, 9(3), 383-397 Laqueur, Walter (1987), The Age of Terrorism, Little Brown, Boston _______ (1999), The New Terrorism: Fanaticism and the Arms of Mass Destruction, Oxford University Press, New York Lewis, John F. (1999) "Fighting Terrorism in the 21st Century," in FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin (March), vol 68, no 3, p. 6. Lourdeau, Keith (2004). Deputy Assistant Director, Cyber Division, FBI, Testimony before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology, and Homeland Security, February 24, 2004 on "Cyber Terrorism" Mohr, Charles (1981), "Data on Terror Under U.S. Revision," New York Times, April 24. Neil A. Lewis (2005), "Government Spells Out New Definition of Torture," New York Times, Jan. 1, A1, A11 New York Times (2005), Editorial, "Our Unnecessary Insecurity," February 20, p. 8. Pollitt, Mark M. (undated). "Cyberterrorism: Fact of Fantasy," http://www.cosc.geor getown.edu/~denning/ infosec/pollitt.html Priest, Dana. (2005), "U.S. Prepares Long-Term Plan for Jailing of Terror Suspects," Washington Post, January 2. Sandler, Todd and Keith Hartley (1995), The Economics of Defense, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. San Francisco Chronicle (2005), "The Forever War," January 9, C1, C6 Schmid, Alex (1983), Political Terrorism: A Research Guide to Concepts, Theories, Data Bases , and Literature, Transaction, New Brunswick, CT Sniffen, Michael (2004). "U.S. says that it can use evidence gained by torture," Salon.com, http://www.salon.com /news/wire/2004/12/0 3/torture/ Taskhiri, Ayatullah Shaykh Muhammad 'Ali (1987), "Towards a Definition of Terrorism" in Al-Tawhid, v. 5(1). United Nations (2004). Report of the UN Secretary-General's High-Level Panel for Threats, Challenges and Change Vice President's Task Force on Combating Terrorism (1986). Public Report

Awakener bro Indeed! It is time to stand together. Sufi and Salafi are coined names and they should not have any value beyond that. Are we not all Muslims? Then let us be Muslims and dwell in the house of Islam- as one. Indeed brother, Sufism in Somalia is being used by politicians to put Islamic revival in the back seat, where its has been for the past 100 years, ( Like Friedman said " We dont want war with Muslims, we want war between Muslims" ) The irony is that the greatest Leader of a liberation movement in Somalia History, Sayyid Muhammad Abdallah Hassan was a Sufi of the Saalixiyah order, but whose aqeeda as manifested in his poetry is a glaring example of Tawheed in action, may Allah have a mercy on his soul and forgive him his excesses if any ( Israafanaa fii amrinaa ) , ( My maternal great-grandmother pregnant with my grandfather escaped from the Sayid's Daraaweesh in Garowe to Benadir) May be the Brits used the same Media Propaganda Blitz against the Sayyid like they are now doing against the Shabaab. Nur

Nomads Mar walboo ay dhibaatada noo muqata ay siyaaddo, oo naftu bilowdo iney shakiso, waa inaan xasuusannaa in Allah SWT uu noo maqan yahay, dhibaato walba waxaa daba talla, fudeyd, hadaba, ha lagu dadaalo cibaadada mar walboo aan ka faraxallanno shaqooyinkeenna. " Fa Idaa Faragta Fansab, Wa Ilaa Rabbika Farghab " Dhacdooyinku yaaney na illowsiin meeshaan u soconno inaan u sahay qaadanno. Nur

Modesty & Blessed Sis Ramadan Kareem To You and To All Of Your friends! Please do, my apologies for a long due response on this Ramadan Culinary Promotion. Nur

Walaalayaal Waa Ramadaan Kale, Boggan waxaan Furay lix sanadood ka hor, Allah waxaan nooga wada Baryayaaa inuu nagu kulmiyo dunidan cibaadadiisa anagoo u khaalis yeeleyna hoggaansanaanta Allah, Bishanna uu Allah nooga yeelo mid uu naga wada aqbalo cibaadadeenna, kuweenna baahn uu dharjiyo, kuweenna ooman haqab tiro, kuweenna buka daaweeyo, waayeelkeenna khaatimada wanaagsan ku sugu, haweenkeenna karaamadooda xafido, dhallaankeenna Islaan ku barbaariyo, dhallin yaradeenna hanuunsho, kuweenna heegan u ah difaaca diinteenna inuu u hiilliyo, kuweenna la lunshay soo hanuunsho, kulligenna noo naxariisto. Nur

