Who is responsible for 9/11? Do you really think Osama bin Laden did it? If so, who is this guy, anyway?

brainwashed prats who should have been aborted...

read this one :
http://www.expat.ru/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=12948

Darkstar
You are the guy who is responsible for everything.

I remember years ago, while watching the trial of Claus von Bulow, a wealthy man accused of murdering his wife, how family member after family member were questioned on the stand, and how all of them were obviously covetous and plotting little snipes, and I thought, "They are all guilty. They all killed her."

Sometimes, this is how I feel about 9/11. That so many bad decisions by so many people (voters & politicians), all played a part in weaving the intricate web of events that led up to the attack. Not to say that Osama bin Laden was destined to do such a thing, but given that he and so many others like him cannot give up the hate or stop the cycle of retaliation and revenge, it was likely that someone would eventually try it.

We expect that civilized people will look upon the mistakes & misdeeds of others and defer their emotions for the sake of mankind, but while that can be a good thing, it can be overused and abused, and sooner or later, the "sh** will hit the fan."

Anyone who reads history knows that the Middle East is one of those hornet's nests that you can't stir up and expect not to get stung. Anyone who knows the technology and logistics of warfare, knows that a weak enemy can still inflict considerable damage using "low-tech" and logistical harrassment methods. We are not unfamiliar with the strategy of "terrorism," and over the last few decades, especially through the late 60's and 70's when hijacking & kidnapping was at its peak, we have become somewhat inured to its effects and perhaps a bit complacent. Not anymore.

For our leaders to say that they didn't expect a plane to be used as a weapon is disingenous at best. While hindsight is always 20/20, it still seems incredible that our leaders did not see the signs and anticipate 9/11 if not actually prevent it.

Of course, had we, like many European nations and Russia, stopped assassinating Arab leaders and otherwise interfering in their politics as we pushed and pushed for them to produce oil and satisfy our strategic needs against each other, we might have avoided the last 30 years of terrorism from that region.

The question now, since we cannot turn back time, is how we both protect ourselves from the current threat while changing the world so that no one hates anyone enough to commit terrorist acts.

I believe our leaders in the USA are correct when they say that we must attack our enemies before they attack us, but I believe that is only in the case when we know for certain that such an attack is coming, which is not an easy thing to know. I understand that it is frustrating to attempt pre-emption through "criminal investigation" and to prosecute terrorists using our judicial system with its presumption of innocence and protections for the defense. That does not mean, however, that we should rush in with bombing-runs and guns a-blazing.

I imagine if the United Nations had a reputation of securing international "coalitions" to remove one dictator after another, and that was its policy, with no exceptions, only an order of "triage," whereby the most suffering nation was given priority, then solving this problem in the Middle East and Africa and other places where these madmen are taking power and destroying their people while they suck their national treasuries dry would be far easier and far more credible.

Unfortunately, this is not the case, and while we would prefer that it was a tangible and credible coalition of nations that went into Afghanistan and Iraq, we did not feel we could wait around and let them plot against us in peace.
Certainly, any terrorists not captured or killed are going to not only continue to plot, but they are going to use the motive of revenge to recruit more members to take the place of the ones we do get. Fine. It's not like they weren't recruiting quite effectively before, in which case they were growing, rather than merely staying in the game, which is what we have reduced them to for the time being. Also, one never puts of an attack merely because they expect a counter-attack from the survivors, especially if the first battle is decisively won.

To prevent the common populations from siding with the terrorists, which is how we would really lose this "war," we must help re-establish all those services and freedoms that they once had before, and to promote the establishment of democratic processes wherever they had never existed.

The idea of etsablishing a democracy in Iraq, even if it were somewhat influenced by the clergy, is not a bad one. How we go about it is far more important, and we must form our strategy around a "hearts & minds" victory.

I didn't like our timing or our methodology in the invasion of Iraq but now that we are there, we just had to see it through to a constitution and to elections. If it doesn’t seem like civil war will result, we should get the hell out of there quickly, leaving behind a large diplomatic and charitable contingency to continue providing services & education to the countryside.

