"Steve Dirickson (Volt)"  writes:
>Why wasn't McVeigh known as a "New York Terrorist"?
>The origin specifier has the same relevance--or lack thereof--as the one
for bin Laden.


If McVeigh said he was fighting to make New York State independent, he would
have been known as a New York terrorist.  Bin Laden's stated motivation is
based in Islam, so it is quite proper he is known as an Islamic terrorist.

Some interesting links on bin Laden:
http://slate.msn.com/Assessment/01-09-13/Assessment.asp
http://www.time.com/time/asia/news/interview/0,9754,174550,00.html
http://www.vny.com/cf/News/upidetail.cfm?QID=221339

Since the last link appears to be out of order, here's the text:

Analysis: Bin Laden's fatwa

Sunday, 16 September 2001 12:39 (ET)

Analysis: Bin Laden's fatwa
By MARTIN WALKER, Chief International Correspondent

WASHINGTON, Sept. 16 (UPI) -- The suicide pilots who hijacked civilian
airliners to crash them into the World Trade center and the Pentagon
made no demands, had no interest in negotiation and strove simply to
kill, to hurt and to destroy.

But Osama bin Laden, the shadowy mastermind who has now been declared
"prime suspect" in the attacks by President George W. Bush does have a
coherent program, a series of operational priorities, which can be
assessed in two public documents. The first was his formal declaration
of war upon the United States (and on Britain and Israel), dated Oct.
14, 1996.

The second is his fatwa, issued on his own authority as a Muslim
scholar, fighter and holy man, on Feb. 23, 1998, which declared a jihad,
or holy war, against "Jews and Crusaders."

The Crusaders, in his eyes, are the modern-day U.S. and British troops
in military bases in Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf, the heirs to the
Christian crusaders of the Middle Ages who established a Christian
kingdom in what is now Israel and the Palestinian Territories, and
occupied Jerusalem for almost a century until driven out by Muslim
forces under the command of the general Salah-ed-Din, or Saladin.

In each case, bin Laden's prime concern is the "occupation" of the holy
land of the Arabian peninsula, home to the holy sites of the Prophet
Mohammed in Mecca and Medina. Related to this is his opposition to the
"puppet rulers" like the Saud dynasty of Saudi Arabia, established by
the British after World War I, who have allied with the West.

"For over seven years, the United States has been occupying the land of
Islam in the holiest pf places, plundering its riches. Dictating to its
rulers, humiliating its people, terrorizing its neighbors and turning
its bases in the Peninsula into a spearhead through which to fight the
neighboring Muslim peoples," his fatwa said.

Bin Laden's second concern is the sanctions and bombing campaigns
against Iraq, their effect on Iraqi civilians, and his belief that the
Gulf war was cunningly provoked by the United States in order to
establish a permanent military base in the heart of the Arab world.

"Despite the great devastation inflicted on the Iraqi people by the
Crusader-Zionist alliance, and despite the huge number of those killed,
which has exceeded 1 million, the Americans are once again trying to
repeat the horrific massacres, as though they are not content with the
ferocious war or the fragmentation and devastation," the fatwa says.

Bin Laden's third concern is Israel, and the perceived American
geo-strategic goal of dividing and weakening the Arab and Islamic world,
in order to remove a potential rival in world affairs, and to continue
the exploitation of Middle East energy resources.

"If the Americans' aims behind these wars are religious and economic,
the aim is also to serve the Jews' petty state and divert attention from
its occupation of Jerusalem and murder of Muslims there. The best proof
of this is their eagerness to destroy Iraq, the strongest neighboring
Arab state, and their endeavor to fragment all the states of the region
such as Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Sudan into paper statelets and
through their disunion and weakness to guarantee Israel's survival and
the continuation of the brutal Crusade occupation of the Arabian
Peninsula," the fatwa says.

"On that basis, and in compliance with God's order, we issue the
following fatwa to all Muslims: The ruling to kill the Americans and
their allies - civilians and military -- is an individual duty for every
Muslim who can do it in every country in which it is possible to do it,:
the fatwa commands.

"We - with God's help - call on every Muslim who believes in God and
wishes to be rewarded to comply with God's order to kill the Americans
and plunder their money wherever and whenever they find it."

In sum, were any negotiations ever to be opened with bin Laden, they
would meet a series of non-negotiable demands, to withdraw American and
allied forces from the Middle East, to stand by and accept the
destruction of Israel and the toppling of those Arab governments seen as
complicit in American policies, along with the confiscation of all
Middle East energy resources.

Bin Laden, moreover, believes he will win, in part because he believes
that his suicide warriors are invincible, but also because he claims a
series of victories already, over the Russians in Afghanistan, over the
Serbs in Bosnia, and over the Russians again in Chechnya.

"I remind the youths of the Islamic world, who fought in Afghanistan and
Bosnia-Herzegovina with their wealth, pens tongues and themselves that
the battles has not finished yet," says his declaration of war.

"Our youths believe in paradise after death. They believe that taking
part in fighting will not bring their day nearer, and staying behind
will not postpone their day of death", the declaration goes on. "For
more than a decade they have carried arms on their shoulders in
Afghanistan and they have made vows to Allah that as long as they are
alive, they will continue to carry arms against you, the Americans,
until you are - Allah willing - expelled, defeated and humiliated."

"Those youths know that their rewards in fighting you, the United States
of America, is double that of their rewards in fighting someone else ...
They have no intention except to enter paradise to killing you."

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