I sorta doubt "they" want more terrorist attacks. Maybe these were cynical short-medium term moves, but the Republican House did pay off the U.S.'s U.N. back dues and Bush did piss off Sharon by mentioning a Palestinian state. It looks like they want to end the al Qaeda network and the Taliban (which I support. by the way Reuters just reported that the Taliban said that they had let bin Laden go so he could engage in the holy war. http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-attack-afghan-binladen.ht ml oh boy), but other than that we'll see. I don't anticipate Congress or the Allies going for much more. Plus, see how pissed William Safire is (or is this just for show?): http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/08/opinion/08SAFI.html "The troubling part of our strategy is its blinkered tidiness: we seem to be going after one terrorist group at a time. Thus, we leave Hamas and Hezbollah, with their Syrian and Iranian sponsorship, off the list of groups whose assets we freeze. Secretary of State Colin Powell dismisses this with "they're on another list," which is true but disingenuous. The new restrictions are more severe; by pointedly excluding the "charities" supporting these groups suicide- bombing Israelis, Powell hopes to build bridges to Damascus and Teheran.
That isolates and undermines Israel. It was combined with the leak of a plan to reward the Arab violence by prematurely recognizing a Palestinian state — thereby conferring the sovereignty that would allow the import of arms and attract fleeing fanatics. Small wonder that Ariel Sharon objected to a double standard that refuses U.S. negotiations with bin Laden's terrorists but demands Israel's negotiations with Arafat's terrorists."
>>At 08:30 PM 10/9/01 -0400, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>>>yes, but practically, no, as the U.S. government's aim was not to put the
>>>perpetrators (the most responsible of whom died in the bombings anyhow)
on
>>>trial but to reassert its military might (restoring confidence in its
anyhow, if one really wants to prevent this sort of thing - or worse - from happening again, getting rid of the hijackers' support network couldn't hurt.
Peter