Though I think we should be looking at ways to pull our troops from Saudi Arabia and other MidEast nations, it should not appear that we are giving in to the demands of the terrorists. We should make it clear that we will not allow the terrorist groups to then go into those nations and usurp their governments. I think if it were tied to a program of pulling out of our oil contracts there, and a policy of turning away from oil as an energy source, it would seem we were doing it voluntarily, because the final objective is to cut the financing of the terrorists and the corrupt governments. Once the money for oil dries up, they will have to go back to being fishermen and craftsmen and scientists like they were for so long and not so long ago.

Iraq seems to have a better chance for a secular democracy than Afghanistan, so I am not so sure it would have been correct to focus our attention on the latter nation, even though it was the staging ground for Osama bin laden and the al-Qaeda network. We did a good job of scattering them right away, and there is no question that Iraq would be one of the places where they would seek refuge and resupply. We believed Saddam would give them succor (among others). We still have to think about Pakistan, Iran, Syria and the Sudan as potential launching grounds for the next wave of al-Qaeda attacks. Saudi Arabia is not off the hook either.
Personally, I despise all monarchies as much as I despise despotism and facsism.

What about Chechnya? Could al-Qaeda work its way in there and both provide sympathy and support while seeking the same?
While many in Russia probably wouldn't mind if Chechnya were independent, I don't doubt they also do not want it to appear they are giving in to terrorist demands or that the terrorists be the ones to rule such an independent state.

Don't you think this is a bugger of a question? It crawls right up your ass and twists your guts, don't it?

Grim person:
Damn... I'm nailed. Yes, that's right. I started the Second World War, too.

Seriously though, I don't believe the Arabs did it. I still think it was the Serbs. It seems so logical.

Qurmudjin
I disagree with a lot of things you are saying,
but really glad you are back ,anyway.

Qwerty: Glad to be back. State your case. With what do you disagree and why?

Qurmudjin

First thing first
a short disclaimer:

I wouldn't like this thread to become yet another fruitless exercise in rhetoric.
There are certain issues, that can be debated till one is blue in the face,
without ever coming to any consensus :
things like: political or religious discussions,
pro-life / pro -choice alternatives,
guns control,
capital punishment /death penalty,
democracy vs. dictatorship ( what the hell is this democracy thing anyway ?),
creationism vs.evolution

and so on....hey, not to forget our very own
http://www.efl.ru/forum_en/threads/4566/

(by rhetoric here I mean talking for the sake of it , as
we used to do in my first year at the university,
boy, we used to feel so smart back then ).

Having said that, let me mention some of your statements I disagree with.

1. It would be very naive and misleading to expect that

"the United Nations had a reputation of securing international "coalitions" to remove one dictator after another"

The UN, being what it is :
toothless,parasitic organization, chaired by a whore politician Kofi Annan ( are there any other types ?),
has been and will always be a tool for manipulating the public opinion in the interest
of the largest shareholder which is, surprise , The United States.

The Institute for Policy Studies has compiled an analysis of 34 nations cited in press reports as supporters of the U.S. position on Iraq, titled "Coalition of the Willing or Coalition of the Coerced?" The IPS study finds that "most were recruited through coercion, bullying, and bribery." According to IPS Middle East analyst Phyllis Bennis, "It's hardly a new phenomenon for the U.S. to use bribes and threats to get its way in the UN.

2.

I didn't like our timing or our methodology in the invasion of Iraq but now that we are there, we just had to see it through to a constitution and to elections.

Now listen to yourself and be honest.
Are you going to argue that the whole mess has been designed to" liberate the Iraqi people" ?
Or may be, just may be it was planned to enrich some Texas energy companies
with close ties to the White House, Hunt Oil and Dick Cheney's old company, Haliburton, which is rebuilding Iraq's oil infrastructure.

Follow the money as they say.

3.

