NewsTrust - Terrorism - Most Recent Stories: Opinion (Mainstream)

Under Attack

Sun, 13 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Wall Street Journal - By Michael M. Phillips - May. 13 (Dramatization) - When a suicide bomber struck a convoy in Afghanistan, a routine Marine patrol turned into a harrowing firefight. Michael M. Phillips with an eyewitness account of bravery and tragedy in the confusion of war. When the suicide bomber exploded, the world skidded to a stop. The Afghan police pickup truck, 30 yards directly behind us, disappeared in a geyser of thick gray-brown smoke. The only visible object was its hood flying through the air, a black silhouette against the murk, followed by the sound of broken glass falling. Then the smoke thinned, like the curtain rising on a stage, revealing the chaos the bomber had set loose. The pickup truck wasn't where it was supposed to be. The blast had hoisted it into the air and dropped it onto the median strip. There was a moment's hesitation among the troops next to me in the lead pickup. A lone motorcyclist emerged from the cloud, inexplicably upright and seemingly uninjured.

NewsTrust Rating: 3.3 average (not enough reviews) - See Review » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Diageo to end funding of Heartland Institute after climate change outburst

Sun, 06 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

The Guardian - By Leo Hickman - May. 06 - Firm has 'no plans' to work with thinktank following campaign comparing people concerned about climate to mass murderers Diageo, one of the world's largest drinks companies, has announced it will no longer fund the Heartland Institute , a rightwing US thinktank which briefly ran a billboard campaign this week comparing people concerned about climate change to mass murderers and terrorists such as Osama bin Laden, Charles Manson and Ted Kaczynski. On Thursday, a billboard appeared over the Eisenhower Expressway in Illinois showing a picture of Kaczynski, the Unabomber, who in 1996 was convicted of a 17-year mail bombing campaign that killed three people and injured dozens. The caption read: "I still believe in global warming. Do you?" A day later it was withdrawn. The London-based drinks giant, which owns brands such as Guinness, Smirnoff, Johnnie Walker and Moët & Chandon, said this year that it was "reviewing any further association with Heartland" following the release online of ...

NewsTrust Rating: 3.7 average (not enough reviews) - See Review » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

The worst mistake America made after 9/11

Sun, 04 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Slate - By Anne Applebaum - Sep. 04 (Opinion) - On Sept. 11, 2001, the post-Cold War era that began so euphorically on Nov. 9, 1989, abruptly ended. The long decade that stretched from the fall of the Berlin Wall to the fall of the World Trade Center was marked by military spending cuts, domestic political scandals, and a general sense that American foreign policy was adrift. President George H.W. Bush had talked of the "New World Order" but had no policy to fit the clever phrase. President Bill Clinton had a clutch of policies but never found a neat way to describe them.[more ...]

NewsTrust Rating: 3.9 average - 4 Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Foreign policy: intervention after Libya

Wed, 24 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

The Guardian - Aug. 24 (Opinion) - It can be said that in narrow military terms the west's action over Libya has worked, and that politically there was justification It is too early to claim that the Nato intervention in Libya has been a success in the full meaning of that word. It will be weeks before we have a sense of where Libya is heading, months before there is any certainty about its future, and years before we can properly assess the impact of the decision to use force to aid the rebels. But it can now reasonably be said that in narrow military terms it worked, and that politically there was some retrospective justification for its advocates as the crowds poured into the streets of Tripoli to welcome the rebel convoys earlier this week. The argument that we had foolishly gone in on one side in a civil war must be weakened by such scenes, which suggest that the picture of a majority wishing to see the back of Gaddafi is closer to the truth than the alternative picture of a people more or less evenly divided between ...

NewsTrust Rating: 3.4 average - 3 Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

The Past Is a Foreign Country

Wed, 27 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Jo Nesbo - Jul. 27 (Opinion) - A FEW days ago, before the bombing here and the shootings on Utoya Island, a friend and I were talking about how the joy of being alive always seems to go hand in hand with the sorrow that things change. Not even the brightest future can make up for the fact that no roads lead back to what came before — to the innocence of childhood or the first time we fell in love.

NewsTrust Rating: 3.8 average (not enough reviews) - See Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

America's 'detainee 001' – the persecution of John Walker Lindh

Sun, 10 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

The Guardian - By Frank Lindh - Jul. 10 (Opinion) - In 1998, aged 17, my son John Walker Lindh travelled to Yemen to study Islam and learn Arabic. In April 2001 he went to Afghanistan. Then 9/11 happened. He was captured by US troops, tortured, and jailed for 20 years, an innocent victim of America's 'war on terror' John Phillip Walker Lindh, my son, was raised a Roman Catholic, but converted to Islam when he was 16 years old. He has an older brother and a younger sister. John is scholarly and devout, devoted to his family, and blessed with a powerful intellect, a curious mind, and a wry sense of humour. Labelled by the American government as "Detainee 001" in the "war on terror", John occupies a prison cell in Terre Haute, Indiana. He has been a prisoner of the American government since 1 December 2001, less than three months after the terror attacks of 9/11. John is entirely innocent of any involvement in the terror attacks, or any allegiance to terrorism. That is not disputed by the American government. Indeed, all accusations of ...

NewsTrust Rating: 3.4 average (not enough reviews) - See Review » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Positive Disruption

Thu, 23 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Roger Cohen - Jun. 23 (Opinion) - Even in the men’s room at Google’s sprawling New York offices there’s no respite from the cascade of new ideas feeding the behemoth. Rather than gaze into space, I found before my eyes messages about “signal widgets” and the implication of hav

NewsTrust Rating: 4.0 average (not enough reviews) - See Review » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Why the Pentagon Papers matter now | Daniel Ellsberg

Mon, 13 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

The Guardian - By Daniel Ellsberg - Jun. 13 (Opinion) - While we go on waging unwinnable wars on false premises, the Pentagon papers tell us we must not wait 40 years for the truth The declassification and online release Monday of the full original version of the Pentagon Papers – the 7,000-page top secret Pentagon study of US decision-making in Vietnam 1945-67 – comes 40 years after I gave it to 19 newspapers and to Senator Mike Gravel (minus volumes on negotiations, which I had given only to the Senate foreign relations committee). Gravel entered what I had given him in the congressional record and later published nearly all of it with Beacon Press. Together with the newspaper coverage and a government printing office (GPO) edition that was heavily redacted but overlapped the Senator Gravel edition , most of the material has been available to the public and scholars since 1971. (The negotiation volumes were declassified some years ago; the Senate, if not the Pentagon, should have released them no later than the end of the war in 1975.) In other ...

NewsTrust Rating: 3.6 average (not enough reviews) - See Review » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Unsafe Pakistan: Wishful thinking

Sun, 29 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Economist - May. 29 (Opinion) - 6-hour terrorist assault on a naval base in the middle of Karachi, which ended on Monday May 23rd, was brazen even by the recent standards of the Pakistani Taliban and its associates. As ever, official confusion, or obfuscation, initially reigned about what actually happened. The interior minister, Rehman Malik, said that no more than six attackers were involved (including two who escaped). He also said that the 11 Chinese and six American technicians working at the base were never taken hostage. But the initial report the navy lodged with the Karachi police said up to 15 raided the base. And suggestions circulated that Chinese had been taken hostage, before the Chinese foreign ministry denied them. The raid by the Pakistani Taliban on Mehran base was the most troubling terrorist attack on the country’s armed forces in two years. The attackers killed at least ten Pakistani guards in gun battles, turning the site into a war zone. Once again, terrorists made Pakistan’s armed forces look sadly amateur.

NewsTrust Rating: 3.4 average (not enough reviews) - See Review » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

The Patriot Act and bipartisanship

Mon, 23 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Associated Press - By Glenn Greenwald - May. 23 (Opinion) - Senate Democrats use classic Bush/Cheney fear-mongering to demand quick passage of the Patriot Act

NewsTrust Rating: 4.0 average (not enough reviews) - See Review » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

India and Pakistan: The world's most dangerous border

Sat, 21 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Economist - May. 21 (Opinion) - The late Richard Holbrooke, the Obama administration’s envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, had many virtues as a diplomat, but tact was not among them. His description of his theatre of operations as “AfPak” infuriated the Pakistanis, who wanted the Americans to regard their country as a sophisticated, powerful ally worthy of attention in itself, not just as a suffix to the feuding tribesmen next door. But that was not the only reason the coinage was unwise. It encouraged the understandable American tendency—shaped by the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, the war against the Taliban and now the death of Osama bin Laden—to see Pakistan in the context of the fighting on its north-west frontier, and thus to ignore the source of most of the country’s problems, including terrorism: the troubled state of relations to its east.

