Where is the political arm of Al-Qaeda? Sinn Farsi? Sinn Falafel?

"By the way, you can't negotiate with these people or reason with them. That's what you've got to understand. These are not the kind of people you sit down and send a counselor over and hope to convince them to change their ways."

- President George W. Bush, Baltimore, Maryland, Jul. 20, 2005
- http://www.dubyaspeak.com/war.phtml

(...)

Man.

They really are mindless bloodthirsty terrorists aren't they?

How con-veeeeenient.

They seem to have no "goal" for their actions, no stated ideology, no demand for the release of political prisoners, no demand for an end to the occupation of Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan and others...

Nothing.

We've got to fill in the blanks.

Now, maybe they want to be "scaaaaary stuff keeeds!", and one could say "we hold these truths to be self-evident" that of course they want the same liberation from undue Western influence that most people in the middle-east want.

(Support of the dictatorship of his own Saudi Royal Family excluded of course. I'm sure he'd hate to stop suckling at that oily teat for his weekly terror allowance.)

But, it makes no sense to work so damned hard on "terror", and yet be too damned lazy to think of at least one convincing "argument" to inspire a brown-Bono to record his version of "Sunday Bloody Sunday".

Where's the Magnificent Muslim Manifesto?

Perhaps they have legitimate feelings about specific questionable Western policies in the middle-east, and a complex geopolitical strategy for winning the "War on Terror" and what to do afterwards.

But where is the political public relations manoeuvering? Is the press just not covering it? Why? And why wouldn't the alternative media at least pick it up to dissect it?

Can't somebody just email MichaelMoore.com? Jon Stewart? Moby?

If Osama and Co. (Copyright: CIA, 1979 - 2005) simply put ANYTHING reasonable out there it would blow up in Bush's face, and expose his "you can't do jack-smack but bomb these mofo's!!!" logic for what it is: insane.

Now, make no mistake: they could STILL "blow stuff up real good!"

The IRA just disarmed again 36 minutes ago (see below), and they've been fighting along side variations of their Sinn Fein political arm for 100 years. This is common sense: use terror to scare the crap out of people, and then use SOMEBODY as a tool to negotiate your end goals - at least gauging what kind of progress you are making at the highest levels of government.

The more the Bush says "you can't negotiate with these people or reason with them", the more we believe him absent any other evidence.

Thousands killed in Afghanistan and Iraq, thousands tortured in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, thousands living in fear and persecution in the West, and all signs pointing to Iran, Syria, World War III, nukes, genocide...

Wow.

Osama's really a "muslim hero", ain't he?

(...)


IRA Ending Longtime 'Armed Campaign'

By SHAWN POGATCHNIK,
Associated Press Writer
36 minutes ago

BELFAST, Northern Ireland - The Irish Republican Army renounced violence as a political weapon Thursday and said it will resume disarmament, taking a dramatic step designed to revive Northern Ireland peace efforts after a 35-year conflict that killed and maimed thousands.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair called the move "a step of unparalleled magnitude," while Prime Minister Bertie Ahern of Ireland said it heralded "the end of the IRA as a paramilitary organization." The White House also welcomed the announcement.

But local leaders in the British territory and some analysts warned that the IRA, which has previously fallen short on fulfilling its public promises, had left key questions unanswered and was not disbanding.

The IRA said all its clandestine units had been ordered to dump arms and cease all activities, as of 4 p.m. (11 a.m. EDT) Thursday.

"The leadership has formally ordered an end to the armed campaign," the IRA said in a major advance from its opened-ended truce in place since 1997.

"All volunteers have been instructed to assist the development of purely political and democratic programs through exclusively peaceful means. Volunteers must not engage in any other activities whatsoever," the IRA command said in remarks addressed to the group's approximately 500 to 1,000 members.

(cont'd...)

SOURCE - http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050728/ap_on_re_eu/nireland_ira_6;_ylt=AlDg8t2pdpSXLEF3FkX7AR8aryoA;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl