Today's bombings in Istanbul, the latest UN report on al-Qaeda, general grist for the mill

I seem to always travel to Europe at particularly stupid times (France when the war broke out, London next week). Time to start masking that American accent.

I don't know much about it, but from what I understand, Turkey's liberalism was imposed in a top-down, not particularly democratic manner. That doesn't mean that by this point its comparatively liberal and secular approach doesn't have a lot of popular support. I doubt that there are many Al Qaeda sympathizers there, at the very least.

(My brother-in-law was there in the past couple years working on setting up historical tours for the churches there that are mentioned in the Bible, or something like that.)

you could argue that many democracies were imposed...starting with ours.

Random excerpt:

"It also seems, according to the most plausible "claims," that the perpetrators were members of the al-Qaida underworld. There appears little doubt that their action is related, however distantly, to Turkey's fairly neutral position in respect of the current battles in Iraq...

I sometimes detect a strained note in the coverage of this. Why would the jihadists be so careless, so to speak? Have they no discrimination, no tact?
Those who think this even semiconsciously have already forgotten what jihadists were doing in Algeria, Egypt, Afghanistan, and elsewhere, long before the assault on the World Trade Center (which also killed a substantial number of Muslims). It's pretty safe to say that the large majority of those murdered by Islamic holy warriors have not been Europeans or Americans as the term is usually understood. This is why I disagreed with the president when he described Sept. 11 as an attack "on America." It was true, but it was not the truth. The current jihad is still waged chiefly against Muslim states and societies and, as Istanbul proves, not just against dictatorial ones. (That last distinction is unsafe in itself, by the way, since the Afghanistan of the Taliban was more dictatorial and oppressive than Saudi Arabia or Algeria, and since Bin Laden never conducted any operations against Saddam Hussein or his embassies or outposts.)"

[scroll down on the link for his enjoyable roasting of a Guardian journalist's report]

Not to get in an exciting semantics debate, but in those cases I think you're more likely to get "rebels" or "revolutionaries." I get whyseaports, hotels, clubs, etc, are considered softer targets though. To be coldly analytical about it though, while these softer targets will get higher body-counts, I think they'll hurt the terrorists as far as sympathizers go. When who and what they attack becomes more and more detached from their "cause," hopefully a backlash against them will gain mometum.

this analysis is in danger of creating the exactly the freedom-hating behemoth it dreamed up: these Istanbul bombings may be Al Qaeda operation - they may also be the work of any number of totally independent radical Islamic terror orgs... the "so what? what's the difference?" response really ISN'T politically smart (of course in the long term "divide and rule" isn't politically smart either - which is why so many of the world's troublespots are hangovers from previous attempts to civilise via imperial conquest, specifically British and French attempts - but in the short term, it may be more effective than lump-em-all-together-and-let-God-sort-em-out)

(cf an early, foolish move by the US administration in Iraq, which wz to kick everyone with Baath party links out of their jobs, soldiers, doctors, whoever, irrespective of their actual attitude to Saddam... party-membershiup wz mandatory for many jobs, and plenty of party-members were forced into compliance by threat of torture or murder to relatives: so that while superficially - and probably morally - this act made sense, practically speaking it provided saddamite and other resistance forces with a huge, resentful reserve army to recruit from, of ppl who SUDDENLY HAD NO REASON EVEN TO CONSIDER switching allegiance to the new boss: in other words, it made democracy-forming harder not easier...)

Gen. Franks Doubts Constitution Will Survive WMD Attack Gen. Tommy Franks says that if the United States is hit with a weapon of mass destruction that inflicts large casualties, the Constitution will likely be discarded in favor of a military form of government. (warning, NewsMax article)

and

Richard Perle admits that the Iraq invasion was illegal.

Talk about sneaking it out to the public.

to anthony: don't you ever know about the famous hypocrisy played by Europe in terms of human rights violations?? just look around and u will see ! look at what they (you) do to immigrants for example...

it is the same Europe that feeds the most terrorist groups active throughout the world!! France has been supplying PKK (KADEK) with arms, etc. for years !! it is still not in the list of EU as terrorist group!

Europe has started its well-planned crusade against Turkey. A dream never fulfilled since the 15th century... I'd like to remind you of W.Bush's words ..

who r u kidding anyway????

anyway, we've now given up looking for bin laden, apparently. this article also mentions the new Ambassador to Afghanistan (they call him the Ambassador "to Kabul" which may be more accurate), who just so happens to be part of the Cheney inner circle. So, y'know, we can expects lots of success there.