also, i saw a thread on here saying that our intelligence agencies are at fault. this is quite true, we should've seen something like this coming. however, this is largely because of the misdirection of funds. i've talked at length to a very prolific terrorism expert, h.h.a. cooper, who teaches at my university. while i haven't talked to him about this topic yet, i know pretty much what he'd say. the only way you prevent terrorist activities is by finding out about them in advance & having a helluva good security system. he's in favor of israel-like flight precautions (armed guards on every commuter flight) as a method of preventing highjacking.
how do you find out about a terrorist organization? not by electronic survellience, but by infiltration. most of the intelligence funds since the collapse of the soviet union have been directed toward artificial means of intelligence gathering, like the advancement of satellites & the like. check the budgets, & you'll find this is true. we've been routinely placing emphasis away from the human element of intelligence gathering, which is a huge mistake. so yes, throwing money at these institutions won't do anything by itself, we need to make sure these funds go to EFFECTIVE counter-terrorism strategies, which, to be honest, need a thorough evaluation themselves. plus, with the current levels of anti-us sentiment in the middle east, we've been losing our regular contacts.
that brings me to another point. the most immediate explanation for these attacks is the massive amount of resentment that we're getting over the israel debate. we're taking a very hands-off, isolationist approach to the conflict right now. all we've been telling israel is that they can't invade palestinian held lands using our technology. we've also told them not to attack or hold palestinian held buildings/cities/land with their military hardware, either. that's about it. up until clinton left office, we had a very constructive, very hands-on role in the conflict, trying to broker peace accords. the middle eastern area have actually been quite frustrated with us for our current policy of non-involvement in the dispute. we nearly got labeled as a racist country ourselves at that u.n. conference for seeming not to care about what's going on. staying out of it won't help anything, that's what we've been trying to do since bush took office & it's only led to a massive escalation of violence. we need to make sure that israel treats its citizens fairly & doesn't try to expand its borders & makes peace with its neighbors, not withdraw. we made the mistake of unilateral withdrawl from countries we were heavily involved with at the end of the cold war. we left a lot of places high & dry. hell, somalia was mostly our fault. we left a huge power vacuum when we pulled our support from the somalian government. well, i won't get into that, but if anybody wants to know more about it, i'll send you some informative (& remarkably unbiased) articles i've come across. international relations is a hobby of mine.
finally, i do think we need to do something about osama bin laden. it's not about pride. i agree, we're obviously the goliath of this situation, but we do have certain principles that we're supposed to stand for, & if we don't, it will convince others that terrorism is a good way to accomplish their goals. terrorism, by definition (courtesy of professor h.h.a. cooper, who defined the concept during the 70's), is instilling massive fear in a population in order to accomplish political or idealogical ends. if we let this one go, we prove the usefulness of terrorism in affecting politcal change. retaliation will almost definately lead to reprisals, but doing nothing will prompt terrorists to attack even more. right now we have the support of the entire world, minus iraq & afghanistan. additionally, this was an attack not only against civillians, but against our economic & military institutions. in other words, the terrorists responsible for this attack committed an act of war against the united states, nothing less.