Saudi Arabia is not off the hook either.

that is to put it very mildly indeed:)
What about Moore's documentary can you disregard it outright ?

4.

What about Chechnya? Could al-Qaeda work its way in there and both provide sympathy and support while seeking the same?

It may or may not be true,but the real reason behind the war (rebellion, fight for independence, quest for a religious freedom: take your pick)
is control over the cheap and abundant oil reserves which is exploited by Chechen war lords and by the corrupt Russian
military alike.This war benefits too many people on both sides to care for thousands dead and wounded.
So I don't buy this al-Qaeda excuse.

My eloquence is getting strained,so I'd rather stop right here :)

PS if you think I'm being too cynical,
you ain't seen nothing yet

Qurmudjin:
How long have you been living in the U.S.?

Darkstar

Seriously though, I don't believe the Arabs did it. I still think it was the Serbs. It seems so logical.

why the serbs and not, say, the CIA, it's common knowledge Bin Laden had ties with the CIA in the 1980's, plus like the military it's an organization whose existance and well offness depends to a considerable degree on the existance of enemies of the US. The USSR left the gig in the early 1990's whe the 1991 coup attempt went hopelessly FUBAR and Eltsin figured it'd be better to hold on to his Russian presidency than to get flushed down the toilet with the USSR and Gorby. I imagine once that had happened and it became clear there was going to be no comback of Russia or the USSR as a competeing superpower, the CIA budget would have had to have started getting cut, so perhaps by late 1990's those budget cuts got too far and it was understood in certain circles that it was now imperative that a new enemy for the US had to be created so as to ensure the survival of the CIA and the US military and ultimately the immensly huge beurocratic system that they currently have there.
Imho it's as good as blaming the serbs.

Too damn big for the CIA. Too much of a huge conspiracy theory, and conspiracy theories don't work out well. Blowing up an Oklahoma building may be enough to stir up the country, but blowing up the biggest US buildings and THE PENTAGON just doesn't look like just some secret service extra-activity to me. It looks like an attack AGAINST AMERICA. Against the financial and military power of the United States. Even against Hollywood and American cultural expansion. It's as if someone were saying "Eat this, there you have your stupid movies". Whoever did it, is a hardcore Anti-American. The gringos really did a very, very bad thing to him, so there's a lot personal hatred. The CIA just doesn't fit the picture here. Psychologically, it definitely looks like an act of personal retaliation to me, an act aimed to symbolically destroy the very heart of the military power of the U.S.

Generally, there's a lot symbolism in this: anti-war, anti-big-size, anti-imperialistic, anti-financial and anti-American symbolism. Looks like a tiny group of terrorists destroying big buildings they hate because they're just too big.

Also, consider the fact that this anti-American group is destroying them by means of PLANES. It's like death came from ABOVE, just like it was in Belgrad, even though there's a hundred ways too attack a big city (water poisoning, bacteria, chemical weapons, anything).

So the question is not "Qui prosperat?", it's rather "Qui odiat?" Who hates? Who hated the U.S. most in 2001? And I think it was the Serbs.

In fact, just a few month before 9/11 I remember thinking to myself, "How come the Americans got away with bombing Belgrad so easily?" and then WHAM, there you have it!

Not to mention the fact the first explosion in the WTC apparently was a Serbian handywork. It's miracle the building survived. Well, whoever tried to do it the first time, just finished it off. That simple. Look for simple explanations. They always work. Unlike conspiracy theories.

Oil-profits for the USA and its oil-companies are NOT the reason we went into Iraq. Nor did we do it strictly for the noble purpose of liberating the Iraqi people.

The USA, along with several European nations, created Saddam Hussein. When he became as much of a threat to us as he was to his neighbors, the regime-change we all desired, but put off until we could be sure a favorable gov't would take its place, had to be accelerated. The Europeans wanted to wait longer, wanted to find some kind of "smoking-gun" as an excuse, but their efforts, through the UN, were ineffectual.
The USA, then, made its best case and went in.