NewsTrust Rating: 3.8 average (not enough reviews) - See Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Now that he’s dead, let’s end bin Laden’s grip on us

Fri, 13 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Eugene Robinson - May. 13 (Opinion) - Years from now, I believe, we will look back and say the elimination of Osama bin Laden changed everything. To borrow Churchill’s assessment of the Nazi defeat at El Alamein, “Now, this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”

NewsTrust Rating: 3.2 average (not enough reviews) - See Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Beyond Obama’s Bin Laden Bounce

Tue, 10 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Nate Silver - May. 10 (Opinion) - A fairly straightforward case can be made that betting markets like Intrade are underestimating the political impact of Osama bin Laden's death on President Obama's re-election chances in 2012.

NewsTrust Rating: 4.0 average (not enough reviews) - See Review » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Is It "Justice"?

Mon, 09 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Slate - By Thomas Nachbar - May. 09 (Opinion) - violence can be a form of justice, and justice occasionally requires acts of violence, butr, despite their occasionally close relationship, justice and violence should never be confused...

NewsTrust Rating: 4.2 average (not enough reviews) - See Review » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Osama bin Laden's death: The view from abroad

Sun, 08 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Los Angeles Times - By Emal Haidary - May. 08 (Opinion) - What commentators around the world have said about the significant event. In the days after Osama bin Laden was killed by Navy SEALS in Pakistan, commentators around the world weighed in about what the event signified. Here are excerpts of opinion writing from international publications. They were compiled by Emal Haidary .

NewsTrust Rating: 3.7 average - 5 Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Killing Evil Doesn’t Make Us Evil

Sun, 08 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Maureen Dowd - May. 08 (Opinion) - It wasn’t bad for college kids to feel good about their country.

NewsTrust Rating: 3.2 average - 4 Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

The Two Faces of Pakistan

Thu, 05 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

National Journal - By Michael Hirsh - May. 05 (Opinion) - “We are with you unstintingly.” Those were the words that then-Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said to the U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, Wendy Chamberlin, just after 9/11. Musharraf’s promise proved to be largely a lie—but not entirely untrue. Ever since then, whether the Pakistani regime was autocratic or democratic, Islamabad has played a well-thought-out double game with the United States that's involved handing over some jihadis and protecting others for Pakistan’s own purposes.

NewsTrust Rating: 4.0 average (not enough reviews) - See Review » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Chapman: Lessons for al-Qaida — and us

Thu, 05 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Chicago Tribune - May. 05 - Chapman: Lessons for al-Qaida — and us

NewsTrust Rating: 3.5 average (not enough reviews) - See Review » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Bin Laden's death: 'Why kill the goose?'

Thu, 05 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

The Guardian - By Tariq Ali - May. 05 (Opinion) - A meeting with one such person in 2006, which I recounted in my last book on Pakistan, confirmed that Bin Laden was in the country and being kept safe. The person concerned told me the Americans only wanted Bin Laden dead, but that it was in Pakistan's interest to keep him alive. In his words: "Why kill the goose that lays the golden eggs?" – a reference to the billions in aid and weaponry being supplied to the army.

NewsTrust Rating: 3.3 average (not enough reviews) - See Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Pakistan did its part

Tue, 03 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Asif Ali Zardari - May. 03 (Opinion) - Together, our nations have suffered and sacrificed. We have fought bravely and with passion and commitment. Ultimately we will prevail. For, in the words of my martyred wife Benazir Bhutto, “truth, justice and the forces of history are on our side.”

