I'm sure everybody has heard about it by now but what you haven't heard is the true identity of three of the men caught in the plot. The media continues to refer to them as "Yugoslavs" when in fact they are Albanians from Kosovo. Yugoslavia has been dead for almost a decade. The US along with its "Western Allies" want to grant Kosovo independence to the same people that want to do them harm.
I would think this would mean "We must invade Iran!!!!" We'll have to gin up some BS reason first.....
So three ethnic Albanians from Kosovo got caught up in jihadist insanity and you want to throw all two million of them under the bus? I was a little surprised they were Kosovars--when I first heard "former Yugoslavia" my first guess was the Sandzak. There have been disturbing reports coming from there.
Seriously, the US has aided Bosnians (Muslim) and Albanians (Muslim) from the former Yugoslav republic. It is highly disturbing that any of them would want to do this. Frankly it makes me think the Serbs were right.
Well, it's disappointing. But the situation at the time had the effect of isolating the Muslims of Yugoslavia from the rest of the world and forcing them back on their religious identities--Slavic and Albanian Muslims are the least religious Muslims in the world. And for the most part, this is still true. During the wars, numbers of mujahideen and some radical Islamists used the conflict as an opportunity to spread their jihad and their message. For the most part, they were unsuccessful. But life is complicated--some angry or confused or misguided Slavic and Albanian Muslims were receptive to the message. Yet their societies remain secular, and mostly pro-Western. I don't even know where to start with this statement. For one thing, what do you mean "the Serbs? Are they a collective unit who speak and think with one voice? And which message were the Serbs right about? The whole "ethnic Muslims need to be forced from their homelands through an organized campaign of state-sponsored terror and mass murder"? Is that the message "they" were "right" about? So let's get you on record with this--three young immigrant, miles from home and drunk on religious hate and inspired by who knows what else, plan a terrorist act in the name of their religion, and you decide that this one incident validates a war in which an organized military and numerous state-sponsored paramilitary death squads killed over 100,000 civilians, gang-raped thousands of captured women as a matter of military policy, deliberately starved and entrapped entire populations of civilians, and systematically destroyed hundreds of mosques, libraries, museums, archives, and other cultural and religious institutions in a planned, centralized campaign of genocide? I could go on; point out that you've got the cart before the horse (there weren't any jihadists in Bosnia, the Sandzak, OR Kosovo before the Western world sat on its asses for three years watching an act of slow-motion of genocide against Muslim civilians live on cable TV; but anymore, when I get into a discussion about the Yugoslav wars of the 19901s I feel like I'm fighting the tide. A revisionist history of the conflicts is on the verge of becoming the conventional wisdom. And that's very, very depressing to anybody who believes that knowing history, and the truth, matters.
I'm trying not to start too many threads since I'm the mod, but I'm surprised as well. Maybe people were waiting for more information, but I've seen nothing to suggest that the reports weren't accurate. It was a planned terrorist attack. OTOH, as reports have noted, these guys weren't affiliated with AQ or any other group. They were just six young Muslim fundamentalists falling prey to the "glamour" of jihad. Which, frankly, shouldn't be comforting.
The ones I know may be religious, but the men wear western clothing and don't appear different from my other neighbors. The older women may wear headcarves. I've never heard anything political from any of them. My son's friends will return home at prayer times, when their fathers are present. They don't drink alcohol, so they make good designated drivers, except for the tendency to speed.
Older Catholic and Orthodox Christian Albanian women wear headscarfs, too. So do older South Slavic women. I'm sure there are Bosnian Muslims who don't drink, although I've yet to meet one!
Ahhh yes. As ever, the accusation by snide inference which no doubt will be followed up with What? Do you have something to hide or was I right? But yep, right on point. Talking point, that is. Liberals encourage or are not bothered by terrorism and only the GOP can keep us safe. Osama bin Laden voted for Kerry and Clinton refused to take him into custody when Sudan offered. It does get so old. The fact is that Bush and his cohorts have fucked up the so-called war on terror so badly that even if the Democrats had been handed the same problem and purposely tried to screw things up they would have got nowhere near where we are now. But yet, clinging to the sinking wreckage of a sunk ship we have the Chickenhawks and the Kool Aid drinkers spouting the usual shit that Democrats are in favor of al-Qaeda and would make the world less safe. In righty blog land, they speak of liberals and Democrats suffering from BDS - Bush Derangement Syndrome - wherein they lose all semblance of thought and logic at the mere mention of his name. Of course the real Bush Derangement Syndrome is evidenced by those who continue to hammer away at the belief that everything Chimpy and his gang do, and say, and believe, is annointed straight from a hotline from the big guy - God. Of course, the old canard that the Democrats are soft on terror and would serve us up on a platter to al-Qaeda or whoever comes stumbling by, well, that's still part and parcel of the Chickenhawk mantra. Why, some are even heard to observe that I found it very interesting how long it took for people on here to comment about this situation. Now cue the inevitable disingenuousness - Did I hit a sore spot?
I wonder if this is a sign of things to come... If any of these amateurs actually ever pull anything off - let's say to the scale of Virginia Tech and beyond - we could see a snowball effect where the increasing paranoia, anti imigrant rhetoric and police state mentality will only increase. That in turn would alienate more young American muslims.
Well frankly, I didn't think the story was very plausible. Because, you know, we're fighting them "over there" so we don't have to fight them "over here." So I figured it had to be a mistake....because....the admin. couldn't be wrong, could they?
I think the plot was so amateurish that there's not that much to comment on. I mean, their plan was to attack a military base? It's like, my plan to put out that fire is to drown it in gasoline. These guys really seem like that Miami group...drawn from some godforsaken reason to the "romance" of jihad, but exceptionally stupid to the point of being comical. If these guys had 50 brain cells between them, they would have gone to Pakistan to get their training. Instead, they chose paintball.
As long as the administration doesn't try to trot out "See? Our efforts at homeland security are working - we were able to thwart this attack!" I'm sorry - but for the terrorists being utter morons, bringing their tape in to be copied, and the clerk at the store handing it over to the authorities, there's no sense that they necessarily would have been caught. And they were under surveillance for 15 or 18 months? How long does it take to plan and execute a simple suicide mission involving merely guns?!?
Hey! Here's a talking point you didn't have when you were posting. CLINTON!!!! Yep! Bill and Hiliary were responsible. But those who hand out the marching orders and talking points hadn't come up with that when you were posting, but I'm surprised that you didn't just shove it in for old times' sake, anyway and hope that it would hit. There's still time if you want to get your licks in, though.
