Madrid: Qur'an tape found in van with detonators

These types of attacks will wake Europe to the Islamic snake in their midst. Maybe. Any thoughts, Joey? Want to tell us its just a Palestinean issue, or they are mad at America for Iraq, and supporting Israel?

It is strange that no Islamic group has claimed "THE GLORY" for this horror attack, so don't rule out ETA yet.
Spain's support for the US is the strongest pointer to Islamic Terrorism .
in the meantime my heart goes out to the families and victims as it did on 911.
I hope the positive side of this murdetous terrorism wii be to bring Spain closer to the US

In London, the Arabic newspaper Al-Quds al-Arabi said it had received a claim of responsibility for the bombings issued by the Brigade of Abu Hafs al-Masri, acting in the name of al-Qaida. In a five-page e-mail claim sent to Al-Quds al-Arabi, Abu Hafs al-Masri said the brigade’s “death squad” had penetrated “one of the pillars of the crusade alliance, Spain. This is part of settling old accounts with Spain, the crusader, and America’s ally in its war against Islam,” the claim said.
The statement taunted the prime minister, asking: “Aznar, where is America? Who will protect you, Britain, Japan, Italy and others from us?”
Yep. Definately a religion of peace.

It is now being widely reported that al Qaeda and a splinter group led by the infamous Abu Musab Zarqawi have both claimed responsibility. I am betting on Zarqawi, probably the most active terrorist today, and known to have an extensive European network.

Europe is an inviting target for the jihadis, who view appeasement (rightly) as weakness, which they seek to exploit mercilessly. You cannot appease Islamists, as they will fall on you like a pack of hyenas. Joey and his ilk are definitely whistling past the graveyard. By the way Joey, have you seen the site of that big mosque going up in Oxford? I hear it will be the largest in Europe.

Dont take statements "taking responsibility" for the attacks to much. In Sweden the murderers of Olof Palme have confessed, all 110 of them.

exactly courious citzen from sweden.

basil and your point about the biggest mosque in england comes as a suprise to you. you know in recent years there has been a increase in people from middle eastern or muslim countries to europe especially england and the surge in mosque constructions does not suprise me at all...

if there where a surge of australian christians to japan i have no doubt they would build some big church...

the issue is really your lack of tolerence for muslims and your excuse for racial and religious hatred.

what exactly is your solution for this so called "muslim problem"

ethnic clensing ...holocaust

what is it....

Joseph:

I thought that we had mutually agreed that you would disappear from this BBS for such period of time for you to study the basics of Cartesioan logic, and for you to master the nuances of standard English. Likely speaking for others here, I do not enjoy having to constantly leap-frog your (unread) posts. STOP WASTING THE OTHERS' TIME HERE! You haven't the intelligence to keep up, and you haven't the wit to entertain...

Actually, the holocaust was a European phenomenon, Joey.

By all means, do nothing at all. If you want to be blown to bits on a train by a North African neighbor, it certainly won't hurt me. Or gassed in the local tube station. Whatever. Just don't come whining to America (again) when they come to give you the traditional Islamic punishment for being an athiest. Perhaps Nathan can quote the relevant Koranic verse about what Muslims do to people who are not "of the book". But maybe he shouldn't. I imagine its wasted on you anyway.
cheers joey.

second battle of andalusia anyone
anyone notice aprox 911 days after sept 11th except some might argue 912 days gotta remember classic mideivel thinking using numerology

no I can at least differentiate between radical islam and the majority of islam who are just regular people who do not wish to hurt anyone. you hate islam as a whole and feel like the only solution is the destruction of the religion. im all for getting rid of bin laden and his guys but the entire world group of muslims do not deserve to be punished for the actions of a smaller portion of its followers.

Joseph, while your're talking about religious intolerance, would you care to explain why there are no churches, synogogues, buddahist temples, etc. allowed in Saudi Arabia? They don't (openly) promote violent Islam but they don't tolerate any other religion or form of worship in their country. I know of no other religion that openly condones killing people who disagree with it, even women and children. every country that is Muslim today was converted to Islam by the sword with the exception of Turkey. They were already over 50% Muslim and decided to cave in rather than fight.

Joseph my friend, I am not sure who, if anyone (unless your here just to cause trouble), in here really believes in radicating an entire religion to weed out a few extremists that look to defile the sanctity of the Muslim religion. I for one, do not agree with those who believe that any country is committing ethnic cleansing of Muslims. If that were true, and for example let's say America was committing such atrocities, I would bet everything I own that there would not be many Muslims left today. On the contrary America and it's citizens have welcomed and accepted the Muslim faith into it's lands. And every day people such as myself talk and discuss with many Muslims on how exactly the faith has been twisted and abused by those who have a deep resentment towards others who believe in equal rights. As my Father has said this is world war, many just haven't figured that out yet. And the bombing of the train station solidifies this. There was even a statement made about how they (Al-Qaeda) is 90% complete in delivering a Black wind of death to American soil. Bio chemical? Dirty Nuke? Who knows but the reality is this war is far from over and it all boils down to Freedom my dear Joseph.