In all wars, the companies, associates and friends of our politicians benefit in some way. This does not mean, however, that particular ones get to pick particular wars and when.
Magnate publisher Randolph Hearst may have had the ego to say, "You provide the pictures, and I'll provide the war," but he did NOT pay anyone to start shooting in Cuba and he did NOT start the Spanish-American War. Nor is anyone doing anything like that today.
Nor do I believe Chase Manhattan started the Russian war in Afghanistan, even though it funded the building of the Kama River truck factory, later converted to build tanks, and the 6-lane highway from Russia into Kabul those tanks rolled in on.
Instead, what happens, is Bush's friends at Halliburton say, "If you do go into Iraq, I can provide support but if you go into Somalia, I can't help you." That sways decisions, but does not form them. There is corruption when the company of a friend is not qualified but gets a contract anyway, or pads its invoices. That, I believe, IS occurring between Bush & his cronies.

The huge companies that manufacture weapons have the greatest stake in war, NOT the oil-companies, especially if they are not doing the drilling and only brokering it (to France, Germany and Japan).
Even the greatest weapons-manufacturers do not profit from war nearly as much as they do from peace. They get more and more money from our military every year, whether we are at war or not. When we are not at war, they find more hospitable & safe markets to sell their other goods, which far outnumber their weapons-lines. Boeing woud much rather build & maintain hundreds of passenger jets for a stable, democratic Iraq, than to build a dozen or so jet fighters to bomb it. Halliburton is not an oil-company. It has been profiting from our military all over the world for over a decade. Iraq's oil is puny not only in comparison to how much we buy from Saudi Arabia, but all the oil we buy from the entire Middle East is puny compared to what we buy from Venezuela and the rest of South America, Mexico and our own states. The oil-conspiracy thing holds little water (that's a pun!).
I am more inclined to believe this Iraq war had more motivations of revenge (Bush: "You tried to kill my Dad!") and follow-through (from the Gulf War, when we should have deposed Saddam) than obtaining oil or enriching any US company. In fact, it will be European companies which will profit most from Iraqi oil.

Bush handed Halliburton and many other US companies as much profit as they might make in Iraq with his last tax-cut. Why in the world would he or anyone else in government start an "unpopular" war, spending hundreds of billions of dollars, just to hide a few billion for their friends, when they can simply write a much bigger check from the Treasury and the voters will love it?

I would hope that the world would realize by now that we are a very complicated, if not somewhat schizophrenic, nation. No one's interests rule here for very long, and all of us get our "fifteen minutes..." Power flows from one place to another fairly rapidly, and the motives of many organizations, companies and families blend together to create actions. I don't doubt that somewhere along the process, someone's decision went one way instead of another for sexual motives.

< The oil-conspiracy thing holds little water.

I agree. Oil is NOT the reason for going into Iraq. The most likely reason for any war is war itself.

< Boeing woud much rather build & maintain hundreds of passenger jets for a stable, democratic Iraq, than to build a dozen or so jet fighters to bomb it.

Right. In fact, I can't imagine how anyone can profit from destruction of an economy. If it does anyone good, that must be a very limited group of indviduals and a very short period of time.

< I am more inclined to believe this Iraq war had more motivations of revenge.

Absolutely. In a way, this is personal. That's what you get for putting that picture on the sidewalk.

< I don't doubt that somewhere along the process, someone's decision went one way instead of another for sexual motives.

What sexual motives??

Who is responsible for 9/11? The US is! Besides things stated below the government of that place had supposed that cruel and poor opponents are blind ones, deaf ones, and boobies in addition. Therefore their government relaxed.
Arrogance is the first mortal sin. It became the first one because it leads straight out to the death by the shortest way. Remember Soviet Union had the greatest arrogance in the whole world and always demonstrated it everywhere. Therefore that power was punished awfully. Won’t US have to be punished for the exactly same sin? As for the manner of punishing, the God’s Will might be masked… Everybody is responsible for his own sins and for ancestor’s ones. God brings powerful people down and uplifts meek ones.
I dislike when people kill each other fore the sake of any great idea. But there isn’t enough resources even food and drinkable water to satisfy all the people in the world. Therefore we all are doomed to eat each other independently of nation by means of tongues, dirty intrigues, ballistic rockets, planes filled with people for the sake of bread, better women, gold, oil (honour is not being quoted), and for the sake of ordinary sport interest. Probably somebody devised a new sort of sport to launch ‘air-surface’ rockets without effective air-defence systems on the other side.

