On 2001-09-25 09:15, Kurt63 wrote:
The Mullahs of Tehran are suppressing an increasingly restless younger generation. This younger generation, which actually makes up more than 50% of the population, has grown increasingly impatient with the older generation's oppressive rule.

I have to side with Kurt here (hi, Kurt, ltns ). Growing impatient with the older generation's rule is not something young Heroes do. Besides, I can't see what happened in the '70s in Iran as anything other than a 4T.

Wow, that's really interesting. I knew Iran had a huge number of young people, but that is an *enormous* prophet gen in terms of percentages. I wonder if a number of nomads and heroes died in the war with Iraq and the remaining hero gen felt a compulsion to have a lot of children so that the society wouldn't fall apart. Sort of like the US in the 1950s. And it sounds like those young people see Islam very differently from the Taliban.

I saw a report on Afghanistan last night on MSNBC. A documentary film maker was interviewing supporters of bin Laden who had been imprisoned by the Northern Alliance. What really struck me was that these guys (and of course they were all guys) were from *everywhere*. There were people from Morocco to Pakistan in the prison camp. The subtitle of the film maker's documentary was "Abandon All Hope." Chilling. One bright point of the film within the film was when the documentary makers caught a bunch of women and children out during the day by themselves. There were no men around, so the women had taken off their restrictive face covers and were enjoying a moment of sun and freedom. They were laughing and enjoying themselves. Because the film crew was all Western the women allowed themselves to be filmed without their covering. This lead me to believe that the extreme covering in Afghanistan, much more than you see in other Islamic countries, is not naturally part of the culture, but a reaction to Taliban rule in the rest of the country that spread even to the northern portion. The hearts of the people are not with the Taliban, making them an easier target? Also, they showed a school for girls, something that would be outlawed in Taliban-controlled regions. The school had nothing, a few desks were recently made, but before that the girls just sat on the floor. But enrollment is huge and the girls' thirst for knowledge is enormous. This gave me some small hope, I don't know why.

Hello, Lis. We're agreeing on something...another sign that the Fourth Turning is here? :wink:

Neisha,
In many ways, the situation is very confusing over there. (By the way, a local DJ broke into the song "Over There" yesterday :smile: ) As someone else pointed out, the Taleban is not representative of all Afghanistan. Taleban is largely the Pashtun minority, which makes up some 40% of the population. Other minorities are chafing under the Pashtun rule. Indeed, under the present crisis (small "c") the Taleban seems to be losing control of the country, something that can only help the Northern Alliance, which seeks to overthrow the Taleban.

Reports claim that the Taleban army is simply disintegrating, as soldiers return to their tribal homelands. Eyewitnesses say that Kabul is turning into a ghost town, and even the Taleban's stronghold of Kandahar is strangely empty. This leads me to wonder what the air armada being assembled will strike against.

My profound hope is that the United States will simply assist the Northern Alliance in overthrowing the Taleban. And then help install a coalition government under the aegis of the United Nations, which will allow Western observers to oversee the removal of terrorist training camps.

According to Countering the New Terrorism, foremost among America's goals must be to stabilize chaotic areas where terrorist organizations can flourish. Simply bombing Afghanistan, or overthrowing the government will not "dry up the swamp" the terrorist swim in. (To quote the Vice-President.)

One thing to note about the Taliban is that it is made up of people who grew up in horrible refugee camps created during the war with Russia and subsequent civil war. This clearly does not excuse the continuing violence that they are perpetrating in their own country and, through bin Laden and others, against the world. But it does help us in understanding how to prevent such activity in the future.

Let me go out on a limb here. Iran and Afghanistan have very distinct cultures. However, the Soviet Invasion was something of a defining moment for Afghanistan, and it also coincided with the Iranian revolution. If Afghanistan also experienced a Crisis then, then the Taleban repression might mark something of a very violent High, where cultural conformity is maintained with a very heavy hand. The other day, CNN aired a film clip, where four veiled women were driven to some field somewhere, and then executed with an AK-47. It might be that their crime was something as minor as letting their faces be seen.

Admittedly, this is merely a idle speculation.

I don't know. My own analysis is that the Soviet war was an unravelling war and Afghanistan is in a 4T with its current civil war. In a 1T, society is mostly on the same page with regard to public life. I don't see how a civil war could happen during a 1T, but I am willing to entertain the notion if you have further thoughts.