"None are so hopelessly enslaved as those who falsely believe they are free."
--Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Al-Qaeda believes that they are free. The Abu Nidal believes they are free. Al-Ittihad al-Islami believe they are free. Hizb ul-Mujahedin belive they are free. Al-Jihad , HAMAS, Jaish-e-Mohammed all believe they are free through promoting violence in the name of Islam.

Joseph, these groups are not free. They are filled with anger and with such hate that they actually believe they will rise to Allah under the deaths of the innocent (those who had absolutely no direct connection to these peoples suffering). Again, as in this unfortunate train bombing, these groups have sealed their fate. There will be no end to their suffering. No end to the hunt. As the saying goes, "You made your bed, now lay in it"

The wahhabi form of islam is considered to be the most pure form of mulim faith.
In other words,pure islam is 100% intolerant of other religions.
Any muslim who does not agree with the purest form of islam,is not a muslim at all ,acording to the fundamentalist doctrine.
And speaking of "moderate" muslims,like our next door neighbours and coworkers,all of the 19 hijackers on 9/11 were ,according to people who knew them,just regular young men,very nice,polite and soft spoken...
Back to the attack in Spain,my sympathy and condoleances for the families of the victims.
I just hope that one good thing will come out of this:i hope it will be the wake up call for Europe.
I hope they will stop muslim immigration.
I hope they will hunt down and deport all illegal and unwanted muslims.
I hope they will start monitoring each and every mosque and i also hope they will stop allowing the construction of new ones.
One algerian imam recently declared that "we will bring islam to Europe by force,either they like it or not"...
Just a few hours after the explosions,thousands of spaniards took to the streets to protest aginst this muslim horror....it seems that they don`t know much about being politically corect over there.
It also looks like the muslims allover the world are digging their own grave.
Adela,USA.

What I don't understand is why after these horrific attacks, they are STILL playing the PC card and not outright condemning the damn jihadists that perpetrated these attacks. We all know that ETA or whatever it is has a different pattern of employing their attacks. THIS WAS AL QAEDA.

"The wahhabi form of islam is considered to be the most pure form of mulim faith. In other words,pure islam is 100% intolerant of other religions. Any muslim who does not agree with the purest form of islam,is not a muslim at all ,acording to the fundamentalist doctrine."
Posted by adela at March 12, 2004 01:54 AM

The Wahhabi form of Islam is only considered pure by the Wahhabis, who make up a small proportion of the entire Muslim population. It is true that there has been a paradigm shift in the Muslim World over the past 20 years in which the Wahhabis have become more and more visible in claiming to represent "True Islam". (I remember when the word "Wahhabi" was used as an insult in many Muslim countries, up until the 1980s). However this change is in no small part due to the United States supporting the Wahhabis during the Cold War against the Communists. Reagan himself famously declared that the "mujahideen" of Afghanistan were "freedom fighters". Those mujahideen were the ones who eventually formed the Taliban.

The effect of the US support for the Wahhabi muhajideen during the Cold War has been devastating on the Muslim world, for all of a sudden, a cult which had little representation outside of the Saudi Arabia suddenly got undue attention. The reason? Because the US had funded, armed, and trained these Wahhabis, and were thus in a position to bully around whoever they wanted to. When the Afghan war ended, the Wahhabis had the resources available to go to other places and spread their hatred, such as Kashmir, Chechnya, Palestine, Bosnia, and Kosovo. Bear in mind that prior to the arrival of the Wahhabis, each of these conflicts were articulated in strictly secular nationalist terms.

In Kashmir, for example, the Kashmiri Muslims, who are mostly peaceful secular followers of Sufi Islam, hate the violent mujahideen who arrived after the end of the Afghan war. Why? Because these foreign Wahhabi terrorists entirely undermined the mostly peaceful resistance efforts of the Kashmiri people.

And a note about "moderate Muslims" which everyone is also complaining about. Yes, I entirely agree that the "moderate Muslims" should be doing more to outrightly condemn the Wahhabi terrorists. However, there is a reason that this "silent majority" of the Muslim world is silent and has no real representatives.

A bit of history. Up until the 1980's, there was a group of secular Muslims who had much support, and were highly vocal in condemning the threat of the Mullahs, or fundamentalists. However, these Muslims generally identified themselves with the Leftists, which unfortunately put them on the wrong side of the Cold War in American eyes. The Muslim governments which had the support of the United States brutally crushed this movement during the Cold War. Most of the Leftist leaders were either imprisoned or in exile. Moreover, the US supported, both overtly and covertly, the employment of Muslim fundamentalist groups by the governments to counter the Leftist movement.

An example is that of Pakistan and Bangladesh. When the Bangladeshi Leftists were fighting for independence from Pakistan, the US stood by, and even encouraged the Pakistani government, when religious groups like the Jamaat-i-Islami raped and murdered the Bangladeshis. The US saw this as necesary because of the Leftist threat during the Cold War. Such events have not been forgotten.

Now, what does this have do with anything? First of all, the end of the Leftist movement in the Muslim world meant that secular Muslims, who were against the "Fundamentalization" of their countries, no longer had a mouth piece to make their view heard, or even a network through which they could communicate, until even today.

