Al-Qaeda number two warns West it faces thousands of dead, economic collapse
Yahoo ^ | 2/20/2005 | N/a





DUBAI (AFP) - Al-Qaeda number two Ayman al-Zawahiri warned the West it faced defeat in what he termed its "new crusade" against the Islamic world, as well as thousands of dead and economic collapse, in a videotape aired by Al-Jazeera television.

"Your new crusade will end, God willing, with the same defeat as its predecessors, but only after you have suffered tens of thousands of dead and the destruction of your economy," Zawahiri said in his message to "the peoples of the West" broadcast by the Qatar-based satellite channel.

In his message, which he said was to mark the third anniversary of the internment of Islamists at the US military base of Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Zawahiri also hit out at US plans for reform in the Arab and Islamic worlds.

The US prison camp at Guantanamo "exposes the reality of the reform and democracy that the United States claims to be trying to establish in our countries", said the voice attributed to Zawahiri but whose authenticity could not immediately be verified.

He said that reform proposed by Washington would be based on the US prison camps in Cuba and in Afghanistan (news - web sites), as well as the Iraqi prison of Abu Ghraib, where US troops' abuse of Iraqi prisoners shocked the world.

It would also be based on "bombardments with fragmentation bombs and missiles, and on the installation of people like (Afghan President Hamid) Karzai and (outgoing Iraqi prime minister Iyad) Allawi," he added.

"If you, people of the West, think that these cardboard governments are going to keep you safe from our reaction, you are mistaken," said the Al-Qaeda number two, who appeared in good health and spoke with an automatic weapon at each side of him.

Zawahiri, hunted by the US and believed to be hiding on the Pakistani-Afghan border, warned the West: "Your real safety lies in treating the Muslim nation on the basis of respect and ceasing aggression (against it)."

The United States is currently holding hundreds of detainees from more than 20 countries in Guantanamo Bay. Most were captured in Afghanistan in autumn 2001, suspected of supporting the Taliban rulers of the country or Al-Qaeda.

It was the Islamic militant leader's second message in 10 days, an audiotape having been aired by the same Qatar-based channel on February 10. That voice recording hit out at the US concept of freedom, charging that it was a cloak for spreading corruption and injustice in the Islamic world.

These people just prove that religion is too strong a force for the stupid.

If the world were to just follow the golden rule and ignore most of the absolutely stupid crap found in the Koran, Old Testament, and New Testament, the world would be FAR better off.

Actually, the New Testament isn't as bad as the Koran or the Old Testament. If I had to vote for my favorite religious figure, I would want to have a beer with Jesus. He was far more mellow and easy going than the people we find in the Koran and Old Testament.

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"George W. Bush surrounds himself with smart people the way a hole surrounds itself with a donut." —Dennis Miller

What is you point?

1) This guy is still alive and so is Bin Laden (remember him) as far as we know. So this administration has failed in fighting terrorism.

2) Somehow this threat from a terrorist group justifies killing over 100,000 innocent people based on lies linking their government to with Al Qaeda

3) There still are terrorists in the world, and it is a shame that the USA is spending all of our resources trying to stop the hemmoraging in Iraq rather than fighting real terrorists.

Because Bin Laden is alive we have failed? Thats the only thing that measures success to you?

But it is a big one. Let me ask you a question. Suppose some criminal mastermind was to plan a robbery and included killing everyone in the bank as part of the plan. Your entire family was killed in the robery. If they caught the getaway driver, but not the mastermind, would you consider that successful crime fighting?

What about if they thought the mastermind was in a certain gang, so the police went and killed everyone in that gangs neighborhood without proof of any ties to the gang or the crime. Just leading to more police murders and more crime. Would that be successful crimefighting?

If you said no, why do you think the same policies are successful terror fighting?

First of all comparing something as large as Al Quada to a mere gang is ludicrous. They are very heavy populated throughout the middle east(including Iraq). We did not kill everyone in the "neighborhood" - just the one's exploding and shooting at us.(unintentionally some civilians)BTW that fictional 100,000 number includes tons of people killed by the terrorists.

Before we got to Iraq the police and government workers there were doing all the killing of innocents. We stopped that.--successful crimefighting indeed.

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Society is produced by our wants and government by our wickedness ~Thomas Paine

Yes. Because in your analogy, my goal is to stop bank robberies in general, not get revenge on the single bank robber that killed my family.

If my goal is to stop crime, and those gangs are a source of crime, then yes, they are fair game. Even if they are not guilty of that specific crime.

Because revenge is not my goal. Removing the threats is my goal.

Even if that were true, it would not be sufficient justification to let them get away with it. Our actions would be the same regardless.

Do you see the bad precedent this would set accoring to your analogy? Criminals would know that if they reached a certain saturation point (as far as murders and more crime) they could essentially force us to back off. They would get what they want, and the threat would remain.

I would respect liberals if they didn't capitulate whenever the going got tough...


They are just too Parisian for me... because I have decided to stop bashing the rural French...(they LOVE us)

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I was banned from godlike productions... and loved it.

I respect traditional conservatives. The ones that believe in small government and states rights.

However I have no respect for the current generation of Necons who believe in killing tens of thousands of innocent woman and children over lies, want to kill as many criminals as possible, want to kill the environment, but then moan about the rights of 2 month old fetus'. Neocons who say they want to give us our money back while borrowing more money from us than ever before. Neocons who says they want to fight terrorism, and then decide scrapping our principles and the Geneva convention is the way to do it.

And before you talk about liberals running when the going gets tough.... Have you ever seen the life history of G.W. Bush. He ran from Vietnam, failed in business and cashed in then ran form his failed companies. He is the biggest runner when the going gets tough that I have seen in the White House, although he is a big TALKER with other peoples lives.

"These people just prove that religion is too strong a force for the stupid."

Exactly..



and Hard-Driver... did you know that Senator Kerry lost the election?

oh, yeah... liberals = brave

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I was banned from godlike productions... and loved it.