It might be instructive to ask ourselves how we would be reacting if Iraqi commandos landed at George W. Bush's compound, assassinated him, and dumped his body in the Atlantic (after proper burial rites, of course). Uncontroversially, he is not a “suspect” but the “decider” who gave the orders to invade Iraq -- that is, to commit the “supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole” (quoting the Nuremberg Tribunal) for which Nazi criminals were hanged: in Iraq, the hundreds of thousands of deaths, millions of refugees, destruction of much of the country and the national heritage, and the murderous sectarian conflict that has now spread to the rest of the region. Equally uncontroversially, these crimes vastly exceed anything attributed to bin Laden.

There is Much More to Say by Noam Chomsky.
posted by klue on May 24, 2011 - 463 comments

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posted by insomnia_lj on May 12, 2005 - 113 comments

The danger is less that a state will sponsor a terror group and more that a terror group will sponsor a state—as happened in Afghanistan Zakaria: Stepping away from the partisan screaming going on these days, the 9/11 commission hearings and—far more revealing—the panel's staff reports paint a fascinating picture of the rise of a new phenomenon in global politics: terrorism that is not state-sponsored but society-sponsored. Few in the American government fully grasped that a group of people without a state's support could pose a mortal threat. The mistake looks obvious in hindsight, but was, sadly, understandable at the time of 9/11. What is less understandable is that this same error persists even today.
posted by Ignatius J. Reilly on Mar 28, 2004 - 46 comments

Violence and Repression in Western Afghanistan. "A man who was severely beaten by Ismail Khan's forces described to Human Rights Watch the effect of the repression: 'At any time I feel that I am in danger. When I leave my house, I do not know if I will return. I do not know whether something will happen to me, if there will be some car crash, or that I will be hit in the back of the head.' Another witness talked about how his community's hopes after the hated Taliban regime was ended have been deflated: 'What has changed in Afghanistan? All our hopes are crushed. We are completely disappointed. Look-all the same warlords are in power as before. Fundamentalism has come into power, and every day they strengthen their power.'

The light of liberation and liberty descends upon Afghanistan.
posted by fold_and_mutilate on Nov 6, 2002 - 31 comments

Al Qaeda drew up plans to attack the Space Needle, Grand Coulee dam, nuclear plants and more, according to documents the feds found in Afghanistan. Perhaps Dubya was referring to this last night when he said "time is not on our side." Sweet dreams.
posted by gsteff on Jan 30, 2002 - 25 comments

A story that seems to be good news no matter what side of the 'war' you're on. The dragnet around Bin Laden is reported to be closing quickly, and currently stands, says the Sunday Times, at about 30 squares mile. So, what happens next? (via Plastic.com)
posted by Hildago on Nov 18, 2001 - 13 comments

More Q & A on Terror and War
"A number of folks feel that current events -- particularly in the last few days -- have dramatically changed the logic and morality of what has been done in Afghanistan, calling into question much of the analysis and assessment that has been offered by critics of the war. Here are some of the questions we have been asked, and our brief replies."
posted by mapalm on Nov 18, 2001 - 60 comments

A former CIA operative explains why the terrorist Usama bin Ladin has little to fear from American intelligence. From the Atlantic an inside look at the non-existence of US intelligence in the Afghanistan region: Unless one of bin Ladin's foot soldiers walks through the door of a U.S. consulate or embassy, the odds that a CIA counterterrorist officer will ever see one are extremely poor.
posted by talos on Sep 13, 2001 - 15 comments