Where will al-Qaeda bomb next? London, Rome, Copenhagen???

[Cascadian]

I was truly saddened of the events that took place in Madrid today. While my heart and thoughts go out to the Spanish people, I cannot help but wag a finger at conservative Spanish Premier Aznar for going along with Bush's invasion of Iraq. I cannot help but feel the bombings were a direct result of this. I am also a little surprised that al-Qeada or whoever did not attack London since Britain was a major player in the Iraq invasion. It is also interesting that they choose to attack a few days before the general elections in Spain. A certain Aznar victory perhaps?

I also wonder if an attack could happen here days before our elections. October surprise anybody? The thought of it all disturbs me.

John

[mot78]

1. Aznar supporting Iraq had nothing to do with it

Bin Laden has repeatedly threatened attacks in France and Germany as well.

[Cascadian]

2. You have to admit they are probably low on the hit list.

They went after Australia (via Bali). I am certain that those in the coalition of the willing are on a higher rank than say Canada, France, or Germany.


John

[Matilda]

5. John Howard wanted Australians to think they were being targeted in Bali.

To help the sales of tinfoil hats. But my husband has a contact
in the Foreign Office here, and he said they believe the Bali
attack was specifically targeted at the Balinese, because they're
Hindus, and also because they allow the decadent westerners in
to get drunk and run round semi-naked, etc. It just happens that
a lot of Australians go to Bali for holidays, and were bound to
be caught up in what happened.

In other words, if A-Q are going to hit Australia, they'll hit
Australia.

[_Jumper_]

3. When?

n/t

[Xanth]

4. I agree

bin laden just kills to kill. He even kills his own Muslim brethren.

[Zomby Woof]

6. makes you really regret

Reagan propping him up with arms and money to help him kill those pesky Russkies, eh? ;-)

[KurtNilsen]

28. Wasn't it Carter who started funding the mujahedeen?

[revcarol]

7. I disagree. The big bombings, Bali and Madrid were to target

"coalition of the willing" allies of the U. S. and were a prelude to attacks on more U. S. targets. Targets could be American business interests(we are the evil capitalists, after all,)embassies, planes, ships, ports, or the U. S. itself.The hotel bombed in Bali was the favorite hotel of Australians of some means.

Bush made us LESS SAFE by invading Iraq, and also is making it horrible for those stupid enough to be "fer us." Look for a major attempt in Britain or against British business interests.

[leesa]

36. You mean like our government killed 500++ US soldiers in Iraq?

You have no proof that Muslims did anything. You are allowing your prejudices to lead you by the nose. You believe it because this lying administration said so???? Quit being so gullible that whenever they cry "Muslim terrorists" you fall for it.
This government is conning you into believeing Muslims are responsible for every evil thing in the world when there is hard proof that the US government is behind a lot of the things they blame on the Boogie Man Muslim.

[Xanth]

40. Dude, where's my car?

Hello, there may have been some friendly fire kills, but most of the dead soldiers were killed in chicken shit blind sided kills. And my government didn't kill them.

My prejudices have nothing to do with my thoughts on the matter. The facts way heavily on them though. Bin laden seems to be behind most of the calculated terrorist activity that we hear about. So that is what I am going on. Hum, and I think he's Muslim or claims to be.

Here's a link on the story about the Iraqi Holy Day that was to be celebrated for the first time since the fall of Saddam. http://news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,8849085%255E2,00.html
Muslims killing Muslims.

This government is conning you into believing Muslims are responsible for every evil thing in the world when there is hard proof that the US government is behind a lot of the things they blame on the Boogie Man Muslim.

The government hasn't conned me. They inform me and I make my own decision based on as many facts as possible. Muslims terrorists aren't the only ones inducing evil in the world either.

Don't be conned into believing all your conspiracies.

[leesa]

24. Why do you think bin Laden had anything to do with it?

People are so gullible to believe what the corporate press and the corporate WH tell them. It is so pathetic. All they have to do is cry Al Qaeda, a microscopic collection of people, and we are ready to go out and kill all Muslims.
Hello, it's probably your own government behind it. The terrorists don't have to do a thing but sit back and watch the neocons. Why would they set off this bomb?? It benefits the Bush Cabal.

[Minstrel Boy]

8. Toronto, I fear.

It doesn't matter that Canada didn't join the Iraq misadventure. Whether you accept the official story on Al Qaeda or believe it to be the militant wing of the Carlyle Group, Canada's on the list. A "bin Laden" tape of last year named Canada (prompting a lot of "didn't he get the memo?" reactions from Canadians who thought staying out of Iraq would mean we'd bought protection). Canada is also a "soft target," and Middle America's closest - ie, whitest - neighbour. News of carnage in Canada would be more likely to strike fear into Americans than reports of similar attacks in Europe and Asia.

