Those terrorists are just shy guys who did not find any other way to get laid :)
More seriously, there was a report on the french news on the origin of the suicide bombers in Morocco. They all came from the very poor suburbs of Casablanca. The kind of place where there is no hope for a better life whatsoever. They were all very young too. Easy target for the bearded. I notice it is always the old guys who send the young ones to death. Never heard of a suicide bomber who was over 50...

Aurel

I cannot deny the possibility that the Moroccan suiciders came from the local slum. Makes sense, as you say, that they have no hope for anything better. Along comes the neighborhood charismatic/charlatan offering a real raison d'etre, and it's bombs away!

And there are ever so many slums in this world.

So the war in Iraq is over, but the war on terrorism continues. As does the war on drugs and the war on poverty. Lot's of business opportunities on all three fronts, I'd say. He!!, it'll go on forever!

Hey, Aurel, regarding the U.S. of A., have you ever seen this many grossly overweight people in all your life? It is truly amazing! And you know what? The lower you are on the American socio-economic ladder, the more likely you are to own an ass that won't fit through a turnstile! We have the fattest poor people in the world, and I'd bet not one of them would give up that next cheeseburger for one thousand and nineteen virgins, much less a paltry nineteen.

Now, Mohammed al Scumbag might very well get hooked up with nineteen virgins on the other side, I can't prove otherwise. But if that is true, I'd bet that after 5 or 6 of them, he's aching for a real pro who knows what the he!! she's doing.....

Ed

I have always thought that the greatest weapon of mass destruction is in the USA, and it called Mac Donald-Burger King. If you think about it, how many early deaths by earth attack is obesity causing ! Yet, people are not scared by this, while they are scared by a totally improbable threat of terrorism. It is all about perception, and the 9/11 attacks did the best possible job as far as perception goes. If the concern was really saving lives, a war on obesity would be less costly and more effective than a war on terror...

I meant heart attack...

Aurel

Just playing devil's advocate. Murder is the only language the terrorists understand. Their methods rely on the fact that their targets remain "civilized".

The only other option is to accede to ALL of their demands. Which will then legitimize terrorism as a method of negotiation--and then every time some joker wants to introduce a bill to reduce municipal parking fines, he'll blow up a bus stop.

You were behind that Oreo cookie lawsuit, weren't you? :D

After my personal experiences with a virgin Muslim chick, I beg to differ. Imagine a Porsche mechanic who didn't know how to drive, but could get 200 extra HP out of a N/A engine...

The difference is that it is an individuals choice to eat what they want to eat. Its a free country. Its not an individuals choice to happen to be at the wrong place at the wrong time when a suicide bomber decides to light himself up.

It is a free country, I agree. But the question is, how free can one be in a 350 lbs jail of fat ? Plus, it is never an individuals choice to be at the wrong place and the wrong time. The probability for it to happen when you drive your car, when you cross the street, when you walk in a dangerous neighborood or when there is a tornado, are much greater than for terrorism. Terrorism is just a new business that works so well with the sheep...to make them accept any new war or instance.

Aurel

Nobody put you in that "jail" and nobody is shoving food down your throat. If you're fat, and you don't like it, then PUT DOWN THE GODDAMN FORK.

One the the few ACTUAL jobs of the federal government is to protect us from international threats. Not what we eat.

Whoa, Nelly! Please don't think I was trying to equate cheeseburgers with weapons of mass destruction. That was Aurel's leap of logic, not mine.

I was leading more to the argument of chesseburgers as "Weapons of Mass Pacification".

Ed

I have been claiming from day one that the war in Iraq had nothing or so little to do with terrorism or weapons of mass destruction, but was only about getting the iraqui oil (that they will have to sell to the US in order to rebuild their country). Now, it seems that even Paul Wolfowitz admits it too. At least, it does not come from the mouth of a french...

Aurel

Aurel, your spinning PW's words.

There is a difference between "about getting the iraqui oil " and stopping a dictator that has all that oil.
Oil is power/money. In the hands of a mass killer, all that money can buy some HUGE scale killing.

It does not take a lot of money to do some huge scale killing. Al Queada, if they were not financed by the CIA, did it on a rather limited buget. It does not have to be oil money either. North Korea has enough money too, has developed nuclear capabilities without oil money, and is a dictatorship as well. My point simply is that the wole terrorism argument is pure BULL. If islamist fundamentalists were so eager to hurt the american economy or way of life, it would be easy for them to do so. Easy for some suicide bombers to sneak through the canadian border and blow themselves in the middle of a mall. Has this happened yet ? NO. The only thing that drives islamic fundamentalists to terrorism is when THEIR land is occupied. And as far as sept. 11 goes, I don`t beleive it ultimately originated from islamic fundamentalists, but this is another story...that goes back to the question of who really runs El-Quaeda. Anyways, so far, we have:
- Bin Laden: not found
- Originator of the anthrax letters: not found
- WMDs: not found
- Saddam`s fate: not found
etc,etc...

My gut feeling simply is that the whole thing stinks, that there is big time manipulation of the public opinion, and it is not only the french who think that...the democrats in this country do too. Anyways, the coming elections will be interesting to follow, even if I cannot vote. There is also the argument that the war was worth it because mass graves were uncovered. Well, if uncoevring mass graves and stopping mass killings is really the concern of this administration, there is a hell of a work to do in Africa and South America. But the goals of the war seem to change on a daily basis, which leads me to beleive that the true goals were not disclosed to the public.

Aurel

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