NewsTrust Rating: 3.6 average (not enough reviews) - See Review » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

No dignity at Ground Zero

Tue, 03 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

The Guardian - By Mona Eltahawy - May. 03 (Opinion) - The scene at Ground Zero was like a parody of Team America, the film created by the South Park team to parody Bush's America gone wild on nationalism. Now that we've parodied the parody, can the frat boys go home and can we return to the revolutions of the Middle East and north Africa that symbolically killed Bin Laden months ago?

NewsTrust Rating: 3.3 average (not enough reviews) - See Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Osama bin Laden: US responds to questions about killing's legality

Tue, 03 May 2011 08:34:33 -0700

The Guardian - By Owen Bowcott - May. 03 - Doubts remain over manner in which al-Qaida figurehead died but US officials defend Barack Obama's actionThe chorus of official applause from international leaders over the death of Osama bin Laden has failed to silence doubts about the killing's legality.Despite widespread backing for the raid, there is a growing demand for the precise legal basis of the US operation to be explained, particularly given the absence of prior debate in the UN security council.Some are asking was it an "execution" or an "assassination"?The immediate justification for the killing was that the head of al-Qaida had long ago declared war on the US and other nations."In war you are allowed to attack your enemy," a US embassy spokesman in London said.Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, echoed Barack Obama's assertion, stating: "Osama bin Laden is dead and justice has been done."A more thorough explanation of the legal basis was given last year by Harold Hongju Koh, legal adviser at the US state department.He told a meeting of the American Society of International Law: "Some have argued that the use of lethal force against specific individuals fails to provide adequate process and thus constitutes unlawful extrajudicial killing."But a state that is engaged in an armed conflict or in legitimate self-defence is not required to provide targets with legal process before the state may use lethal force."The principles of distinction and proportionality that the US applies are …implemented rigorously throughout the planning and execution of lethal operations to ensure that such operations are conducted in accordance with all applicable law."He added: "Some have argued that our targeting practices violate domestic law, in particular, the longstanding domestic ban on assassinations."But under domestic law, the use of lawful weapons systems – consistent with the applicable laws of war – for precision targeting of specific high-level belligerent leaders when acting in self-defence or during an armed conflict is not unlawful, and hence does not constitute 'assassination'."John Bellinger III, who served as the state department's senior lawyer during George W Bush's second term as president, also insisted the strike was legitimate."The killing is not prohibited by the longstanding assassination prohibition in executive order 12333 [signed in 1981] because the action was a military action in the ongoing US armed conflict with al-Qaida and it is not prohibited to kill specific leaders of an opposing force," he wrote."The assassination prohibition also does not apply to killings in self-defence."The executive branch will also argue that the action was permissible under international law both as a permissible use of force in the US armed conflict with al-Qaida and as a legitimate action in self-defence, given that Bin Laden was clearly planning additional attacks."Human rights groups have reacted with caution. "Osama bin Laden took credit for and supported acts around the world which amounted to crimes against humanity," said Claudio Cordone, senior director at Amnesty International."He also inspired others to commit grave human rights abuses. His death will put an end to his role in organising or inspiring such criminal acts."We do not know the full circumstances of his killing and the others with him and we are looking into that."One area of anxiety is the suggestion that the intelligence needed to locate Bin Laden's refuge might have been obtained through torture of suspects detained at Guantánamo Bay or other secret holding centres.Whether or not the Pakistan government authorised the assault on its territory might technically affect the legality of the operation under international law.But the enthusiastic support of the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, for the killing is likely to silence any critical voices in the security council."The death of Osama bin Laden … is a watershed moment in our common global fight against terrorism," Ban said. "Personally, I am very much relieved by the news that justice has been done."Osama bin Ladenal-QaidaPakistanHillary ClintonUS politicsUnited StatesUnited NationsAmnesty InternationalBan Ki-moonGlobal terrorismInternational criminal justiceObama administrationUS foreign policyUS militaryOwen Bowcottguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

NewsTrust Rating: 4.0 average (not enough reviews) - See Review » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

After Osama Bin Laden ...

