Word: binning
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Still, the media's picture of Bin Laden sitting in a high-tech Batcave in the mountains around Kandahar ordering up global mayhem at the click of a mouse is more than a little ludicrous. Yes, the various networks of Islamist terror have made full use of the possibilities presented by technology and globalization. But few serious intelligence professionals believe Bin Laden is the puppet-master atop a pyramid structure of terror cells. It's really not that simple, but personalizing the threat - while it distorts both the nature of the problem and the remedy - is a time-honored tradition...
...Personalizing makes it seem more manageable. Bin Laden may be out of reach right now, safe in the care of Afghanistan's Taliban rulers. But by making him the root of the problem, we hold out the possibility that his ultimate removal from the scene will make the world safe from Islamist terror. A comforting thought, but a delusion nonetheless...
...Towers attack, are brutal reminders of the vulnerability of U.S. personnel stationed in the Arab world to attack by extremists. Last Saturday, Indian police arrested a group of men allegedly planning to blow up the U.S. embassy in New Delhi and quickly turned up evidence linking the plot to Bin Laden. Two days later, an unrelated plan, involving suicide bombers killing U.S. agents investigating the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole, was foiled in Yemen; their trail, too, leads back to Bin Laden. He was in the news again the following day after Western reporters were shown a Bin Laden promotional...
...Then there is the sublime: For sheer diabolical genius (of the Hollywood variety), nothing came close to the reports that European security services are preparing to counter a Bin Laden attempt to assassinate President Bush at next month's G8 summit in Genoa, Italy. According to German intelligence sources, the plot involved Bin Laden paying German neo-Nazis to fly remote controlled-model aircraft packed with Semtex into the conference hall and blow the leaders of the industrialized world to smithereens. (Paging Jerry Bruckheimer?) The Russians, who believe a Bin Laden attack in Genoa is more likely to be carried...
...Bin Laden's role has always been that of facilitator. That was his function in the 'Islamist International' formed, with the active encouragement of the CIA and Egyptian and Saudi intelligence, to recruit volunteers to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan. His considerable wealth (and ability to raise funds from others) and his organizational expertise played a key role in helping the "Arab Afghans," as the volunteers became known, play a creditable role in the war against the Soviets. And once that war was won, he continued to play the same role, keeping its veterans together and maintaining an infrastructure...