Thursday, April 11, 2002

Where to start? I guess, a take on the war that I haven't seen addressed. In all of the talk of root causes and al-Qaeda itself there seems, to me, that there is no investigation into the connections and the question of 'Why now?'. In the immediate aftermath of the attacks and the constant warning and threats coming from the more radical parts of the Ummah, I started to view September 11th in relation to another movement in our history.

The Copperheads of the American Civil war era (the parallel between the Copperheads and today's anti-war movement is something for another day) movement made up of 'Peace Democrats' who were, ostensibly, opposed to the war. In fact, a number of the movement's leaders were conspiring with the Confederate Secret Service to conduct raids, uprisings and riots throughout Ohio, Illinios and Indiana. They planned to free Confederate P.O.W.'s to escape into Canada or to make their ways back to their outfits. The Copperhead leaders told the Confederate agents that an uprising consisting of more than 200,000 armed members and sympathisers would follow any major Confederate action or raid in their region. This army would attack the Union lines from the rear and, when reinforcements came from the East, the war could be brought to an end. Needless to say, when the opportunity presented itself, the armies never appeared. Once the time for action came the vast majority of fire-eaters found themselves otherwise preoccupied.

I see a similar pattern to the people and news on the fringe of Sept. 11th. I think it possible that Bin Laden and his immediate advisors had information from the more virulent and anti-America/West Imams and others that following a brazen display of power, to show America as the paper tiger they have come to expect and our allies to be no more substantial, they could affect a mass uprsing that would burst forth from the Madrassas and Mosques to carry on a Jihad (for all the talk of peace and how the word is misinterpreted, please let us use the word as the 'Arab Street' does) that would sweep the corrupt (read American backed) Monarchs from power, declare Usama the Caliph (or Mahdi depending on how far he wants to take it) and begin the open conflict to bring the West under the sway of the Khilafah.

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