Second, because the US was at one point bedmates with Wahhabism, and is today its enemy, many of the secular Muslims see the US as being merely opportunistic, and not serious in its claim. The secular Muslims remember how, at one point, they were despised and targeted by the CIA, in the same manner as Wahhabis are today.

I reiterate, Muslims should be doing more to condemn Wahhabism, no doubt. However, many of the reasons why we see the Wahhabi movement as so strong today is because of former US actions which supported the Wahhabis, and ended the secular movements in many Muslim countries.

Until the US admits its previous mistakes, I find it hard to believe that it will be able to win the widespread support of the secular Muslims that it is expecting.

Re: Jimmy's comment:

"However, many of the reasons why we see the Wahhabi movement as so strong today is because of former US actions which supported the Wahhabis, and ended the secular movements in many Muslim countries."

This is only partially correct. In the aftermath of OPEC 1 (1973)and OPEC 2 (1975), the Saudis suddeny found themselves flush with petrodollars. This was the fiscal opportunity which permitted Saudi to push the Wahhabi dogma throughout the globe (and continue the uneasy alliance between the house of Saud and ibn Wahhab's descendants).

Recent reports I have read suggest between $US70-90B has been spent by the Saudis exporting Wahhabi fanatacism over the past 3 decades- through mosque building; Islamic "education" (madrassahs); buying votes at the UN through Third World development grants, etc.

US support for counter-Soviet Wahhabi groups is insignificant compared with direct Saidi funding of Wahhabi terror. "...US had funded, armed, and trained these Wahhabis"? Only if you accept US petrodollars as the medium of such funding...

Earl:
Yes, I am in total agreement that the Saudis are responsible for the Wahhabi ideology, as well as much of the funding required to spread it. However, my point was not about who provided the most dollars. My concern is that the opportunism of the US goverment during the Cold War caused it to take significant steps and decisions which should never have been made.

The CIA knew that the Wahhabis they were dealing with were not noble mercenaries. Yet, they were still employed because they were so desperate to win that war. Osama Bin Laden himself was on the CIA payroll. Sure, the amount of money spent may have been much less than what the Saudis put in, however the CIA crucially provided weapons and training to the mujahideen. The CIA also went around the Muslim world campaigning to get warriors by spreading the Wahhabi notions of jihad! They even managed to get the Egyptian government to release several JAILED Muslim Brotherhood criminals to fight in Afghanistan. It was this network of contacts, arms and training which was essential to the formation of Al-Qaeda and the transnational jihadi movement. The Saudis would not have been able to do this without the will or the resources of the CIA.

All of this is history and can't be changed, but the point is this: in order for us to be able to make the right decisions in today's war on terrorism, it is essential that we are aware, and sensitive to the context in which these movements have emerged. And this awareness should not be on the level of a few CIA directors, but it needs to be on a nation-wide level. It is of the utmost importance that the same mistakes are not made twice, merely for the sake of saving some top-level officials from public embarassment.

Nathan:
I'm not trying to deny at all the violence in Muslim history. It happened. I'm merely trying to provide one of the explanations for why many secular muslims have not been heard condemning the Wahhabis today. Moreover, as I've said above, the more important point is that we must recognize the mistakes that were made by the US government and the CIA in the past, in order that they are not committed again while fighting this war. We just can't afford it -- there's too much at stake.

I agree Jimmy. We need to use extreme caution when we climb into bed with someone. We have not done well in the past 30 years with regards to Islam. We drastically under estimated them. We will catch up. Of this I have no doubt.

Many believed a win against the Soviets was impossible. We of course proved them wrong. We spent 50 plus years fighting the Soviet threat. This new threat will of course probably take longer. We are not fighting a centralized government. We are fighting an ideological system with a global reach.

We just need to revamp our thinking. Think outside the box so to speak. In the end I believe the best policy will boil down to this. Keep it simple. They are not a sophisticated people. They understand basic ideas I.E. death and killing. So break it down to a cost versus reward issue. Make it very painful and costly for them to attack us. So painful in fact that they will seek satisfaction by other more civilized means.

I do not think we can ever make them like us. But we definitely have the capability to make them fear and respect us.

No I am not advocating the entire destruction of the Muslim population. I am simple saying employ a cause and effect strategy. If Islam chooses the destructive path of attacking America or its allies, we in turn return the favor 10 fold.

Wild hare,10 fold seems to be a conservative figure,but i will go along with it.
10 fold is fair enough and it should do the trick.
Adela,USA.

well.. 10 fold can be a large number.

200 = 2000
2,000 = 20,000
20000 = 200,000

Large city like LA... 2 million of ours. In return 20 million of theirs dusted. The idea would scare even the hardest Jihadist.

I think you get my idea. At some point we would be sending quite a few in one shot to meet Alah. Only I have a feeling they are going to be seriously disapointed in his appearance, and the whole 72 virgin thing. crazy! I don't want 1 virgin, let alone 72 of them.

Wild Hare,

The "72 virgin" thing is another variation of the "rewards in the hereafter", designed to appeal to a young Muslim male raised in a misogynistic culture.

jay