Mon, 02 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Nicholas Kristof - May. 02 (Opinion) - President Obama has just announced that the United States killed Osama bin Laden today in Abbottabad, Pakistan, and recovered his body. It has been nine years and seven months since Osama orchestrated 9/11, but an American team finally killed him. His body is in American hands. This is revenge, but it’s also deterrence and also means that bin Laden won’t kill any more Americans. This is the single most important success the United States has had in its war against Al Qaeda. So what does this mean? First, it is good for the United States reputation, power and influence that we finally got bin Laden. Bin Laden’s ability to escape from the U.S., and his apparent impunity, fed an image in some Islamist quarters of America as a paper tiger — and that encouraged extremists. Bin Laden himself once said that people bet on the strong horse, the horse that will win, and the killing underscores that it’s the United States that is the horse to bet on. Moreover, this sends a message that you mess with America at your peril, and that there will be consequences for a terror attack on the United States. That said, killing bin Laden does not end Al Qaeda. Ayman al-Zawahri, the Egyptian No. 2, has long played a crucial role as Al Qaeda’s COO. And Al Qaeda is more of a loose network than a tightly structured organization, and that has become even more true in recent years. AQIM, the version of Al Qaeda in North Africa, is a real threat in countries like Mali and Mauritania, and killing bin Laden will probably have negligible consequences there. The AQIM terrorists may admire Osama and be inspired by him, but they also are believed to be largely independent of him. And Anwar al-Awlaki, the Qaeda-linked terrorist in Yemen, likewise won’t be deterred by bin Laden’s killing — Awlaki’s ability to engage in terrorism will be affected more by the upheavals now taking place in Yemen and whether that country has a strong and legitimate government that takes counter-terrorism seriously. It’s also true that bin Laden’s killing might have mattered more in 2002 or 2003. At that time in countries like Pakistan, many ordinary people had a very high regard for bin Laden and doubted that he was centrally involved in the 9/11 attacks. Over time that view has changed: popular opinion has moved more against him, and you no longer see Osama t-shirts for sale in the markets. Some people still feel a bit of respect for his ability to outwit the United States, or they are so anti-American that they embrace anybody we don’t like, but bin Laden has been marginalized over time. Osama’s declining image also means that he won’t be a martyr in many circles (although if Americans appear too celebratory and triumphant, dancing on his grave, that may create a sympathetic backlash for Osama). Many ordinary Pakistanis, Yemenis and Afghans will simply shrug and move on. His death won’t inspire people, the way it might have in 2002. And Al Qaeda is already going through a difficult time because it has been sidelined by the Arab Spring protests; on top of that, losing its top leader will be a major blow. It will be fascinating to see what the Pakistani reaction is to a U.S. military operation on their soil. It seemed to me that President Obama was going out of his way to sound deferential to Pakistan — and to emphasize that Osama was an enemy of Pakistan as well as of America — precisely because he was concerned that Pakistanis might react with outrage at an American military operation.

NewsTrust Rating: 3.8 average (not enough reviews) - See Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Killing the alibi - Opinion - Al Jazeera English

Mon, 02 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Aljazeera - By Marwan Bishara - May. 02 (Opinion) - Washington has less reason or justification to wage a war in Afghanistan now that bin Laden is no more.

NewsTrust Rating: 2.7 average (not enough reviews) - See Review » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Morocco terrorism attack kills 15

Fri, 29 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0700

The Guardian - By Angelique Chrisafis - Apr. 29 - One Briton reportedly among 11 tourists killed after suspected suicide bomb blows apart cafe in Marrakech A suspected suicide attack blew apart a well-known tourist cafe in the Moroccan city of Marrakech on Thursday killing 15 people, including 11 tourists, and injuring at least 20 more. There were unconfirmed reports that one of the dead was a British tourist. If the bombing is the work of Islamists, it will be their first major attack in Morocco since 2003, when a spate of suicide bombings in the commercial capital, Casablanca, killed more than 45 people. At around 11.50am the blast ripped through the second story of a cafe overlooking Marrakech's Jamaa-el-Fnaa square, the most popular tourist spot in the old imperial city at the foot of the Atlas mountains. The Agana cafe, lauded in guidebooks for its panoramic view, was blown apart by the force of the explosion, its second storey reduced to mangled wreckage. Witnesses described the blast sending people flying from their chairs. ...

NewsTrust Rating: 3.7 average (not enough reviews) - See Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer