Comments on: Balkans Paradise for Al Qaeda

By: Rick

Rick — Sat, 31 Dec 2005 17:30:29 +0000

Interventionist blowback is actually not a cycle but a wobbly spiral, usually out of control.

Thank you, Mr. Clinton, for your empirically fallacious contribution to a grand unifying approach to the chaos theory known as the Balkans.

By: kb

kb — Tue, 27 Dec 2005 20:07:49 +0000

Actually, no.

Well that's the bombers who failed on the 21st july.

3 of the 4 bombers on the 7th july were british born and the 4th had moved to the UK as a child.

By: DL

DL — Tue, 27 Dec 2005 20:01:18 +0000

Some might say that all this has happened since Bill Clinton went into the Balkans with our troops and prevented the Serbs from keeping the terrorists on the run - and now they're free to do as they please.

By: James Joyner

James Joyner — Tue, 27 Dec 2005 19:28:59 +0000

Excuse me, the London bombings were carried out by young men who were born in England.

Actually, no. BBC profiles three of the four principal bombers:

Ibrahim Muktar Said - "He arrived in the UK in 1992 from Eritrea in east Africa as a child refugee, with his family." Yassin Hassan Omar - "He arrived in the UK with relatives as a 12-year-old refugee from Somalia and in May 2000 was granted indefinite leave to stay in Britain." Hussain Osman - "He was originally said by the authorities there to be a Somali who is a naturalised British citizen. However they later corrected this to say the 27-year-old was naturalised British subject of Ethiopian origin and had lied to obtain a British passport. " I haven't found much on Ramzi Mohamed. He is "reportedly from Somalia." At any rate, the antecedent of "this" is Europe's failure to take terrorism seriously, not the Balkan problem per se.

By: jimbo

jimbo — Tue, 27 Dec 2005 18:56:17 +0000

"We've already seen some of the fruits of this [illegal immigration in the Balkans], with the bombings in London and Madrid."

Excuse me, the London bombings were carried out by young men who were born in England.

By: Sissy Willis

Sissy Willis — Tue, 27 Dec 2005 17:32:15 +0000

I suspect the "clear, unmistakable evidence" shows that Larry Johnson is trying to cover his rear end. As the Swedish National Defense College specialist Magnus Ranstorp testified before Congress, "They came in ten years ago, that was the first warning signal, it was the embryo of what became al-Qaida in Europe." That would have been, perhaps, when Johnson was failing to connect the dots during his CIA stint. Too early to blame Bush then, so let's displace the source of the threat to the Bush Doctrine of pre-emption. Re Gregory Katz's assertion that "This sentiment has grown in ferocity since the United States and Britain invaded Iraq two years ago, according to analysts and enforcement agents," two questions: 1. Who are these "analysists and enforcement agents," and what are their agendas? 2. What, since we invaded Iraq, has outdone 9/11 for ferocity?

By: white pebble

white pebble — Tue, 27 Dec 2005 16:45:24 +0000

Everything that rises… (terrorism and crime)

This bit at Outside the Beltway reminds me strongly of the title of the Flannery O’Connor story, Everything That Rises Must Converge. I wonder how the islamofascist and palestinian apologists will rationalize this.
Balkans Paradise for Al Qaeda...