Perhaps we'll never get to the bottom of this... but I wonder, and I've asked Tristan about this (he doesn't know), but why does Ms. Genser keep refering to Tristan as "Tristam"?

I suppose I,m rather sensitive to it. I mean, folks always refer to me as "Mark". But... this is somehow different.

On 2001-09-25 15:40, Neisha '67 wrote:
I don't know. My own analysis is that the Soviet war was an unravelling war and Afghanistan is in a 4T with its current civil war. In a 1T, society is mostly on the same page with regard to public life. I don't see how a civil war could happen during a 1T, but I am willing to entertain the notion if you have further thoughts.

For the sake of argument, let's postulate a Crisis in the United States that ends with the ascendancy of a neo-Nazi white supremacist political party. In the High, even if people of non-European descent try to be "on the same page with regard to public life," they would find it impossible. In an era of strengthening institutions that are designed for their repression, life would become more and more difficult.

Now, in Iran's case, during the Crisis, the National Council of Resistance of Iran was organized by disaffected elements of Iranian culture, and have been waging a civil war ever since. The NCR have largely been ineffective in their fight against Iran's ruling classes. However, Iran is much more ethnically homogenous than Afghanistan. Therefore, I consider it *conceivable* that Afghanistan could continue a civil war during a High.

Am I saying the Afghanistan is definitely in a High? No, I really have too little data to go on.

Ugh. Kurt, that sounds awful, but you're right, it *is* possible. Some "high." There is no ethnic majority in Afghanistan, I wonder if the differences have to do with different thoughts about Islamic fundamentalism? From what little I know the whole country is fundamentalist, but no strain of Islam is as repressive and harsh as that practiced by the Taliban.

I don't know much about the Northern Alliance except that women are allowed a *lot* more freedom (education, medical care, the ability to walk around unaccompanied, etc.) About a year ago I saw a documentary in which journalists and photographers from National Geographic followed the recently deceased Northern Alliance leader, Masood, around while he fought the Taliban and visited refugee camps and tried to get medical care to the refugees. The film was horrifying. The conditions in the refugee camps were atrocious, children were dying of measles. One new mother was so malnourished she could produce no milk and had no feed her newborn tea made from filthy water in order to soothe him. Taliban snipers frequently shot at the crew. The poor photographers repeatedly had to dump their equipment and run for cover and then go back and retrieve it.

If that's a "high" the people of Afghanistan really got robbed.

I decided to take this selectsmart test on middle eastern issues. Here is match of various opinion groups is Israel.

http://www.selectsmart.com/FREE/sele...client=mideast

Rank #1 equals your best match

# 1 Israel Fanatic Settler
# 2 Average Israeli
# 3 Israeli far right-wing
# 4 International mediator
# 5 Israeli leftist / peace-oriented
# 6 Palestinian moderate peace-oriented
# 7 Palestinian suicide bomber
# 8 Average Palestinian
# 9 Palestinian Intifada supporter

I decided to take this selectsmart test on middle eastern issues. Here is match of various opinion groups is Israel.

http://www.selectsmart.com/FREE/sele...client=mideast

Rank #1 equals your best match

# 1 Israel Fanatic Settler
# 2 Average Israeli
# 3 Israeli far right-wing
# 4 International mediator
# 5 Israeli leftist / peace-oriented
# 6 Palestinian moderate peace-oriented
# 7 Palestinian suicide bomber
# 8 Average Palestinian
# 9 Palestinian Intifada supporter

And here's my results from the same selector:

Rankings:

#1: International mediator
#2: Israeli leftist / peace-oriented
#3: Average Israeli
#4: Palestinian moderate / peace-oriented
#5: Israeli far right-wing
#6: Israel Fanatic Settler
#7: Average Palestinian
#8: Palestinian suicide bomber
#9: Palestinian Intifada supporter

I'm pretty similar to Vince

# 1 Israeli leftist / peace-oriented
# 2 International mediator
# 3 Palestinian moderate / peace-oriented
# 4 Average Israeli
# 5 Average Palestinian
# 6 Israeli far right-wing
# 7 Palestinian Intifada supporter
# 8 Israel Fanatic Settler
# 9 Palestinian suicide bomber

1 Palestinian moderate/peace-oriented
2 Israeli leftist/peace oriented
3 International mediator
4 Average Palestinian
5 Average Israeli
6 Israeli far right-wing
7 Palestinian Intifada supporter
8 Palestinain suicide bomber
9 Israel Fanatic Settler

HTH

I found the following news item quite interesting. Today in Tehran, governmental security forces attacked a group of Artists, and possibly some early Prophets. Iran certainly shows a surprisingly strong rift between the Artist and older generations.

