The fundamental problem, sir, is this: you will never eliminate terrorism while the US's foreign policy is unjust.

A Jewish pro-Zionist UN Jurist (Mr. Goldstone) found that Israel has committed war crimes in Gaza. And what does the US do? Bury the report.

Since IDF is now a confirmed War Criminal entity sending ANY US military aid to the Israelis is in DIRECT contravention of our Arms Export Control Act. Why do we still support these war criminals?

I am not saying that Hamas is blame-free. But we don't give them cluster bombs to use on children either.

Since we support war criminals with helicopters and cluster bombs, is it a surprise that we get terrorism in return?

As soon as we stop messing around overseas (witness our clear involvement with the terrorist murder of 5 Iranian revolutionary guards recently) we will get blowback terrorism. It does not matter whether or not AQ has any safe havens or not -- regular people can become radicalized by the sheer extent of our injustice abroad.

Force -- even when wielded by the seemingly strong against the nominally weak -- continues to be an exceedingly uncertain instrument. The United States' penchant for projecting power has created as many problems as it has solved. Genuinely decisive outcomes remain rare, costs often far exceed expectations, and unintended and unwelcome consequences are legion.

The pursuit of US military dominance is an illusion, the principal effect of which is to distort strategic judgment by persuading policymakers that they have at hand the means to make short work of history's complexities. The real need is to wean the United States from its infatuation with military power and come to a more modest appreciation of what force can and cannot do.

We have to come to the painful conclusion that we have created the terrorism that we are subject to via our terrible foreign policies. (In this case directly: we worked in 1980s to radicalize the pustuns). No lack of safe havens will protect us from our well-earned blowback.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/24/opinion/l24iran.html?ref=opinion

Terrorism in Iran

Published: October 23, 2009

To the Editor:

Re “Twin Bombings Kill 5 Commanders of Revolutionary Guards Corps in Iran” (news article, Oct. 19):

The recent cowardly and inhuman act of terrorism in Iran perpetrated by a foreign-backed terrorist group and orchestrated from beyond Iran’s borders is depicted in your report as a sign of “escalation in hostilities between Iran’s leadership and the Baluchi ethnic minority.”

Nothing could be further from the truth. How can the perpetrators of this heinous act of terrorism, which claimed the lives of dozens of Iranian citizens, including Iranian Baluchis, represent Iranian Baluchis? How can the leaders of the terrorist group Jundallah claim any constituency among the Baluchi people while the same Baluchis have been the main target of their brutal terrorist campaign?

It would be naïve to give any credence to baseless claims of Jundallah, whose ties with foreign terrorist groups, extremist elements and some opportunist governments are more than clear to us. But our nation is undeterred by such brutal acts of terrorism sponsored by the enemies of Iran, who seek in vain to play the “ethnic card” against Iran.

The Iranian government and nation are fully determined to eliminate terrorism and bring the perpetrators and organizers of this heinous crime to justice.

Mohammad Reza Bak Sahraei
Second Counselor
Mission of the Islamic Republic
of Iran to the United Nations
New York, Oct. 20, 2009

Lets, for a second, forget about this Jewish-Muslim rivalry. To my mind, there is no real conflict - deep down we are all human beings and we all claim that our respective religions stand for peace. There is absolutely nothing to fight over. It is all political, territorial, geographical and economics based hypocrisy. God did not create Jews and Muslim - He created humans being. He did not want us to fight. It is us who argue, start fights and kill each other in the name of religion.

And, it not all horrendous - I've seen Jews and Muslims living, working together. There are bright spots that we mustn't ignore. We can strongly work for a better tomorrow.

Here's a word of advice for the Muslims - leave the Jews alone and stop acting like born losers. The Jews are strong politically and economically because they are smart and intellectually gifted. Why don’t you try to raise the level of your game, sit across the table and talk instead of throwing rocks at the Israeli forces? Let's play a peace instead of violence.

Here's another thing I want to tell the Muslim. Israel historically is Jewish territory. It belonged to the Jews and it should stay with the Jews. Its only a matter of recognizing the existence of the Jewish right to live peacefully within certain parameters and Israel's integrity. Once the Muslims stop hallucinating about 'regaining' the lost territories, the stress and pressure will begin to ease off itself.

As for al-Qaeda, they are devils in the garb of human beings. It is an extremist ideology that is destroying the very fabric of mankind. What is happening in Pakistan these days is testimony of the fact that those within the Pakistani setup are perhaps sympathetic toward the Taliban. Muslim extremist represent the worst side of human race - can we even think about associating them with any religion or faith or consider them as followers of God?