Canada has an election too, likely late Spring. What better time to stampede voters towards the right, to teach them the hard lesson of the War on Terra, to get them to sign on to SDI, to learn the cost of defying the United States? To those ends, I think US officials could withold intelligence that would prevent a devastating attack in order to further a geopolitical objective.

[Cascadian]

9. You know what is scary?

I get a funny feeling that this could be the start of a series of attacks worldwide including the U.S. to get people to scared into submission on compromising their liberties and giving the right-wing more power.


John

:scared:

[Must_B_Free]

11. Nahh, our men of pow have far too much integrity for that.

Remember "as long as there is one merican out of work This president is going to be concerned about jobs".

These are Christian men. True absolute power corrupts absolutely, but I think that Republicans have far too much interest in fariness and honesty to do anything underhanded to help them win.

And if you believe that you are a fucking idiot.

[Xanth]

13. Getting attacked doesn't scare me...

as much as the loss of my liberties and rights. If I happen to be near an attack and get killed, well I would consider myself a martyr for living my life in freedom. I just can't believe those homicide bombers really want to die. They just want to get those pretty girls on the other side. They just want to kill us because we don't have to die to get the pretty girls.

If I don't die I fear more government control. It really doesn't matter whose in power. The attack is a reason for big brother to take more from me.

[Minstrel Boy]

18. I'm not afraid for my personal safety,

though naturally I am for my family's. But my more realistic concern is for what it could do to our society.

Canadians wondered for a while, but thanks to the Bush years we know: Canada is distinct - hell, mega distinct - from the United States. And we like it that way. But one attack, and it could all be undone.

[Cascadian]

33. Could it bring in the Tories to power in Ottawa?

I have been wondering about this for a while now.

I wonder if Karl Rove and the other right-wing jackals are helping out the New Conservative Party to win in the up and coming Canadian election? You know that the Canadian neocons would do anything to gain power.

Have a take on this?

John

[Minstrel Boy]

37. It would certainly give them a boost.

Unlikely enough to form a majority government, since they have almost no chance of winning a single seat in Quebec, and that's unlikely to change whatever happens. (Writing off Quebec, they would need to win better than two-thirds of the seats in the rest of the country to form a slim majority. That's as good as impossible.) But a minority government could well be in the cards in those awful circumstances.

A major attack would certainly dash the hopes of the resurgent NDP, which is viewed as the weakest on defense and seeks greater disengagement from the US.

I'll be virtually holding my breath until the election's over. Too bad we still don't know when it will be held.

[_Jumper_]

10. I disagree

Al-Qaeda would not attack Canada because your refugee policy benefits it immensely. It will not want Canada to tighten its borders. Of course, Canada is a likely target for a MIHOP.

[Muddleoftheroad]

12. Sorry, terrorists don't think that logically

They will attack somewhere in the Western nations. They attack to get attention and we as free states are unable to stop everything they do without eliminating our freedom.

Face it, there IS a worldwide war on terror, but so far only one side is really fighting it and it ain't us.

[_Jumper_]

14. Why "the West"?

What makes you think they are fighting a war against "the West"?

There is a War on Terrorism but Al-Qaeda's targets are a specific group of countries, not all majority-white Christian countries, which is basically what "the West" is. We need to lose the archaic Eurocentric paradigm.

[ButterflyBlood]

15. They may have targets other than "the West"

but that doesn't mean ever nation in "the West" isn't a target.

[_Jumper_]

16. What makes you think "the West" is a target?

Thus far, every single Al-Qaeda attack has been in Muslim nations, most of them in Arab nations. A grand total of one "Western" nation has been attacked by it thus far.

[Valerie5555]

34. Egads Toronto (since that was my and my sister's birth place), Calgary

since it's my home town, Edmonton (since my brother Paul lives there) or Vancouver (since my sister Marilyn lives there) would strike too close to home. :scared:

[DrWeird]

17. I guess I must be crazy.

Here I was thinking that Al Qaeda wanted us to invade Iraq.

[CaptainMidnight]

19. wake up!

"Al Qaeda" will bomb wherever BushCo wants them to next time.

AQ is a creation of the CIA. Much of the CIA is still loyal to BushCo. AQ doesn't even exist, really, except as an all-purpose political terror tool, an amorphous enemy, like Goldstein from 1984, which serves as an excuse for the International Oil Grab, ooops, I mean "War on Terror."

Notice how they always "strike" or issue terror warnings right when Bush needs to scare us or distract us from some current scandal or woe of his? This past week has been a lousy one for Bush, with Kerry on the attack, Roe admitting to Plames wrong-doings, and his 9-11 commercials backfiring.

And then today's news? TERROR IN SPAIN! And AL QAEDA PREPARES BLACK DEATH ATTACK!