-----

IRANIAN POLICE MAKE ARRESTS AT VIGIL FOR US TERROR VICTIMS
TEHRAN, Sept 27 (AFP) -

Iranian police arrested nearly 10 people after breaking up a candle-lit vigil Thursday night in a main Tehran square in memory of the victims of the terror attacks on the United States.

The arrests were made by plainclothes policemen after uniformed security forces began breaking up the vigil by some 600 young people in Madar, or mother, square in northern Tehran, said an AFP correspondent at the scene.

Security forces moved into the square and ordered the crowds to disperse after the participants, mostly aged between 16 and 35, placed candles around a statue.

They were later seen pushing, or running after the participants with battons [sic.], sometimes even kicking them.

The police action came some 30 minutes after the young people surrounded the square, standing side by side, holding flowers and candles in their hands in memory of the thousands of victims of the September 11 attacks.

Several minutes of silence were observed before groups of people began singing an old Iranian patriotic song.

Others chanted "Death to terrorism," and "Death to the Taliban," while some chanted: "America, condolences, condolences," or "Terrorists get lost," and "Death to (Osama) bin Laden," the Saudi-born militant and prime suspect in the attacks.

It was the second major public gathering in Tehran in memory of the attacks in New York and Washington that Iran swiftly condemned.

On September 18, Iranian police prevented around 100 young people from assembling at the same square in sympathy for the more than 6,000 victims of the bombings.

Thursday's gathering also comes just one day after Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ruled out cooperating in any US-led anti-terror coalition.

On Iran: If I am right that the High started in 1988, the first Iranian Prophets should be born in 1985 and be 16 years old now. Most of the protesters were probably Artists, we should remember that so were most of the Civil Rights demonstrators in our own country. The Prophet generation will probably be much more militant, aiming to destroy the system rather than reform it, and later parts of this generation may turn back toward fundamentalism.

As for my results on the Israeli-Palestinian selector:

# 1
International mediator
# 2
Israeli leftist / peace-oriented
# 3
Palestinian moderate / peace-oriented
# 4
Average Palestinian
# 5
Average Israeli
# 6
Israeli far right-wing
# 7
Palestinian Intifada supporter
# 8
Palestinian suicide bomber
# 9
Israel Fanatic Settler


Old Toby

Sorry, this post was originally an accidental repost of the one above. Does anyone know how do delete posts here?

Old Toby

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Old Toby on 2001-09-27 16:23 ]</font>

On 2001-09-27 15:58, Old Toby wrote:
On Iran: If I am right that the High started in 1988, the first Iranian Prophets should be born in 1985 and be 16 years old now. Most of the protesters were probably Artists, we should remember that so were most of the Civil Rights demonstrators in our own country. The Prophet generation will probably be much more militant, aiming to destroy the system rather than reform it, and later parts of this generation may turn back toward fundamentalism.

Frankly I can't see Iran being a High the 1979 revoultion was the 1968 Paris protests on steroids and the Iran-Iraq war had awakening signs, very willing, fanatical if not untrained soldiers. Who fought with great bravery however little team, these soliders Sort like the Intifada, Mudjaheen, Algerian Islamists and other militant groups that were crawling around the middle east in 1980's and 1990's.

_________________


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Tristan Jones on 2001-09-28 04:15 ]</font>

Being willing to fight and die because some old guy with a beard told you too is much more of a Hero trait than a Prophet one :wink:

I don't see much similarity between the Iranian Revolution and Paris in 1968, but I am on record as saying that the latter was a Crisis event...

As for the character of the Iranian troops, I haven't looked in to the matter very much, but the Iran-Iraq war wasn't a guerilla or terrorist war, it was WWI style trench warfare. Of course, Iran could have already been in a High by then, Iraq was all along.

Old Toby

Toby,

You are quite right. My one hope is that, as the civil rights movement's aspirations were internalised and institutionalised by the subsequent Prophet generation, that Iran's freedom and tolerance movement's aspirations will also be internalised and institutionalised by it's subsequent Prophet generation.

The following article, while rather anecdotal, suggests that Afghanistan is war-weary, and perhaps post-Crisis.

