Is this being covered in the FDR? (I saw it in a Swedish paper.)

I would argue that 1) there will always be a small number of thrill killers who will join/start terrorist groups because it titillates them, but 2) for a terrorist group to thrive it needs some popular support (or at least toleration) and this only comes if there is a general sympathy with their aims. For a terrorist group to enjoy support and be able to conduct operations there must be a feeling that to a certain extend it is better to be a dead hero than a live coward. I realize the specific capture at the subject of this thread was Al Qaeda and in pakistan/afganistan but it is illustrative of a wider principle – The US has created this condition in Iraq – they will not stop the insurgency untill this condition is corrected.

Here’s timeline of the beginning of the WWI (from pbs.org):

June 28,1914 – Archduke Franz Ferdinand heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and his wife are assassinated in Sarajevo.

July 28 – Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia.

July 31 – As an ally of Serbia, Russia announces full mobilization of her armed forces.

August 1 – Germany mobilizes her armed forces and declares war on Russia.

August 3 – Germany declares war on France.

August 4 – Germany declares war on neutral Belgium and invades in a right flanking move designed to defeat France quickly. As a result of this invasion, Britain declares war on Germany.

August 6 – Austria-Hungary declares war on Russia.

August 22 – “The Battle of the Frontiers”—27,000 French soldiers die on this single day in an offensive thrust to the east of Paris, towards the German borders.

Ferdinand was assassinated by Gavrilo Princip…

…a 19 year old tubercular Bosnian Serb student. A member of Mlada Bosna (“Young Bosnia”), a movement dedicated to a Bosnia free of Hapsburg rule. He and his six fellow assassins were equipped with pistols and bombs by a Serbian terrorist organization known as the Black Hand.

On 28-Jun-1914 he succeeded where his accomplices failed in assassinating Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Countess Sophia in Sarajevo.

He attempted suicide at the scene but the gun was knocked from his hand by an onlooker. His second attempt at suicide was by cyanide, but it made him retch and he vomited up the poison. He was taken into custody and made to stand trial. He was found guilty but, because of his age, spared the death penalty. He died in prison of tuberculosis in 1918.

I bet in 1915-16 everyone in Europe still remembered this “Mlada Bosna”. But now, almost a hundred years later, would it seem like an important historical event to you at all if one or another leader of “Mlada Bosna” was arrested in 1915 or 1916?

What, exactly, would you propose that we do about al Qaeda? I mean, there will always be murderers in the United States, yet we feel the need to arrest, try and sentence them.

The “new recruits” argument is a good argument about not using any means necessary & killing civilians & committing atrocities to get these guys. But the idea that we shouldn’t capture Al Qaeda’s operations directors or that it is useless to do so is absurd.

To quote DeGualle, “The graveyards are full of indispensible men”.

The capture of any of these people will not affect the underlying principle on which they are acting

Phrase Hit’em for Six is British slang for cricket and equivalent to American phrase to knock one out of the Park for Baseball.

Is this guy related to the Sheikh Ibn al-Libi who ran the Khaldun camp and was rendered to Egypt a few years back? Arabic names are endlessly confusing.

• Abu Farraj al-Libbi, who is personally responsible for serious and specific crimes, has been caught. He will be made to pay for what he did.

How about this:

• Abu Farraj al-Libbi, who has some degree of personal knowledge of al-Qaida operations and personnel, has been captured. His testimony, and evidence seized as part of his arrest, will be invaluable in tracking down and stopping future acts of terrorism.

or how’s this:

• Absent a magical “kill every terrorist in the world” button, Pakistani authorities did the next-best thing, capturing the nation’s most-wanted militant.

Arresting these characters one creep at a time is meaningless. They just stick another creep in his spot and keep on keeping on.

The good news will be when we find a way to gain a victory against all of rightwing extremism..whether it be Muslim, Christian or NeoCon.

Hallelujah.