Nomads. Ramadan Will Commence on Saturday InshAllah ( Holy Makkah) My Sincere Prayers For Allah To Grant You All: The Best In This Present Worldly Life ( Love Of Allah) The Best In The Next Life ( To See Allah ) To Have Time To Read And Contemplate With The Best Book ( Book Of Allah) To Make You In The Company OF The Best Of Creatures( The Messenger Of Allah) And To To Bless You All In Ramadan With Allah's Acceptance Of Your Deeds. Ameen Nur

Kafa Allahul Muminiina Al Qitaal, looma baahna in la islaayo walaal, waxaa loo baahan yahay oo kaliya qof walba inuu ina-kaadhi-Najaaslah a tolkiisa ah uu ummadda ka qabto, qof walba waa inuu khaaimiinta umadda uu ku waaniyo iney siyaaasadda ka baxaan iyo camiilnimida Xabashida, si markaas inta xasiloon ay isu fahmaan, saa inta ay nagu dhex jiraan khaaimiin waxaan laga yaabin iney nabadi dhacdo. Nur

Xiin Writes: I assume by Lax you meant Somalis. Marka hadday saa tahay oo talo xumo Soomaali ku dhacday, Soomaalidu inay tashatto isu tanaasushu, oo keligi Muslimka qoriga la ordayyaa layska qabto maxaad ku diiday Nurow? Illeen haddaan annagu is layno, guul gaari maynee. Intaa inaad fahamtid miyyaa kugu adag Nur? Walaal, Somali weligeed wa wada noolaan jirtay, weyna dagaalami jireen, waana heshiin jireen, maxaa yeelay, lama soo dhax geli jirin. Walaal, hadda waa naloo soo dhacay, qaarkeenna wexey si cad ugu shaqeeyaan Xabashida ay dantooda ku jirto inaan baaba'no ummad ahaan, bal is weydii, imisa dowladood oo hore bey Xabashidu iyo inta la duuban ( IGAD) ay dumiyeen ooy ugu dambeysay Dawladdii Cabd Qaasin? Balada na heysata haddey ahaan laheyd Xabashi nas oo weerartay oo nagu soo duushay annaogoo mideysan, wexey ahaan laheyd balo sahlan. Sidaasoo kale haddey baladeennu ahaan laheyd mid qabyaalad ah oo na dhax taalla oon nalagu dhax jirin, iyana waa sahlaanan leheyd, laakin walaal, markii dad Somali ah, afkaagi ku hadlaya, diintaadii sheeganaya, haddana ka iibinaya danaha waddankeenna cadowga, oo haddana raba iney ka qayb galaan Dawlad Somaaliyeed, sideee baa loo Heshiin? Waxaa nabadi ugu dhowdahay, markii la Registergareeyo inta u shaqeeysa oo mushaar ka qaadata qolyaha ay Somalia ka soo gashay dano Stratiiji ah, iyo cadowga Xabashida. Imminka waddanku hadduu sida korka dadka yahay, Xummad kulul baa heysa, waana bukaa, wuxuuna ku raysan oo qudha, in jeermiga dilaya ama daciifinaya uu korkiisa ka saaro. Nur