-----

Friday September 28 2001

THREAT OF AIRSTRIKES STIRS HOPE OF AN END TO 22-YEAR WAR
From Anthony Loyd in Dasht-i Qaleh, Afghanistan

A FAINT breath of hope stirs through the dismal bazaar on the eastern bank of the Kokcha river in northern Afghanistan. It is all that seems to be moving at the edge of Dasht-i Qaleh, where the war has hovered like a cloud since 1979 and shellfire has been more familiar than rain.

The Afghans may be accustomed to war but that does not mean they like it. Connected to the outside world by Chinese-made radios, they know it is not normal to live in a nation with one of the lowest life expectancies, to scrape an existence between the rock of drought and the hard place of conflict; to lack roads, bridges, electricity, running water, medicine and education. Radio Iran, the BBC and Voice of America tell them so.

Now those same radio stations have informed the Afghans of the attacks on America and suggested the likelihood of airstrikes on the Taleban and their allies. The implication of that news has caught the attention of every Afghan leaning over his tiny transistor here because it brings with it the hope that something will change at last: the thought that the war might even end.

"All of us are happy now," explains one old man, Imam Yar, in a teahouse at the edge of the baazar, where travellers and Mujahidin compete with flies for sitting space, goat meat and rice. "We are just waiting for the Americans to bomb the Taleban, then the Taleban will leave Kabul and the north, the Mujahidin will enter and the war will end."

It is a universal sentiment in the crowded room.

"We don't even mind if American troops enter Afghanistan, kill all the Taleban and all the terrorists, so long as they go back home afterwards," another old man calls out. "We'll help the American soldiers, just as long as we are left alone in peace without the Taleban at the end of it all and that the US doesn't hit civilians."

The teahouse is one of those surreal Afghan venues where the presence of the war is almost ignored by the men despite its proximity. On the far side of the Kokcha, coalition troops are trading fire with the Taleban, whose tanks can be seen on the ridge. The violence often extends its reach to the bazaar, as the coalition's main supply route passes nearby.

Last year, stopping there for a windscreen repair, I asked how the mechanic's father had lost his arm. "To a Taleban shell," he replied. We departed and minutes later a new shell landed, killing the mechanic.

Space is given to a thin, tired-looking man to speak. His name is Wahidullah, and he has just arrived after a six-day trek through the mountains, across the front lines with ten of his family to escape from Taloqan, a Taleban-held town.

"The Talebs have begun forcibly conscripting the men in Taloqan," he says. "They are driving through the streets with loudspeakers shouting anti-American slogans."

He left not because he was frightened of potential bombing, but because he was a teacher. The Taleban had closed all the schools in Taloqan so he was moving in search of work - just another Afghan who has to risk his life merely to find a new job.

"My real hope is that the Americans will help us this time as they did when the Russians were here," Wahidullah concludes. "They are our only hope for the end of the Taleban and peace."

Outside the beat of shellfire continued, as it has done for 22 years.




Copyright 2001 Times Newspapers Ltd.

This article is reproduced for non-commercial, discussion purposes only.

-----

Wednesday, October 3 4:48 PM SGT

Hand over bin Laden or protect him -- either way, the Taliban lose
ISLAMABAD, Oct 3 (AFP) -

Washington's ultimatum to the Taliban is clear: hand over Osama bin Laden and shut down training camps for Arab extremists, or be ousted from power.

But for the hardline militia, complying with the US order would mean sentencing itself to a similar fate.

The foundations of the Taliban's predicament are rooted in its increasing dependence on hardline Arab and Pakistani volunteers to fight its crusade for the "world's purest Islamic state".

These mercenaries take their cue from bin Laden -- alienate them, and the Taliban could see half of its army disappear leaving huge gaps along its frontlines.

Taliban positions north of Kabul, for example, are believed to be manned mostly by Arabs and Pakistanis. Foreign volunteers are also concentrated around the eastern city of Jalalabad, and the vulnerable northern ethnic-Uzbek city of Mazar-i-Sharif.

The Taliban have always insisted they are a purely Afghan force, and immediately after their emergence in 1994, their ranks were dominated by ethnic Pashtuns from the south of the country.

But soon after capturing Kabul in 1996, the Taliban set their sights on the north, and began swelling their ranks with anyone willing to fight costly battles in the Hindu Kush mountains.

Taliban denials of the presence of foreign fighters were often laughable: "They are not fighting. They are just visiting to celebrate our victory," a senior official said of hundreds of Pakistanis seen pouring into the capital in late 1996.

But the key change in the make-up of the Taliban army came after the May 1997 debacle in the northern opposition stronghold of Mazar-i-Sharif, observers say.

