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Thursday, September 11, 2008
A libertarian and a conservative debate international terrorism
As we commemorate the 7th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, its a good time to reflect on the successes and failures of the West's response to terrorism.
At 5:30 Mountain Time tonight, Scott Horton, the host of Antiwar Radio, will debate Dr. Harvey Kushner, author of Holy War on the Home Front on the topic “is the United States pursuing the correct strategy against international terrorism?” Both men are keen observers of international affairs and experts in their own right, but that doesn't mean there won't be some serious disagreements. I'm anticipating a substantive but lively debate - you can watch it live right here.
Update: The recording can be found here.
Posted by Kalim Kassam on September 11, 2008 in International Affairs | Permalink
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Evening, folks. Long time no speak; I got a little chuffed after the 4th or 5th time my comment got deleted here.
I don't mean to derail this post, but it is about a fundamental issue in the WOT and this just occurred to me: why don't we torture everyday domestic criminals?
Clifford Olson first comes to mind; instead of paying the guy $100,000 to produce the bodies of the ten kids he killed, why would not just torture him?
The average pedophile is said to have many vicitims; why not assume every caught pedophile has diddled previous victims, as is statistically probable, and torture a confession out of him, or her?
One of the Belgian pedophile Dutroux's vicitims starved to death in his dungeon while he was in jail; that girl would have been saved if he was tortured. Karla Homolka's sex tapes would have surfaced *before* the trial, not after she cut a deal.
Imagine getting convictions on entire branches of criminal organizations like Hell's Angels or the Liberal Party of Canada, based on torturing one guy pulled over on a speeding ticket. You could, effectively, end organized crime, an enormous benefit to society.
So, why don't we do it, or even debate doing it?
Posted by: Mocker | 2008-09-11 5:39:00 PM
Why does this automatically start when I go to the WS blogs. If I want to watch it I'll connect to it myself.
Posted by: The Stig | 2008-09-11 5:40:22 PM
This is really annoying that you can't shut this off.
Posted by: The Stig | 2008-09-11 6:08:30 PM
You're right, The Stig, it is irritating. I tried to go into the html to fix it, but the Ustream feed doesn't seem to work like other flash players (usually, there's something like "autoplay = "true"" or whatever). I'll send Kalim a message and see if he can fix this.
Posted by: P.M. Jaworski | 2008-09-11 7:01:36 PM
I couldn't stand it anymore. So I just provided a link.
Posted by: P.M. Jaworski | 2008-09-11 7:12:08 PM
Some may be interested in learning the views of Khalim Massoud, an American Muslim who is the president of Muslims Against Sharia. Naturally he is talking about the United States, but it is equally applicable here. The following are some of his comments during an interview.
"A great number of Muslim "experts" used by the US government are connected, in one way or another, to some kind of terrorist group. This connection is either direct or through a front organisation, such as CAIR, ISNA, MPAC, etc. These "experts" almost in every case declare that their loyalties lie with Islamism and not America. I am not aware of every single expert ever used by the US government, but almost every single Muslim "expert" that I know of, and that is quite a few, is an Islamist.
The majority and civic Islamic organisation in America are funded by Wahhabi petrol-dollars and push the radical agenda of the Muslim Brotherhood, which includes eliminating and destroying the Western civilisation from within and sabotaging its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and Islam is made victorious over all other religions.
Every government official that hired an Islamic extremist either knowingly or without conducting due diligence should be fired along with their protégés. If there is a pattern of hiring Islamic extremist, the official should be tried for aiding and abetting terrorism. Anyone who proclaims Islamic extremist views should be tried for sedition, since we are at war with radical Islam, or at the very least promptly deported.
Due to the sensitive nature of some government work, all Muslims should go through extensive background checks before being hired. Some might call it discrimination or profiling. It is. It is also common sense to give extra scrutiny to people whose co-religionists are at war with us. If a Muslim feels that he/she is American first, it would not bother him/her. Personally I would be happy to go through extra vetting if that could prevent Islamists from infiltrating our government."
When he was then asked - "But how can we charge officials for aiding and abetting terrorism when hiring Islamic extremists when we still have difficulty charging the extremists themselves with anything?"
He replied: "The problem is that we are to PC to charge the extremists with anything. We have no will to charge the extremists with anything. But one thing is for sure; treating terrorism as a law enforcement issue will get us all killed. Civilian courts are ill equipped to deal with conspiracy to commit terrorist acts; it is hard or impossible to prove intent beyond reasonable doubt. Take the Liberty City Seven case. Videotaped evidence was not good enough to prove it. And the reactive approach of law enforcement does not work either. There is nothing you can do with a homicide bomber after he commits a terrorist act. We have been very reluctant to take proactive approach and treat terrorism as a military issue, but it is the only solution whether we like it or not."
When asked how do we define an Islamic extremist, he replied:
"Defining what an Islamic extremist is not that difficult. Islamic extremists could be fairly easily defined by their own views on issues. Detecting them could be a lot harder, but in the current climate of government and media dhimmitude, Islamic extremists do not even have to hide their views. And how can you blame them? Our government almost completely ignores their extremist views and embraces them at almost every level."
Clearly we have a long way to go, if we even have the will in the first place.
Posted by: Alain | 2008-09-11 10:10:46 PM
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