We need to stay positive and stop accusing each other. Bickering amongst ourselves only strengthen the hands of the extremists. Al-Qaeda needs to be rooted out - we are all cognizant of that; however, we, as people need to strategize smartly and unite against this blatant insanity.

As a former intelligence officer and writer on terrorist matters, I regard this article as among the best written on US websites. The case is stated clearly and unambiguously. It cuts to the matter of Al Qaeda and the Taliban and while they are not one and the same, they are interested in jihad on a worldwide basis. Osama bin Laden described Afghanistan under the Taliban (before US/UN intervention) as the ideal Islamic state. What unites these groups is a profound hatred of Western society, its freedoms and human rights. America is variously depicted as the great Satan and Israel the lesser Satan but not just by Al Qaeda or the Taliban but the madman in Tehran, Ahmed Dinnerjacket.

The poverty of comments following this article is quite alarming. The US is experiencing a wave of domestic terrorism, unprecedented since 9/11. It is perfectly true that the West and the US in particular armed Islamic resistance forces against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, largely through the pipeline of the Pakistani ISI. That was part of the Cold War: detente existed only between the superpowers and their allies and countries such as Afghanistan, parts of Africa and Asia were open for proxy wars. The basic problem was that we did not understand Islamic fundamentalism and we still don’t! Samuel Huntington was right when he talked about a clash of civilizations - modern Western liberal democracy in conflict with theocratic forces, which have never experienced the equivalent of a reformation and their laws are those of the sixth century.

To use such an article as the basis for arguing about Hamas and the IDF is cretinous irresponsibility. Find another platform for that argument! We can admit that we helped to create a ”Sword of Allah,” which turned in our hands. However, the US, the UK and any other country attacked by Islamic fundamentalists has every right to say “never again.” That phrase is not the exclusive property of Israel, nor should it be. We are in this together.

People like you ("Intelligence" officers) created this problem by, eg, helping overthrow the democratically elected govt of Iran in 1953.

Yeah, let me think in narrow terms which does not cut to the heart of why we terrorism: we have terrorism because of our failed foreign policy.

I wonder why Norway does not suffer such terrorism, if it os just Huntington thesis.

Why don't you found your own blog and make dumb editorial comments there ass?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/graham-e-fuller/global-viewpoint-obamas-p_b_201355.html

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/22274

Seven years after September 11, "the US-led war on terrorism has left in its wake a far more unstable world than existed on that momentous day in 2001":

Rather than diminishing, the threat from al Qaeda and its affiliates has grown, engulfing new regions of Africa, Asia, and Europe and creating fear among peoples from Australia to Zanzibar. The US invasions of two Muslim countries...[have] so far failed to contain either the original organization or the threat that now comes from its copycats...in British or French cities who have been mobilized through the Internet. The al Qaeda leader...is still at large, despite the largest manhunt in history....

Afghanistan is once again staring down the abyss of state collapse, despite billions of dollars in aid, forty-five thousand Western troops, and the deaths of thousands of people. The Taliban have made a dramatic comeback.... The international community had an extended window of opportunity for several years to help the Afghan people—they failed to take advantage of it.

Pakistan...has undergone a slower but equally bloody meltdown.... In 2007 there were 56 suicide bombings in Pakistan that killed 640 people, compared to just 6 bombings in the previous year....

In 2008, American power lies shattered.... US credibility lies in ruins.... Ultimately the strategies of the Bush administration have created a far bigger crisis in South and Central Asia than existed before 9/11.

It is difficult to disagree with any of this. Eight years of neocon foreign policies have been a spectacular disaster for American interests in the Islamic world, leading to the rise of Iran as a major regional power, the advance of Hamas and Hezbollah, the wreckage of Iraq, with over two million external refugees and the ethnic cleansing of its Christian population, and now the implosion of Afghanistan and Pakistan, probably the most dangerous development of all.

Ahmed Rashid's book convincingly shows how the Central and Southern Asian portion of this tragedy took shape in the years since 2001. Rashid has long been an authority on the politics of Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia.

Keep funding the Israeli war criminals and keep getting terrorism folks.

"In the end, a safe haven along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border is as good as it gets for al Qaeda's chances to launch a large-scale attack against the United States."
So how big of an area are we talking about? The entire border? A few square miles? A quarter of the country? Half? The premise of this totally flawed article is that we need to secure the entire country of Afghanistan else it be used as one vast training ground. Granted, the "human touch" the author mentions is absolutely necessary. But all you really need are a few football fields worth of space to train for a mission like 9/11. To suggest we should subdue an entire nation in order to deny the enemy a training space is ridiculous. Al Qaeda needs a place to train, yes. But it doesn't require the vast expanse of Afghanistan. A few acres in Waziristan, Pakistan would do nicely. The whole premise of Afghanistan as safe haven is false.