&floc=NW_1-T&oldflok=FF-RTO-PLS&idq=/ff/story/0002/20040311/1644471865.htm

Remember Bush's British visit a few months ago? AQ supposedly struck the British Embassey in Turkey. Thusly, Bush and Blair could appear on TV, right afterwards, on cue, and stress how important it is for the British people to "Stick Together' in the War on Terror.

I"m telling you, Al Qaeda is a fake, phony, or invented enemy. Once you realize this, the veil will be lifted, and you can more easily see BushCo's manipulations, and even predict what they will do next.

Stop being fooled!

Captain Mike

[RBHam]

38. Too many sheeple continue to cling to their illusions...

They still think that Oswald acted alone.

[arewethereyet]

20. France, maybe Germany

[orwell]

21. Trial by Fury

How do you "know" who is responsible.

O

[rdfi-defi]

35. good question, i have not seen any evidence.

[HollywoodLiberal]

22. The question should be...

Where will BushCo bomb next?

[Matilda]

23. Exactly - no-one in their right mind can condone terrorism,

but it would be good if our leaders could try to understand why it
happens. They just don't can't come to grips with the idea that
millions of people in the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America
might be tired of the West carving up their countries to suit their
own agenda. When Osama sent a clear message after 9/11 that Muslims
want the US/UK out of their countries, no-one expected them to pack
up overnight and ship out, but to answer that by invading another
Muslim country without provocation was sending the worst possible
message, as many of us knew. And now there's Haiti, and Venezuela,
and maybe Cuba, and Brazil, and Iran and Syria, and so it goes on.

This has been happening for hundreds of years all over the world,
and surprise, some people have had enough. They want to decide for
themselves what kind of government they will have, and how they will
harvest their resources for their own benefit, and not for multi-
national corporations. It's not so hard to understand, but it
involves putting aside corporate greed, and it won't happen unless
we ordinary people in the West send clear messages to our governments
that we want to see a change of attitude, for all our sakes. It
might not be easy to stop the extremist fundamentalists, but it
is possible to stop millions of ordinary Muslims giving their support
to Osama, but bombing the hell out of one Arab country after another
isn't the way to do it.

That's one reason why I'd like to see someone like Dennis Kucinich
stick around and keep pushing his message, because I really believe
he has the right ideas. It can only be done with the olive branch
and good intentions, not with the bomb.

Rant over.

[newyawker99]

32. Hi HollywoodLiberal!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[Blayde Starrfyre]

25. Hopefully a very specific part of Copenhagen

Namely, Anders Fogh Rasmussen's office and Pia Kjærsgaard's house.

[tommilator]

27. If you hope for it, why not place the bomb yourself

It's not fun and games you know.

[sweetheart]

26. You guys need to remember the history

These al queda guys are nothing if not historical. They are very
focused on symbolic links between the muslim world and the west.

The world trade center was a symbolic link between the west and the
whole world.

The bombing in turkey was at the gateway between islamic and western
nations geographically, and timed to go off as bush touched tony
blair's hand in london greeting.

The moors and the islamic history in spain is part of this as well.
The spanish people were not aligned with aznar in this war, and by
thier proximity to north africa, share more sentiment with those
folks than nations further away. This makes the target another
fringe western power with islamic history and a population unenthused
by the bush nutter.

Were i an islamic historian, i could tell you likely predictions for
another bombing. Lybia for cooperating with the west. Egypt for
cooperating with the west. Morocco, France, Algeria.

There is logic behind attacks, and western paranoia about their
cities is not reflected by the attacker's track record... rather look
for those ghassanids
(mentioned by bin laden, historical tribe leaders
who sided with the roman emperors and occupiers)

[noonwitch]

29. Crawford, Texas?

You never know, they might just try to hit the guilty and not kill the rest of us.

[Malva Zebrina]

30. Japan will be next.

and then Poland. Just my two cents intuition.

[laylah]

31. Marianne...

what makes you think Japan? I ask because my daughter's bf is over there in a study abroad program through Colorado State U. :scared:

Jenn

[_Jumper_]

39. Japan was a member of the "coalition of the willing"

An attack on Japan would also shock many in "the West" who viewed this as a war against "the West" a la past wars where Middle Eastern Muslims sought to conquer European Christians.

[Zorra]

41. Using the Reichstag Effect

always seems to instill so much fear in people that they lose their ability to reason logically. It worked in Germany, it worked in the US, and now it is going to work in Spain.

What I can't understand is how people can be so dumb that they don't blame their leaders for being negligent when preventible attacks occur. I mean, when you get right down to it, it was Bu$h's negligence that allowed the 9/11 attacks to occur. He was the leader, we were attacked, he blew it, and he has never even owned up to the fact that he failed to protect our country. He would not accept responsibility for his failure, and the loser never even apologized to us. What a pathetic wimp. He spent millions of dollars to become the court appointed Commander in Chief, and then he failed to protect our nation from an easily preventible catastrophe.

