This blog is dead... repeat, this blog is dead. I have since repented of the hardcore republicanism expressed through most of this blog's history. See my profile for my current blog.
As always, Seth has an insightful post on terrorism, in response to my most recent one about terrorists lacking hearts and minds. Go check it out now!
posted by jacob.thrasher @ 1/28/2005 08:26:00 AM
4 comments
It's been a long road for me... long ago, I was known on the internet as "NeoFascist?," a stereotypical republican homeschooled blogger. I have repented of my old screeds, and now try to approach matters of theology, philosophy and politics from a more free-thinking perspective. I am Neo no longer. I am jacob.thrasher.
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"Neo, you are simply the best political teen blogger out there. Keep up the awesome work man. You rock." -Agent Tim
"One of the best teen bloggers I've found in all my diminutive lifespan. Very intelligent in the humorous way. I'm not going to be surprised if I find he becomes a political giant...when we all grow up." -Paradoxically Correct
"...sometimes a little out there, but I keep goin back." -Reliant
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"I personally agree with him in most cases..." -Giggle Fritz
"...he writes like a much older, better educated religious fanatic then he really is." -Lefty
All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
4 Comments:COMMENT POLICY
Please refrain from the use of foul language. Any failure to comply will result in comment deletion.
For u on ur post about the tsumani (i thought it would have a better chance of getting read here) Proverbs 28:5
Hey Jacob! This is Annette, "aine377" on AIM.. You've got a nice blog here!
I'll be looking forward to seeing more of your posts!
-Annette
Here's a quote from today's Christian Science Monitor on the hearts and minds of real and potential terrorists:
"It's only logical to tackle these people through their brains and heart," says Faris Sanabani, a former adviser to President Abdullah Saleh and editor-in-chief of the Yemen Observer, a weekly English-language newspaper. "If you beat these people up they become more stubborn. If you hit them, they will enjoy the pain and find something good in it - it is a part of their ideology. Instead, what we must do is erase what they have been taught and explain to them that terrorism will only harm Yemenis' jobs and prospects. Once they understand this they become fighters for freedom and democracy, and fighters for the true Islam," he says.
"Some freed militants were so transformed that they led the army to hidden weapons caches and offered the Yemeni security services advice on tackling Islamic militancy. A spectacular success came in 2002 when Abu Ali al Harithi, Al Qaeda's top commander in Yemen, was assassinated by a US air-strike following a tip-off from one of Hitar's reformed militants."
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0204/p01s04-wome.html
More quotes from the same article:
"Hitar's belief that hardened militants trained by Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan could change their stripes was initially dismissed by US diplomats in Sanaa as dangerously naive, but the methods of the scholarly cleric have little in common with the other methods of fighting extremism. Instead of lecturing or threatening the battle-hardened militants, he listens to them.
"An important part of the dialogue is mutual respect," says Hitar. "Along with acknowledging freedom of expression, intellect and opinion, you must listen and show interest in what the other party is saying."
"Only after winning the militants' trust does Hitar gradually begin to correct their beliefs. He says that most militants are ordinary people who have been led astray. Just as they were taught Al Qaeda's doctrines, he says, so too can they be taught more- moderate ideas. "If you study terrorism in the world, you will see that it has an intellectual theory behind it," says Hitar. "And any kind of intellectual idea can be defeated by intellect."
The program's success surprised even Hitar. For years Yemen was synonymous with violent Islamic extremism. The ancestral homeland of Mr. bin Laden, it provided two-thirds of recruits for his Afghan camps, and was notorious for kidnappings of foreigners and the bombing of the American warship USS Cole in 2000 that killed 17 sailors. Resisting US pressure, Yemen declined to meet violence with violence.
After finding success...
"US diplomats have also approached the cleric to see if his methods can be applied in Iraq, says Hitar.
"Before the dialogues began, there was only one way to fight terrorism, and that was through force," he says. "Now there is another way: dialogue."
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