Good news

A summary backed up with links of some things you may not realize.

• America’s kids are less violent.
• America is healthier.
• America is cleaner.
• The world is less violent.
• The world is freer.
• The world is less poor.
• The world is healthier.
• The world is getting cleaner.

Check out the article - written by a blogger - which uses the cool technique of providing a link to search results to back up its main points.

Demographics of Terrorists

A psychologist looks at the backgrounds of 400 known terrorists. The demographics may surprise you, or maybe not, since many are the leaders at the top of the hierarchy.

Al Qaeda’s members are not the Palestinian fourteen-year- olds we see on the news, but join the jihad at the average age of 26. Three-quarters were professionals or semi- professionals. They are engineers, architects, and civil engineers, mostly scientists. Very few humanities are represented, and quite surprisingly very few had any background in religion. The natural sciences predominate. Bin Laden himself is a civil engineer, Zawahiri is a physician, Mohammed Atta was, of course, an architect; and a few members are military, such as Mohammed Ibrahim Makawi, who is supposedly the head of the military committee.

His data on their backgrounds helps shed some light on how social networks sustain terror, and how the United States has avoided terror attacks since 2001.

In order to really sustain your motivation to do terrorism, you need the reinforcement of group dynamics. You need reinforcement from your family, your friends. This social movement was dependent on volunteers, and there are huge gaps worldwide on those volunteers. One of the gaps is the United States. This is one of two reasons we have not had a major terrorist operation in the United States since 9/11. The other is that we are far more vigilant. We have actually made coming to the U.S. far more difficult for potential terrorists since 2001.

He ends with a warning about networks, and how they are more difficult to combat.

So in 2004, Al Qaeda has new leadership. In a way today’s operatives are far more aggressive and senseless than the earlier leaders. The whole network is held together by the vision of creating the Salafi state. A fuzzy, idea-based network really requires an idea-based solution. The war of ideas is very important and this is one we haven’t really started to engage yet.

I would suggest, however that our ideavirus™ is freedom in Arabic countries, and is a viable alternative to the Salafists fascist revolutionary vision.

The Central Issue of Iraq

Belmont Club nails it:

The central issue in Iraq is whether an Arab people can win their freedom in despite of the worst efforts of tyrannical and terrorist regimes to prevent it.

A Model of the UN

Here's an interesting model for understanding the UN.

Once it is understood that the United Nations is a trade association for the promotion of executive authority, its behavior becomes almost rational. The trade association extends professional courtesy to its members -- its cardinal rule is not to step on the toes of another executive.

The doings of trade associations are not usually beneficial to non-members, obviously.

Signs of Progress

Captain's Quarters adds a lot of good analysis to a Washington Post article on Al Qaeda's strategy Saudi Arabia - deeming that it shows "AQ In Decline In Saudi Arabia".

Osama Changing Tactics

Osama bin Laden's voice is getting a bit more desperate. In the past, he hasn't advocated attacking Saudi oil interests, ostensibly because that oil is something that would be restored to it's rightful owners if his revolution for the KSA succeeded. Apparently, with threats of more democratic reforms coming from other Saudi reformers, he's changed his mind.

A recording said to be by Osama bin Laden has called for the overthrow of Saudi Arabia's royal family and urged militant jihadists to attack oil installations in Iraq and the Gulf.

It's very interesting to use Google news and see how different papers headline this latest diatribe from Bin Laden. Here are some samples:

• Boston Globe: "Bin Laden urges peaceful overthrow of Saudi monarchy"


• Globe and Mail (Toronto): "New videotape by bin Laden warns Saudis of coming revolt"


• NY Post: "OSAMA SPEWS NEW TAPE HATE"


• Reuters: "Bin Laden Urges Fighters to Strike Oil Facilities"


• Detroit Free-Press: "Terrorist message targets US-Saudi connections"


• Xinhua, China: "Bin Laden" tape slams Saudi govt"

Reading from several interpretations of the transcript, one sees an extremist policy wonk who getting a bit frustrated, I think.

How Elections Work in Egypt

In case you aren't up on the machinations of the Egyptian election process, it goes like this:

1. Hosni Mubarak wins.

However, some rather brave Egyptians are protesting the process. Do they think he's being too friendly with Israel lately?

Bin Laden Not Safe in Costa Rica

Taxi driver shoots man dressed as Osama Bin Laden.