Darkstar
well, the thing is that all the evidence that was found in relation to those attacks and that we have been told about points to arab terrorists and the Saudis. The serbs cetainly hate the Americans but kamikadze is just not their style, and remember those pilots that actually steered the planes into the WTC towers, they were among the very first casualties of the attacks. The Serbs have a Christian based culture and while this fact doesn't tule out terror attacks on civilians it certainly decreases the probability of such attacks being carried off by attackers who deliberately get themselves killed in the proces. At the same time this tradition of suicide attackers is wide spread and encouraged in muslim cultures. Had the planes been remote controlled , the serb connection would be a lot more possible, imho.
The reason I put forth this CIA conspiracy was because to me it seems equally unlikely as the Serbs being behind it. In fact while the Serbs, as you point out, may well hate the US very much, they simply do not have the resources necessary to have pulled off something like this. The CIA do have the resources since these guys always have a couple dirty fingers in a couple dirty pies and certainly so do the arabs with all of their oil dollars.
I personally find the CIA conspiracy to be the sexiest theory, actually another thing supporting it is the fact that the whole attack in New York looked so much like those Holywood catastrophy movies. Remember in Independence Day the WTC towers are among the first buildings hit by the aliens, these same buildings are central to the final sequence of the Jeff Bridges and Jessica Lange King Kong, Mel Gibson's character in Conspiracy Theory states that all significant assasinations are done in Manhattan. In short it did look as if the purpotrators actually consulted Holywood producers abt how to go abt carrying off a genuinely spectacular terrorist attack that would be bound to get the attention of the US public.
But unfortunately, in spite of all the sexyness of the CIA conspiracy that I proposed and all the plausibility of your conclusions about who hates the US the most, it has to be said that both the evidence that is now available and the suicidal style of the attacks point to arab terrorist networks, at least it is now seems to be an established fact that the people who actually steered the planes were arabs.

In support of the Old Mad's opinion
here is a great site related to Sept 11
http://www.billstclair.com/Serendipity/wtcm040419/wtc_0413.html
Hey, all conspiracy theorists out there, enjoy it !!

It is obvious that the freakshow who pieced together the above conspiracy website knows absolutely nothing about the difference between 'heat' and 'temperature' nor anything about the actual design of the WTC.

No, the fire alone was not enought to simply melt steel. But, when one support column is damaged and weight shifted to the others, and then they too are subjected to more damage from shifting temps (property of diffuse flames), things collapse and fall down, and there is not enough time for floors below to attain significant lateral velocity into the supports at the core, and they go down too.

Having an "egg-crate" design, 95% of the WTC buildings were naught but air, and with weight coming down from above, exceeding the design allowables on the joists (450,000 t falling on floors designed to hold about 1,300 t above its own weight), the building did what physics dictate it would, which is to collapse on itself.

If you do read the above site, please have enough sense to visit sites by engineers who have actually worked on skyscrapers (including the WTC) and can easily explain to you how the buildings collapsed, while demonstrating their validity through computer models.