Akhi Al Kareem You write: On the bigger picture, and when things are put in context, Somalis are not oppressed group, and Ethiopia is not an empire capable of subjugating Somalis in Somalia. The fall of Somali state did not start in 2006. Emergence of Islamic courts did not end the Somali civil war; it only tamed one city and its environs. The fall started in 1991, and Ethiopia was not involved in a significant way "Lax walba, meeshey is dhigtaa lagu gawracaa" Maahmaah Somaliyed Let me qualify some of your statements: 1. Its true that fall of Somalia did not start in 2006, the cracks began in 1950 , we built our national house on a cliff, and ever since, the cracks kept enlarging until our wall crumbled in 1991. the late Siad Barre, was the last leader who can claim a clean underwear, with respect of not selling out his nation to Ethiopia in exchange of being appointed as The Representative Ethiopian Governor in Somalia. The rest, beginning with Mzee Abdullahi Yusuf, who defected to Ethiopia back in 1976, and the rest of traitor warlords, have sold their souls to Ethiopia in one way or another. Dreaming is good, but, dreams only happen when one is sleeping ( slightly changed by eNuri, Malcolm X to Martin Luther King's famous "I have a Dream"). If we are the only ones responsible for our fall, logically, it follows that we should be the only ones who should pull ourselves out of this mess, what is not logical at all, is to say that we are responsible for our fall, yet, we seek Ethiopia and its Masters to take us out of this mess. If they have nothing to do with our fall, they should be out of the way, that is the right thing for them to do. As for your analogy of Mengistu's fall, akhi-al xabiib, when America decides to destabilize a nation for its strategic purposes, the first thing they do is to close their Embassy, which gives a signal to the rest of their western pack of predators to follow suit, in effect, crippling the Banana Republic, later, the US orders all American citizens and green-card holders out and orders a box of popcorn and a soda to watch destabilization events unravel from safe quarters. In the case of client state Ethiopia, America negotiated a safe haven for Mengistu in Mozambique, paid all his exile costs, airlifted him to Mozambique, assured safe transfer of power between America's competing Junta's ( As to who can serve American Interests the best). Poor Siad Barre on the other hand, was an international "Looma Ooyaan", neither his past Communist mentors, nor America bothered to help keep the nations institutions protected because Condoleeza Rice's Strategy of Creative Chaos was not to be interrupted. Ironically, Somalia's fall was overshadowed by the American War of Choice, the Baghdad American Advanced Weapons Testing Site, when Iraq was invaded and its clock turned back to the Babylonian era, transforming its civilization into a heap of rubble by the kind Judeo-Christian peace loving Fundamentalists. Once Somalia became headless State, US Client State Ethiopia, began bank rolling to all of its agents of destruction aka " Warring Warlords" who mysteriously united after 15 years of clan wars to form the US Sponsored "Coalition to fight terrorism", just right after the formation of the Islamic Courts Union. ( Excuse me akhi, I am a staunch believer in the Advanced Coincidence-by-Desig n Theory) Brother, The Webster Dictionary defines oppression as: a : unjust or cruel exercise of authority or power. b : something that oppresses especially in being an unjust or excessive exercise. What the Ethiopian, Ugandan, Burundi and American forces have done in Somalia was indeed UNJUST, CRUEL , EXCESSIVE, EXERCISE of AUTHORITY ( UN, AU and US ) Its also called Collective Punishment, and it continues as I write this response. I gotta run brother, but I will come back soon inshAllah To be continued Nur

Xiin bro. Lets agree to disagree here, Somalia is NOT Sovereign! you need to prove that it is! If Not Sovereign, it follows that its occupied, geographically and unfortunately, intellectually. Blaming the victim is not new, if one lowers his guard and a thief steals his property, we can always blame the victim, the reality is that our own evil in the form of the Warlords, was strengthened by foreign interests that will never allow Sovereignty for Somalia, so, it comes to two choices: 1. Wishy washy expectations that playing politics will soften the situation for Sharifs Islamic state to take root (under Ethiopian Hegemony, (Sorry, I cant help sticking Ethiopia everywhere) 2. To resist aggressive violation of our freedom and a territorial integrity to live the life we chose for ourselves. I have never suggested that Sharif is Not Somali, nor His criminal warlords who have lately resorted to create a secterian Sufi-Salafi clan warlordism, which is what they do best and benefit from. My take was that the resistance has a legitimate reason for not joining a government that was established by Somalia's arch-enemy Ethiopia, and a government who includes known War criminals, and foreign paid agents. If this is not true, please explain to me , I am all ears, or eyes in this case. Its rather uncalled for you to call names, Foolish and Reactionary which is a Communist era title, why not call them the current "terrorist" label that is labeled anyone who has a legitimate unaddressed grievance by those who are bent on oppressing them. The fallacy with your logic stems from what you consider Masaalix, which is a topic we discussed before when you posted the Sheikhs article and I criticized it, and subsequently you dropped it. I don't think that the Prophet SAWS would have tolerated the torture of Al Yaser, or the misery of struggle during the 23 years for the purpose of establishing Islam in Arabia, if the Maslaxa was for people to have good food and safety only. Brother, I will assure you that real safety is not to compromise on establishing Islam in Somalia, with full Sovereignty and at peace with ourselves and the world, but through strength, and not through weakness. Allah SWT says, that Security belongs to those who believe in Allah, and who have not corrupted their belief with oppression and injustice which was the argument Allah gave to Prophet Abraham when His people argued with him on the dangers of not surrendering to other than Allah, and in your case ( The New World Order), which I see as the epitome of injustice and oppression of the weak and defenseless in Somalia. Brother, you seem that you cant get over the fact that Sharif is not wanted in Somalia, at least by a large percentage of the people, he torpedoed himself when he single handedly entered into an agreement with Ethiopia as if the rest did not count. Shareef stole the drum of Somali Statehood, he finds very difficult to find a place to beat so his warlord clowns can dance to its tune, hence, the reason why the Shabaab are spoilers of his party, literally his political party. I really don't care about your wishes for the Shabab or for all of Sharif's adversaries, but, its unimaginable for you to label them as more evil than the warlords. I have yet to see you criticize their gruesome actions of the past 18 years and continuing, or even to show even handedness in your criticism. As I can see, you seem to have taken a clear position, that all those who board Sharif-Noah's arch are good, and all those who are left behind will perish. Let us wait and see brother, I have seen sobering revelations materialize before my eyes in the past ten years that I can humbly say, that it ain't over until its over. As for the New World Order, I see things through an Islamic lens, Order is what Allah ordains, and there is no order in what is known as world order, its disorder and thats the stark reality. If you had lived with Abraham, I think that you would have discouraged him from demolishing their false Gods which you see as "foolish" as the what the Shabab are said to have done. I have no doubt that events that led to the rise of Islamic Courts were Allah's plan to show us that collectively we can rid the nation of the evil of warlords, and that living under the auspices of the Sharia is possible. Nur