So if he let's another attack happen right before the election, I say we start impeachment proceedings on him right then and there. Make sure that it his final failure in his long list of failures.

[arrogantatheist1000]

42. Good to see many differing opinions on this.

Even though I dont' agree with everyones thinking, I am glad to see a range of opinions. That is one great thing about this board, people are free thinkers.

I think within a year they will hit america. I believe they have been building up for quite some time now. You hear many rumors floating around and stories from local papers. About islamists buying things like ambulances and homes paying cash. And by cash I mean stacks of 100 dollar bills.

I believe the most likely scenario is they will hit america before the election again. They said that they would hit outside of america if their february terms weren't met. Then if their terms still weren't met they would hit inside america for a 'killing blow'.

I expect the next attack to be scarily large. They have consistently talked in the range of 100-300 shaheeds for the next american operation. They can't do an attack on the same scale as this recent spanish one next time on america.

The reason is that it would diminish their fear factor. Losing 200 in one day ultimately is not on the scale of losing 3000. I believe they need to actualy go well beyond 3000 next time.

Their threats mention 'winds of black death'. I believe this to mean a massive anthrax attack. When you get sick with anthrax you get horrible black lesions on your body. Now I could be wrong and their could be many interpretation. That just seems the most likely.

I also am of the belief that the anthrax letters were sent by people connected to the 9'11 terrorists. Atta went in to a doctor a few days before 9'11 with a terrible skin lession. That would be consistent with someone who was handling anthrax. Likely a tiny amount would have gotten on him.

Again this is merely my guess based on the reading I have done. I fully admit I could be wrong about the origions of those letters. I however have heard the american and other western governments lie so many times that frankly I don't care who they say did it. I form my own opinions based on the motives and what little evidence makes it to the press.

As for attacks outside of America I would guess it will depend largely on the behavior of each nation. Australia got hit hard in Bali and they very much backed off their aggresive support for america. Therefore why would you hit them again? If Spain now backs off which I expect them too I do not believe they will be hit again in the near term.

Btw I believe spain will back off because I don't believe the spanish people are willing to tolerate horrific losses like this 3'11 attack on a regular basis. Therefore the government will want to minimize its chances of being hit, because of its own survival. If the Spanish lose confidence in their governments ability to protect them will replace them.

If however Spain more strongly goes forward, which I find unlikely, I believe they will be targeted again. To set an 'example'.

I am not buying this thinking that they will hit France or Italy or Germany. That would largely be counter-productive. If however they do do that I will have to re-evaluate my thinking on why they are attacking non american nations.

As for England I believe the terrorists don't have an interest hitting them yet. Although the english are involved publicly they are giving free passage to terrorists. They aren't cracking down substantialy on mosques and fund raising and the like. Remember before 9'11 America was cutting off funding going to terrorist groups coming from America. They were doing this to appease the jewish vote. Which is fine its a democracy, I don't blame jews for wanting their families safe in Isreal.

This fact of course along with so many others is not allowed to be said on our media.

A couple posters mentioned Canada. I live in Canada and I find it extremely unlikely that the terrorists would target Canada. I know many muslims here in there 20's and there is no surveliance on them, and there is no control on their movement or their finances.

Canada is the gateway into America. The terrorists themselves have said that, and I have heard Islamics say that is why they would never attack Canada. I do however see long term danger for Canada, however from another source.

If the terrorists do execute a massive 300 martyr attack on America, especialy involved weapons of mass destruction like anthrax, America would change so dramaticaly its hard to even fathom.

Tommy Franks said that if there is another 9'11 scale attack America will have to move to a military dictatorship to protect 'freedoms'.

Top intelligence people in the US government have also said that the only chance in the long run if terror keeps up is to make a fortress north america. This will require the military take over of Canada. Or more likely Canada effectively giving up all of its rights and Americans coming in. Indeed already there is American military personnel at Canadian airports and sea ports. There is also Canadian military personnel at american air and sea ports as well. That was part of the deal.

If an attack of the scale they are talking about does take place though that will not be enough. The american government will have to move and change all aspects of the nation. If they do not the american people will overthrow them and find someone who will.

This war as I've been saying for a while now is in its early phases. Afghanistan and Iraq were early strikes into the muslim lands. We will have to go far far deeper and take far greater losses if we want to win. And the attacks on 9'11 were not the end of terror they were the first time it had reached the point where it affected a nations politics. 9'11 showed the world, from islamic terrorists to break away factions the western world's achilles heel. Now is the race to protect that heel on our part, and for the enemies of america to exploit it.