Having paid off a local warlord, thousands of Taliban entered the city in triumph. But within days the deal collapsed: some 2,000 Taliban fighters were slaughtered, and another 2,000 Taliban POWs were executed and thrown into desert wells.

Until then, the puritanical militia had had a meteoric rise to power, seizing some cities without a shot fired and its leaders boasting that divine forces were at work.

But the defeat in Mazar-i-Sharif was an enormous blow to Taliban morale, and its attempts to recruit inside Afghanistan from its traditional tribal support base.

The Taliban instead turned to a different source of manpower -- Arab extremists and Pakistani students from Islamic seminaries. Taliban ranks were radicalised, and internationalised, changing the shape of the movement almost beyond recognition.

At the same time, bin Laden's role in the Taliban also increased. The alleged terrorist mastermind shifted his headquarters from Jalalabad to the Taliban stronghold in Kandahar, and reportedly married into the family of militia leader Mullah Mohammad Omar.

In policy and military decisions he is now considered to be on a par with Mullah Omar, and one of less than 10 figures who guide the day-to-day running of the movement.

As a multi-millionaire, his financing is also crucial to paying the salaries needed to keep local commanders on side.

The militia's reclusive leadership now commands an estimated 40-60,000 fighters. According to intelligence sources, some 15,000 of these are Arabs and at least 10,000 are Pakistanis.

And with the opposition claiming that some 10,000 Afghan Taliban are ready to defect, turning its back on bin Laden and his foreign friends would leave the Taliban waving goodbye to their overwhelming grip on power.

Thrust into a no-win situation and with hardly any friends left, analysts say the Taliban have little choice but to dig in, try to buy time, struggle to keep its more moderate members on board and prepare for a long guerrilla war.



Copyright ? 2000 AFP.

I found the following article interesting. Farahnaz Nazir sounds to be quite a formidable woman. In 1848, during the Awakening in Persia, the poetess Qurrat al-'Ayn Tahirih publicly removed her veil sending shockwaves throughout Persian society. It will be interesting to see what affect her spiritual daughter will have. I wonder when Mrs. Nazir was born.

The following article is reproduced for non-commercial, discussion purposes only.

-----

Thursday October 11 2001

WOMAN SHEDS VEIL TO OPEN EYES OF OTHERS
Janine di Giovanni in Khoje Bahawudine

ON March 8, International Women's Day, Farahnaz Nazir launched her country's only women's group. This act would not be extraordinary, had it not taken place in Afghanistan, in a remote village where she is the only woman who refuses to wear a burka.

But Mrs Nazir's life is a series of struggles. When asked to list the rights women have in Afghanistan, even in territories not held by the Taleban, she hesitates: "We have none. It's just a dream. A dream for most women, a dream for me."

When she wrote to the governor of this drought-stricken province for help in teaching local women the Koran and basic healthcare, he sent help by way of closing down her small centre.

"Of course I kept it open," she says. "I just told the women to be careful when we meet."

When her husband was threatened by the authorities because of his wife's work, Mrs Nazir, 34, responded with even greater defiance. "I went to the authorities and said, 'If you have something to say, you say it to me, I am running the centre, not my husband'."

When she refused to wear a burka because she had spent years wearing Western-style clothes and would not bend to the Taleban, even her husband's fury could not convince her.

She says she could not see or hear when she wore it, and she kept falling down. "And more important, I must set an example to other women."

These are ordinary acts in most other countries. But to gain perspective on Mrs Nazir's bravery, one must know what it is like to be a woman in Afghanistan.

If you live in areas controlled by the Taleban - almost the entire country - you cannot go to school; you cannot work; you cannot go to a doctor; you cannot go out unless accompanied by a man. It gets worse: your shoes cannot make too much noise, lest they incite lust in men. If you break the law, you may be stoned to death. Your vision of the world comes from behind the shroud of a burka. If you live in areas controlled by the Northern Alliance, girls may go to school, but the schools usually have no books and no resources, let alone desks. Their education usually ends at the age of 14 because there are no higher classes. There is one university in Faizabad for women, but the standard of teaching is very low.

Even the late Ahmed Shah Masood, in one of his last interviews, said that change was slow when it came to women's rights.

But before wars ravaged this country life was different, for the elite class, at least. Mrs Nazir earned a degree in electrical engineering from a university in Moldova. Even when she lived in Kabul, she did not wear a chador, opting for jeans.