The thing I laughed at the most was this:
"According to the official story, as reported by the New York Times (International Herald Tribune, 2001-10-17, p.8), the Boeing 757 which struck the Pentagon executed a 270-degree 7,000-foot descent over Washington while flying at 500 mph.  It approached the Pentagon on a horizontal trajectory (so as to maximize the damage to the building) so low that it clipped the power lines across the street (but somehow managed to squeeze between two poles which were separated by less than the wingspan of a Boeing 757).
"We were told (and, of course, expected to believe) that this maneuver was executed by an Arab pilot, Hani Hanjour, who in August 2001 was judged by the chief flight instructor at Bowie's Maryland Freeway Airport as not having the piloting skills required to fly a Cessna 172 solo.  (Is there something fishy here?)"
It never occurs to the person writing this that IF it was not Hanjour flying the plane, but indeed some "expert" military pilot using a remote-control, why in the hell did he fly into the power lines in the first place?
The simple explanation is that Hanjour never saw the power lines or the two poles, and just lucked out not hitting them. It was not a "manuever" at all, but simply luck.
By the way, once a plane is in the air, it is quite easy to manuever. It's the landing that's the most difficult, and who knows if it was landing a plane that the chief flight instructor was referring to when he said Hanjour could not even fly a Cessna solo? But, what if someone already put the plane in the air? What if Hanjour was not alone at the controls?
Haven't any of you game-players, flying F-16 flight-simulators, which are amazingly accurate, done some pretty amazing manuevers even in the middle of combat?

The whole site, in fact, is littered with flaws in logic. The writer assumes (no proof) that because something precedes something, it is the cause of it (ad hoc, ergo propter hoc). Also assumes that because a thing did or did not happen, it was intentional (as in missing the poles in the clip above). Selective perception is also at work: seeing only what is relevant to pre-conclusions and ignoring what doesn't fit (as ignoring science which supports the collapse of the towers).

Fortunately, the vast majority of people only enjoy reading such conspiracy-theories and do not actually believe them... Hell, I doubt even the people who write them believe their own words...

< the resources necessary to have pulled off something like this.

There are plenty of things to steal around when the country is being destroyed. Sell a couple of MIGs. Forget perestroika? Besides, good terrororism doesn't need any significant financial resources, you're confusing it with the military. The cost of the 9/11 attack may have been below 50K (short flight training for 4 to 6 people).

<the purpotrators actually consulted Holywood producers

Honestly, one doesn't need to spend much brain make a Gozilla-style movie. It's on TV, you don't have to consult anyone.

< Had the planes been remote controlled

No, people, forget this high-tech stuff. Too complex. I think it's a lot more easier to fly them manually.

< the suicidal style of the attacks point to arab terrorist networks

Of course, it was the Arabs who ACTUALLY flew the planes, no one doubts that at this point. So what? Give me money, I'll hire anyone. The question is WHAT FOR. What the hell for? If you give me one good reason why the Arabs were interested in destroying the Pentagon, the White House and the WTC (the symbol of the financial power of the U.S.) I may agree with you. But so far the only interested nation I see around are the Serbs. I was surprised there has been so little talk about this.

Qurmudjin:
< Hell, I doubt even the people who write them believe their own words...

Right. Wherever there's a catastrophe on TV, lot's of people start giving completely off-the-wall explanations including UFOs, asteroids and stuff. I'm telling you guys, if anything works, it's because it is SIMPLE. Give me a simple explanation, and it's 9 out of 10 it's gonna be the right too!

Darkstar
The US has been practically unconditionally back Israel for decades, supplying it with weapons at low prices, vetoing all attempts by the UN security council to pass anti Israel resolutions even at times when Israel was expressedly acting as an aggressor state or breaching the international laws in other ways. So the arabs do have every reason to hate the US because had it not been for the unconditional US support of Israel over all these years the arabs would have wiped out Israel off the face of the earth a long long time ago. It's actually a much longer conflict that goes back a long long way than what happened down in Serbia.
I agree you probably do have a point about resources there, but saying the arabs have no reason for wanting to destroy America is refusing to see the obvious. Down in Palestine, Syria and Jordan there are whole generations of arabs mad at the US over their policy in the region, and wasn't it with clinton still in office and the Taliban in power in Afganistan that US planes were sent down there to hit targets where the CIA figured Bin Laden might have been at. This actually happened in the mid 1990's before Serbia.

