Understanding terrorism

[tw]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

TW, you keep refering to the "Muslim Brotherhood". Obviously that's not what they call it but the English translation. In that Muslim countries speak many different languages, is there one name that they call themselves?

I was just talking to an Egyptian friend today. His concepts of Muslim Brotherhood are those who murdered Sadat. He also noted that Hosni Mubarak curiously was sitting right next to Sadat and yet was not killed. I would have to look again to be sure.

But the point is that the Muslim Brotherhood is really a vague, loosely defined, and not well understood concept. This is not how a US President can promote an enemy. Propaganda is to create an enemy that the public can better understand - Al Qaeda. Then blame everything on Al Qaeda. Do they really think bin Laden is still planning and executing against the US? Of course not. There is no central command. There is this murky concept called Muslim Brotherhood.

Our actions in Iraq and our intentions upon Iran would only serve to make the Muslim Brotherhood stronger and more dangerous even to our friends in that region.

Hamas is also listed as an example of the Muslim Brotherhood. And yet Hamas will not to attack Americans. Just makes the Muslim Brotherhood that much more murky. And yet to understand the region, one must first understand this strange concept so often called the Muslim Brotherhood.

To declare all terrorism or insurgency as Al Qaeda is to also call the Viet Minh a world wide communist conspiracy. America also made that mistake with the simple-minded reasoning of Lyndon Johnson and Gen LeMay. One would think Americans learned from their history and mistakes. And yet here we are again making the same mistake. Before one can defeat an enemy, one must first correctly define the enemy. Instead we let the propagandists blame everything on Al Qaeda.

How does one define a strategic objective WHEN the enemy is not even accurately defined? No strategic objective is why America has no exit strategy for Iraq. That was a lesson of Vietnam. How many learned that lesson - or instead believed White House propaganda that also blamed Saddam for the 11 Sept attacks?