When Kabul fell to the Taleban in 1996, Mrs Nazir, her husband and two children began an odyssey that took them to Pakistan for four years, where she learnt English, studying alongside her children.

She returned to Taleban-controlled Afghanistan, but realised what had happened to her country when she asked to pray at a holy site, Mazar Sakhi. "I wanted to pray for my family, but they would not let me because I was a woman."

Unable to live under Taleban law, the family fled, by donkey, to the north.

The rest of her family escaped to Europe. "It's just me here and my poor people," she says. "I could not stay away. I love this country too much."

In Khoje Bahawudine, Mrs Nazir realised that she was one of the few educated women. She began organising meetings for women, teaching them English and hygiene, and set up an education centre. She showed the women there was another world where women went to work outside the home, and that they could free themselves through education. "The Prophet Muhammad's wife was a businesswoman, after all, a trader," she says.

But it is a challenge fighting against tradition, and innate fear. She tells the story of a friend who fled from Mazar-i Sharif to escape the Taleban and found that life in Takhar, in this province, was equally repressive. Mrs Nazir tried to persuade her to join the group, to fight for change, but her friend said she was afraid. "They could kill us," she said. Finally, the woman returned to Mazar because she said it was no different from life in Takhar.

Despite the loneliness of Mrs Nazir's campaign, there are small satisfactions. There are now 100 women in her group, and she is teaching most of them English, as well as working as a nutritionist for M?decins sans Fronti?res and in a women's clinic. "I can't help these women economically, but I can help by opening their eyes, giving a different vision of the world," she said. There are other minute steps. At a small women's workplace run by Acted, a French non-governmental agency, a group of women, most of them war widows or married to men unable to work, have formed a collective, sewing clothes and quilts. For each day's work they get 11lb of wheat.

Fahima Murodi, their director, is a mother of seven and has a master's degree in economics from a Russian university. "We want to be free," she says. "We want to develop ourselves. But it is hard in a place where there are no opportunities for girls to be educated."

Mrs Nazir says she won't give up. She got stares at first when she went out without her burka but she does not now. "I think they respect me," she says. "Some call me mother."



Copyright 2001 Times Newspapers Ltd.

Read an article about Afghanistan in this morning's paper. It quoted a gentlemen who had been there that local custom requires these people to defend a guest to the death. It may be that Dubya made a mistake by demanding that bin Laden be handed over. It would have simplified the situation somewhat if the retaliation had simply been a punitive raid such as the bombing of Libya.

On 2001-10-14 11:10, Tim Walker wrote:
Read an article about Afghanistan in this morning's paper. It quoted a gentlemen who had been there that local custom requires these people to defend a guest to the death. It may be that Dubya made a mistake by demanding that bin Laden be handed over. It would have simplified the situation somewhat if the retaliation had simply been a punitive raid such as the bombing of Libya.

You are correct, if the coalition were merely seeking to punish Afghanistan with a public rebuke, then a punitive raid would have been an appropriate course of action. However, if the West were interested in actually destroying Militant Islam?s ability to upset the present world order, then the present course would seem more appropriate.

Militant Islam, the ideology espoused by Osama bin Laden and various other people in the Islamic world, has a political agenda that would prove highly detrimental to Western values and interests. Its military wing is formed by al Qaeda and various other organizations, and is supported by certain national governments and by many Muslims all over the world. While Mr. bin Laden was instrumental in the formation of al Qaeda, he is not its ?heart and soul.? Indeed, it appears that the terrorist ?brain? of al Qaeda may actually be Dr. Ayman al Zawahiri.

To undermine the Militant Islamic terrorist organizations, the West needs to fight them on several different levels. It must seek to intercept the individual terrorist operatives, remove their fundraising abilities, and disrupt the organizations? physical infrastructures. The latter objective will need to be accomplished by stopping the host country (in this case Afghanistan) from allowing the organization to operate from their territory. As the Taleban government is itself a Militant Islamic organization, it must be ousted from power, and replaced with a stable government that is strong enough to close down the terrorist organizations operating within Afghanistan.

Indeed, were the Taleban government to suddenly hand Osama bin Laden over to the American government this would be a terrible blow to the coalition, as this would remove the pretext needed to justify the removal of the Taleban. Let me say this, if the West stops with the death of Osama bin Laden, then it is making a terrible mistake. Al Qaeda will continue without Mr. bin Laden, and will continue its terrorist activities. If al Qaeda is destroyed, but the roots of Militant Islam is left intact, then new organizations will arise to take its place.