El Sarkawi announces attack "bigger than 9/11"

[Seismic Anamoly]

Thank you Mike. That IS serious.



I wonder which major city they will Suicide-Nuke?? Washington? Los Angeles? Atlanta?



I'm glad I live where I live over here. Not much to draw attention to.



Ahh, well....my AR15, M590, and a few other surprises in my "closet" are ready to go if need be.



Merry Christmas. Good Will Towards Men.



Yeah.

[MIKE BURN]

I can't find any English language news source offering a detailed report so far. Of course no 'target' was named, it can also be outside the U.S. and a bluff as well.



Sarkawi spoke of "an event the world will talk more about than 9/11" (translation from the German news article).

[MIKE BURN]

European News Sources report that self-declared Iraqi Al Qaida leader Abu Mussab El Sarkawi announced a major terrorist attack of a "bigger dimension than 9/11" and "soon".







Since usually nothing happens when the "Department for Homeland Security" raises the alert to orange or purple-yellow, I thought I share these news with you, because I would take this announcement seriously considering the source of information.

[Seismic Anamoly]

It could be a bluff just to try to ruin the Holidays for everyone.



But I wouldn't put anything past this psychopath. bin Laden is a Saint compared to this guy.



As I said, much thanks for the info. Keep it coming please...if this IS the case, I'm sure our media will be "forced" to keep it under wraps.



It'll break out sooner or later, though.

[RonOnGuitar]

Yeah, Mike, most folks who keep up on the info expect that terrorists intend to "build up" from 9-11, instead of using "lesser" attacks, such as a suicide bomber who blows himself up in a bus (actually they should be called "homicide bombers" - suicide only requires one person!).



The 9-11 attacks were planned years in advance, during the Clinton presidency. They tried to take down the World Trade Center in 1993. Eight years later they did it - on 9-11 - so experts know it's just a matter of time before an even bigger attempt is made.



Just this week several planned terrorist attacks were discovered and prevented in Europe. One in Amsterdam's "sex zone" and another in Manchester, England.

[conalrehill]

Well, because most of the posts here seem to come from the extreme US Right, I thought I might try to put the opposing view. I agree with the suggestion put here that the USA will probably again be the victim of another serious attack, with the loss of innocent lives. Many academics and other qualified and experienced commentators on the Left are convinced that the USA is just another imperial power and must expect to be attacked as long as it continues with its current policies.



In a recent book, Dr. Edberto Villegas puts this point across in a rather convincing manner. I have read tghis book, and here is part of a review by Prof. R.G. Simbulan from the University of the Phillipines. I thought that the board members might like to comment critically on some of these points.



"This book analyzes the various forms of modern imperialism today at a general and theoretical level. The various eye-opening accounts of U.S. imperialism's designs are stunning, disturbing and very important. It shows why past and current U.S. actions in the world are in fact mobilizing more enemies against the United States around the world, especially from the South countries. It is a powerful, hard-hitting dissection of the political, economic and military instruments of modern-day imperialism. More so, the essays in the book make significant theoretical contributions to the central question of the relationship between economic globalization and U.S. militarism.



We should note that the United States now resorts not only to the hegemony of its transnational capital and U.S. military forces globally. It also is engaged, thru the global media that it controls, in a hegemony of definitions, as in the case of "the war against terror," where the enemy is defined as all those opposed to or are critical of U.S. imperialist globalization. Like it did against people's movements, socialist states and national liberation movements during the Cold War, it now resorts to the hegemony of defining the new enemy: "international terrorism"-- no matter how vague and broad the definition.



The title of this book draws attention to the fact that U.S. imperialism today is not only in a stage of hegemony but in a state of crisis. The multiple crises of global capitalism are so acute that it suffers from a combination of crises in legitimacy, overproduction, and overextension. Liberal democracy itself is in a crisis so that even its best ideologues are beginning to abandon neo-liberalism. The disillusionment toward the neo-liberal model has been compounded by instances such as the collapse of Argentina's economy following the International Monetary Fund's neo-liberal prescriptions to the hilt. So that now, imperialism must seek a new "terrorist" threat to deflect and distract attention from this crisis especially after the end of the Cold War. There is now a need to justify a more aggressive assertion of global power under the banner of "a war against international terrorism." Maybe this explains the offensive rampage of U.S. President George W. Bush and his oil tycoons in the White House cabinet.



The cultural hegemony of modern imperialism is not neglected by this book. The use of the so-called "soft power" -- winning hearts and minds of the world -- thru McDonalds, Levis, Hollywood, Microsoft and other U.S. commercial icons have effectively captivated hearts and minds in a globalized environment already dominated by the military (or hard power) and economic terms of a single superpower. This is not just about the Americanization of our eating habits. We must not underestimate this "soft power" being effectively mobilized and used as an asset by this hegemonic hyperpower that is fast replacing multilateralism with its own active brand of unilateralism in international politics, i.e. "the rule of force " instead of the multilaterally-defined "rule of law" in United Nations conventions.



Also, on the ideological battleground, is U.S. imperialism's methodical efforts to secure effective legitimacy for American policy in other countries such as Henry Kissinger's invocation of European-style raison d'etat or Samuel Huntington and Jeanne Kirkpatrick's glorification of authoritarian rule and U.S. imperialism's support for it. I am glad that an entire chapter was devoted to a critique of Francis Fukuyama and Huntington, two of imperialism's foremost contemporary rightwing ideologues today. This has been a serious arena for U.S. hegemonic winning of hearts and minds both in the American heartland as well as the educated elites in other countries.



The so-called "conservative revolution" waged by the most influential intellectual institutions or think-tanks in the United States like Kissinger's Harvard Center for International Affairs, American Enterprise Institute, and Heritage Foundation, among other institutions, have been well-endowed with hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. government and corporate funds to specialize in the critique of government income-redistribution programs, and rationalizing the conservative Right's domestic and foreign policy. These ideas-producing conservative institutions have produced and disseminated their ideas through books, journals and even subtly, through Hollywood.



The biggest U.S. transnational corporations and the Pentagon have also offered to finance Professorial Chairs in most of America's prestigious universities to support scholars like Huntington and Fukuyama who peddle conservative thought. It would be just quite simplistic for us to dismiss their intellectual initiative that still dominates the thinking of mainstream as well as most American and Filipino policy makers. It is both a lesson and challenge to progressive scholars who must seriously learn how to counter this intellectual aggression and onslaught with their own original and distinguished intellectual work.



As a whole, this book is an indictment of the muddled rabble-rousing and sabre-rattling (as well as flag-waving) thinking surrounding the contemporary events after Sept. 11. It is a comprehensive guide to modern imperialism that unmasks the real motivations behind the so-called "war against terror." It is a devastating critique of modern-day U.S. imperialism and its litany of past and present actions of murder and lawlessness around the world that would chill the bones of anyone who cares about justice, liberty and human rights. It is scathing and effective in not only exposing but undressing U.S. foreign policy which continues to operate within a framework designed for a bipolar world that no longer exists now that the monolithic myth of its old enemy "International Communism" has been replaced by a new myth of a monolithic "International Terrorism."



This book should be required reading for a new generation of students and young people now facing the prospect of being used as canon fodders in a war where there are no borders, and where every free-thinker amongst us becomes a suspected enemy."