Iran - will we soon face another aggressive act?

[The Mad Monk]

Quick question: how do Wahabists regard Shi'ites?

[Whaleboy]

Terrorism is not hard to fund. It does not require anything beyond plane tickets, a knife, and the contents of ones kitchen cupboard or garden shed. If you cut off the funding, you make it harder for them to buy nukes, or bio weapons, or chemical weapons, but as a proportion of all terrorist attacks, there has never been a nuclear incident, bio and chem attacks are very rare.

[OneFootInTheGrave]

Originally posted by The Mad Monk
The problem the extremist have is not volunteers -- they already have plenty of those. The problem is materiel -- weapons, equipment, training facilities, transportation. Money is the controling factor to their effectiveness. Remove the money, and you remove their power.

I wish

Wherever there is a goal there are means, their power is in the population and if the population finds the "west" as hostile as it rightfully appears, their power will only grow, and it is just a matter of time when they do some serious damage, on the scale larger than that of 9-11.

[The Mad Monk]

The contents of a kitchen shel or garden shed work very well if used in quantities requiring a truck or shipping container, but not otherwise.

That's the rub -- the cheaper the weapon, the more expensive the 'delivery system'.

[The Mad Monk]

When you get down to the size and effectiveness of a Palestinian bomb belt, the cost is around $10,000 -- mainly the explosive, but also the 'safe' detonator.

[Whaleboy]

The solution to all this is quite simple. If America stops p!ssing off the Islamic community, via direct action or corporate globalisation, then terrorism will decline and die out, as they become more prosperous, less antagonised, and happier.

It would appear that the antithesis of this is what the US is doing now, so either its aim is not what the above will achieve or they havent noticed what I have been saying, which is pretty obvious really to anyone with half a brain. Alternatively, their current actions look like a big vote-winner.

Its pretty shameful imo.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by The Mad Monk
Quick question: how do Wahabists regard Shi'ites?

Like Shi'ite.

[Whaleboy]

"The contents of a kitchen shel or garden shed work very well if used in quantities requiring a truck or shipping container, but not otherwise.

That's the rub -- the cheaper the weapon, the more expensive the 'delivery system"

Hardly

If I want to blow something up (which I dont, the thought is abhorrent to me, although I do like to think I understand terrorism), then I make a simple weedkiller bomb, which I load into a car, and drive into a high-profile target. The cost is something I, as a working individual, can easily meet. Anyone with a car, weedkiller and sugar can do the same.

"When you get down to the size and effectiveness of a Palestinian bomb belt, the cost is around $10,000 -- mainly the explosive, but also the 'safe' detonator"

If they wished, they could use far far cheaper means to the same end. It just so happens that tactically, their weapons are more efficient, but then, efficiency means little in terrorism, which is designed to cause panic, not actual damage. Even 9/11 was nothing compared to a single night of the Blitz in Coventry or London.

[Spiffor]

Shutting SA down would sure weaken the terrorists, but ti wouldn't stop their funding altogether, far from it. IIRC, terrorist organzations take most of their income from individual support to "the struggle", channelled by legal fundamentalist mosques and organizations.

[The Mad Monk]

Followup question: what happens when Wahabists hold Mecca?

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by The Mad Monk
Followup question: what happens when Wahabists hold Mecca?

They already do.

[The Mad Monk]

If they wished, they could use far far cheaper means to the same end.

Yet they don't. Why would you say that is the case?

[The Mad Monk]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
They already do.

They do? I thought the Saudis controled Mecca.

[Whaleboy]

"Why would you say that is the case"

I quote from my previous post....

"If they wished, they could use far far cheaper means to the same end. It just so happens that tactically, their weapons are more efficient, but then, efficiency means little in terrorism, which is designed to cause panic, not actual damage. Even 9/11 was nothing compared to a single night of the Blitz in Coventry or London"

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by The Mad Monk
They do? I thought the Saudis controled Mecca.

What sect do you think the Saudi Royal Family belongs to.