Temporary Archive: Suzanne Brockmann's Message Board

This is where education comes in. Educating us to realize that the majority of Muslims do interpret their religion and how that fits into their life the way Osama does. That when we think Osama we have to think fringe element. If he was only trying to promote his interpretation of Islam he would fail miserably. What has given him any status is his fight against the US and his fight against the Russians. A good portion possibly the majority of Muslims feel the US backing of Israel was against their interest, Russians invading Afghanistan was against their common interests. So they can join Osama on these common denominators for the short term. However that doesn't mean they would be with him for his long term goals, the way he's see Muslims living.

For us I don't think it's pride. I think it's our value of human life. To us every life is precious. So when you kill us we want to stop you and the sooner the better. So with short term thinking here and keeping in mind our leaders think in 2, 4, and 6 year increments we respond. We do what we see as necessary to stop the loss of life NOW. Perhaps by educating us on what the outcome in the long run of our short term actions . We might take another track.

This was/will be Zarchawi's downfall in Iraq short term thinking. He wanted to inflict damage to the US goals in Iraq. He started attacking Iraqis losing a lot of supporters who didn't mind Americans dying but had issues with Muslim brothers being killed. He might have stabbed himself in the back when he claimed responsibility for the attacks in Jordan. The majority of Muslims now have nothing in common with him. They may dislike/hate the US but because of his killing other Arabs they can no longer support/tolerate him.