Then the quuestion where and when in Arabic countries the U.S. had been striking 1 or 2 years before the events?
Neither can I remember any Arabs' attacks on the U.S. during 2 or 3 years preceding the date. In fact I can remember only 3 major attacks on the U.S. during the 90s
1) the Oklahoma bombing (unknown group? the CIA?)
2) the first explosion in the WTC (some Sebian group)
3) 9/11 (allegedly, a certain Osama Bin Laden)
Now this is where you can get because I haven't done my homework. If you can give me more examples of massive Islamic anti-Americanism during 1998-2001 period, I may agree with you.

Who is responsible for 9/11?

??? Well, I thought I was, or did someone else claim the responsibility?

Did YOU claim responsibility?

Yes, sir, I DID! (Hm-m, let me count the ways I've told the world about it...) And news networks from Al-Jazeera to BBC to CNN spread this news all over the world down to the last illiterate farmer in Indonesia.

Prophet Mouhamed (pbuh!) be with you, infidels! Allah is great!

Osama bin Laden

It is you, who are caught now all over the world! Where are you hiding? This is top secret, and I understand this. But the best manner of hiding something is to put it openly. Don’t you have an intention to take place in elections of the major of NY? The greatest success is provided yet. Such men as you live not for long life, but for eternal glory just like Gerostratus. The only their ways of punishing you: electrical chair or gas-room embarrasses me. Shooting in sight would be better. If I was you I’d prefer to fight till the end. But why did you do it? Don’t they have a great number of military objects badly protected from sudden attack? Remember Italian prince, captain of the 1 rank, Valerio Borgese, who destroyed Soviet battleship “Novorossiysk”, former Italian “Julio Chezare” just on the raid of Sevastopol in 1955. He became an admiral for heroism! Why didn’t you think about their biggest naval base San-Diego. Battleships of “Iowa”-type are bigger then “Novorossiysk” and carriers of type “Chester U. Nimits” are far bigger. Had you preferred these aims, you would have not named as cannibal and terrorist. What do you think about my way of understanding of double standards?

Qurmudjin
Thanks for very interesting posts. I agree with almost everything what you said in them, but I have one question. You said: "Iraq seems to have a better chance for a secular democracy than Afghanistan". Why do you think so? I do not want to say that it is wrong, but I want to know your reason to think so.

Osama:

Have you also explained the reason for doing this or you just had a bad day?

Darkstar

Osama:
Have you also explained the reason for doing this or you just had a bad day?

Bad? No, I suppose he thinks that it was his best day, when he went to history forever.

Have you also explained the reason for doing this or you just had a bad day?

Darkstar, let's just say I had a bad beard day :o)

Deaptor asked:

"You [Qur'mudjin] said: 'Iraq seems to have a better chance for a secular democracy than Afghanistan.'

Why do you think so? I do not want to say that it is wrong, but I want to know your reason to think so.

Good question. This is only a somewhat 'educated guess' on my part. Iraq seems to have a better chance for a secular democracy than Afghanistan mostly because the former has had one for over 40 years and the latter has not.
I am not well-versed in the Shiia vs. Sunni struggle, but I can't see the kind of rule the Afghani Taliban had (has still, in about 1/3 of the country around Qandahar) working quite as well in Iraq, even though they are both Sunni.

Do you think the Sunni majority in Iraq would want to have a Taliban of their own? Do you think they want the rule of the Shiia, like the mullahs of Iran? Or, do you think they would prefer a secular government, which respects Islam but is not fanatical about it? Have not the Shiia and the Sunni lived along with each other better in Iraq than anywhere else in the region? Or, was Saddam the equivalent of Tito in Yugoslavia, keeping the factions from tearing each other to pieces only through brutal dictatorship?

If the Shiia and the Sunni of Iraq do not want civil war, I would guess they would both work toward a compromise, perhaps a constitutional-monarchy much like the one that existed in Afghanistan back in the 1960's, which had religious roots, but was not overtly or fanatically Islamic.

Actually, I have to reconsider this question after I do some more research. Thanks for raising the question...