Arafat's Evanescent Legacy

Captain's Quarters has a nice summary of how Palestinian presedential candidate Mahmoud Abbas' statement calling the Intifada "a mistake" is a positive sign for the future, and how it shows that some parts of the Palestinian leadership are moving away from the legacy of Arafat's terror policies.

Abbas would not have dared to give a contradictory policy statement like this to any newspaper, let alone a Western-based publication, while Arafat was alive. The statement appears to acknowledge the dead end towards which the old terrorist led the Palestinians over the past ten or more years.

Of course, who knows whether Abbas is ascendant in Palestinian politics, or even whether he really means what he says?

TSA Training Woes

Via Ranting Profs. A union representative enumerates a litany of problems with training for airport screeners. He wants Congress to pay more attention.

This Would Be Funny

If it wasn't a harbinger of massive religious war in Southeast Asia...

"Airdrop of paper 'birds of peace' is followed by bombings, shootings, and arson attacks."

Arab Journalists Question the CW

Memri translates a set of articles commenting on Arab regimes' belief that the Iraqi government is illegitimate. These Arab commentators point out a bit of hypocrisy by the attendees of the November 2004 Sharm Al-Sheikh summit.

"It is outrageous, and amazing, that the first free and general elections in the history of the Arab nation are to take place in January: in Iraq, under the auspices of American occupation, and in Palestine, under the auspices of the Israeli occupation.

"[It is just as] outrageous that the Arab League, which represents the will of the regimes of 20 [Arab] countries from the Atlantic to the Persian Gulf, wanted the Iraqi opposition to be invited to the Sharm Al-Sheikh conference, so as to ensure that all Iraq, with its entire political spectrum, would be in attendance to represent the Iraqi people. It matters not at all that other Arab oppositions have not been invited to any Arab League meeting or to its many summit conferences, throughout the history of the Arab peoples."

These are translations into English of columnist Salama Ni'mat, the Washington, D.C. bureau chief for the London Arabic-language daily Al-Hayat.

"What prevents some of the Arab regimes from holding free and genuine elections is their fear of the results, and nothing more – that is, their fear of the will of their peoples."

Questioning Conventional Wisdom

Iranian journalist Amir Taheri recounts his political discussions during Ramadan, and questions the conventional wisdom about Israel/Palestine being the most important issue in Islam/Western relations.

There are no free elections or reliable opinion polls in the Arab world. So no one knows what the silent majority really thinks. The best one can do is rely on anecdotal evidence. On that basis, I came to believe that the Palestine-Israel issue was low down on the list of priorities for the man in the street but something approaching an obsession for the political, business, and intellectual elites.

He believes that the Palestine-Israel issue is the only safe issue for the elites to discuss, and it's the only Muslim concern for which there is any outside sympathy. However, could it be possible that Israel isn't the real issue?

Conventional wisdom also insists that the US is hated by Muslims because it is pro-Israel. That view is shared by most American officials posted to the Arab capitals. But is it not possible that the reverse is true – that Israel is hated because it is pro-American?

He then gives examples of oppression in other areas that goes unnoticed:

If Muslims hate the US because it backs Israel which, in turn, is oppressing Muslims in Palestine, then why don't other oppressed Muslims benefit from the same degree of solidarity

Here's a summary list:

• Over 500 Muslims killed in clashes in Thailand this November ... The Arab and the Iranian press, however, either ignored the event or relegated it to inside pages. Note: needless to say it went basically un-reported by the Western press as well.


• [Also not reported] ... Thailand is building a wall to cordon off almost two million Muslims in southern Thailand.


• When Hindu nationalists demolished the Ayodhya Mosque, no one thought it necessary to inflame Muslim passions.


• Muslim states have never supported Pakistan on Kashmir because ... Pakistan was a US ally in CENTO and SEATO


• Nor has a single Muslim nation recognized the republic set up by Muslim Turks in northern Cyprus... because Turkey is a US ally


• When the Serbs massacred 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica 10 years ago, not a ripple disturbed the serene calm of Muslim opinion.


• Last October the Muslim summit in the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur, gave a hero's welcome to Vladimir Putin, the man who has presided over the massacre of more Chechens than anyone in any other period in Russian history. Note that Putin didn't back any US action in Iraq at the time

The summary is interesting too:

Right now there are 22 active conflicts across the globe in which Muslims are involved. Most Muslims have not even heard of most of them because those conflicts do not provide excuses for fomenting hatred against the United States.

The article appeared in the Jerusalem Post, which has a login scheme, so I've linked it to the free version above.