Akhi al kareem Xiin You write: Somalia, the republic, is NOT occupied. It FAILED but not occupied. I fail to see a Republic, and if the Ethiopian hegemony ( coming and going inside Somalia as they please ) is not an occupation, I respect your choice of definition, if the two of us who understand what Sovereignty means can not agree on its practical manifestation in real life, I suspect that we are in for a long night before we see the sunshine. You write; What took Somalia down is not foreign occupation. I guess that makes Meles Zenawi happy for not being accused of invading to overthrow the short lived ICU government of Sharif and Dahir Aweis in 2006! You write: Somalis took Somalia down. They overthrew a legitimate government without thinking through what the alternative would be. Any chance that these Somalis who took Somalia down are the current Warlord Chiefs in Sharif's government, more than once, and who led Ethiopia to occupy Somalia when the ICU chased them away? and now you are championing them as peacemakers that we must follow? Akhi, if you can't say the whole truth, don't say any. You write: After the government fell, By The Ethiopians and their Warlord allies! You write: instead of holding the country together Tangential departure from truth! You write: they started: 1. killing the innocent, ( Collateral Damages by the Ethiopians and the Ugandan and Burundi Merceneries)? 2. burning the villages, ( Ethiopians in Western somalia)? 3. starving the needy, (BY Occupiers who need to come as aid donors) 4. ultimately destroying a beautiful capital, This one is the best! The Shabaab, destroyed a Beautiful Mogadishu, Not the Warlords, Not the Ethiopians, Not the Ugandan Mercenaries! 5. causing unparalleled mass expulsion of the residents of Mogadishu. The cascade continued and poured unto other major cities in the south…it still continues. ( I thought that in international law , this phenomena is called Collective punishment, when all civilians are targeted to create a rift between them and their resistance. Brother, are these the Warlords, Ethiopians and the African Union? or do you mean that resistance against their occupation and molestation of our nation caused these crimes as a thoughtless futile exercise ? Do you mean, if only the Crazy Shabaab, laid down their weapons, followed the Wise Shareef government and their clans, that today, we would have been a safe, Sovereign nation? Brother, you need to smell fresh camel milk, if it was not for the Shabaab card, Sharif wouldn't have been of any use for the regional chess players and King Makers, he was Selected to weaken the resistance, and divide their unity in order to realize their regional strategic plan that went haywire due to the incompetency of their clients. Brother, you are tuning to the wrong channels for information, if you really believe what you are writing, my sincere advice for you is balance it by listening to those you hate, may be, you will find out that you have been misled by the warlord and their friendly media spewing lies as a form of alternative propaganda war which, as a learned person, you should suspect, at least give it a thought. you write; Emotions and clichés aside, Western Somalia is a Somali land occupied by Ethiopia, just like Golan Heights is a Syrian land occupied by Israel. But Syria yaa Nur is not occupied. Akhi al xabiib, I am bit confused here, please simplify for me your statements logically. 1. Golan Heights is part of Syria 2. Golan Heights is Occupied By Israel 3. But, Syria, IS NOT OCCUPIED? Brother, if an inch of a nation is occupied, the entire nation is occupied. Forget our Western Somalia under Ethiopian Occupation, I ask you, and Allah is our witness in the day of judgement, A. Is Somalia Today A Sovereign Nation? B. Does Ethiopian incursions constitute an infringement of territorial integrity of Somalia? C. Or do you believe that Sheikh Sharif and His warlord Parliament have approved while free, the Brotherly Civilized Ethiopian Incursions into Somalia to flush out the Barbarian blood thirsty Shabaab bad boys, who kill, the "innocent", destroy our country and are the root of all of Somalia's problems and evil? You write: It’ s ridiculous to act like disadvantaged rebel group when you are a nation state. Brother, How do nations act? specially when their military who stood as the best in Black Africa has been reduced to a ragtag clan loyal militia by the very people you are championing as "Government"? also enlighten me yaa akhi al kareem, if you can build a Sovereign nation with the assistance of a nation whose interest is the inverse of tha of Somalia's? A Weak divided Somalia is Ethiopia's strategic objective, and Shariif and Company are their bad and corrupt contractors. You write: And if by resistance you meant Alshabaab, you are endorsing the wrong group. I mean by "resistance" any Somali who surrenders to Allah alone, and never to anyone else. You write: You can confuse yourself thinking those whom oppose Sharif are in the business of liberating Somalia, but the fact remains that they are indeed lunatics on the fringe of Islamic theology, an ignorant bunch who have no clue what Islamic governance looks like Brother, I oppose Sharif and his government, He is no Prophet, Nor a Messiah, I did not elect him, like millions of somalis, and nor does he represent me in any sense, he represents the interests of those who paved his way to assume a make-believe leadership, I further disapprove his policies, and choice of allies, local and international, you have read my posts for a long time, do I sound that I am out to lunch? Brother, my advice to you as a Muslim is to disengage your full throttle of emotional Salvos and unsubstantiated allegations, a little bit, Allah says in Quraan, " Do not allow your hatred to a group, make you unjust (in your allegations), Be Just, that is closer to Taqwaa" You write: As they kill and maim, they too will be killed and maimed. This is a first for me brother, this does not sound like my brother Xiin the wise, and consensus making Sheikh. You have been on the side lines like me as a critic, but I sense that lately, and against my disbelief, that you have taken a personal ownership of enmity toward anyone who opposes Sharif, and specially the Resistance and dissent groups, both political and armed wings. To speak this way about the Shabab, who together with other resistance groups helped ending the Ethiopian presence in Benadir, and forgive 15 years of warlord and their Ethiopian masters well documented crimes against humanity, shows deep fractures in your reality lenses, its about time, you readjusted your vision brother. If you are predicting that the TFG Warlords will kill and maim the Shabaab, Allah is watching, and Allah will decide who is his ally and who is the enemy of Allah, so sit back and wait, because I am waiting for your predictions. " Fantadhir, innahum muntadhiroon" Youw Write: It will be ugly, and wont please those who would like Somalia back. This group is fighting current world order using Somalia as a stage. And Somalia does not need that. It has no capacity to do so. Brother, There is a single ORDER in this world, that of Allah, every other ORDER that is not connected to Allah as a source, is as flimsy as a spider's web, and those who seek protection from such an ORDER, are seeking protection from that flimsy spiders web, [b} Dacufal taalibu wal matluub[/b] You write: It’s good to know however that your alternative for Somalia is alshabaab, those whom you called resistance group. Doodaadu meel la qabtay yeelanaysaa, noqon mayso raggaan damcay inaan la jeex jeexo oo sidii nin saliid macsaro marsan iga siibtey. Walaal, Allah wuxuu leeyahay: " Haddad wax is ku qabataan, u celiya Allah ( Kitaabkiisa) iyo Rasuulka ( Sunnadiisa), haddaan labadeennu xaqdoon nahay, waxaan shaki ku jirin inaan isku saf noqon doonno, Allah ayaan noo wada baryayaa inuu na wada hadeeyo, xaqana noo wada tuso, xaq ahaan, baatilkana noo wada tuso baatil ahaan, naguna kulmiyo waddada toosan uu raalli ka yahay, gaaladu haba nacaane. Nur

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