mbs: I doubt OBL cares a whit about how we change our 'way of life' or what happens to our economy. My suspicion is he wants the U.S. out of the ME, towards which alienating Muslims and supporting unpopular regimes is certainly grist for the mill. In particular he wants to do to the U.S. what the mujaheddin did to the Russians -- draw the U.S. into a ground campaign and presence (incl 'nation-building') that is vulnerable to guerilla warfare tactics. Moving more forces to the region and working to develop stronger political ties (strengthen U.S. hegemony, in other words) is not his 'goal,' IMO. Putting them in vulnerable positions is his goal.
NN: And Bin Laden doesn't give a shit about the Palestinians or global poverty. They are useful to him in generating the grievances that allows him to recruit to his Islamic fascist ideology, but the last thing he would want is to actually ameliorate those conditions, since then people might look less to heaven for their final reward.
mbs: right. but no conceivable U.S. policy change on Palestine or global poverty is going to deprive him of those issues.
nn: Addressing real injustice in the world is never bad policy.
mbs: I didn't say bad. I said irrelevant. Not quite the same.
nn: Some try to paint it as equivalent to paying a ransom for hostages, but it is a false analogy. With festering injustice, terrorists actually win when their demands are unmet, since it just calls attention to the injustice of the regimes challenged. Terrorism works because it creates a head I win, tail you lose choice for opponents, but the better head to choose is the one ending injustice, since it makes a new round of terrorism less likely to succeed because of less sympathy in the population.
mbs: i disagree. terrorists win when their demands are met, and ideally when concessions allow them to take power. these guys will always have their issues. They need a hammering. Whether it's possible I cannot be sure. I am more sure that the man from U.N.C.L.E. isn't going to do it.