Germany's Invasion of Iraq Causes Islamic Terrorism

[roo_ster]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2322068,00.html

Train bomb plot brings fear of terrorism to Germany
From Roger Boyes in Berlin

A LEBANESE student suspected of trying to paralyse the German railway network with a bomb concealed in a suitcase appeared in court yesterday, as a huge police hunt for a second suspect continued.

The 21-year-old man was remanded in custody by an investigating judge in Karlsruhe, southwest Germany, on charges of attempted murder, belonging to a terrorist organisation and attempting to cause an explosion.

The suspect was an engineering student in the north German town of Kiel, where he was held on Saturday morning.

His arrest has thrown the country into panic since it coincides with Berlins emotionally charged decision to deploy troops in the Middle East for the first time since the Second World War. Suddenly Germans, too, are beginning to feel that they have become a target.

The terrorist threat has never before come so close to us, Wolfgang Schäuble, the Interior Minister, said. Police patrols on railway stations have been stepped up but the scale of the problem  5,700 railway stations and 4.3 million passengers a day  makes it impossible to impose the security measures being put in place in airports in Britain and elsewhere.

The suspect, identified only as Youssef Mohammed E, is accused of being at the heart of a plot to blow up two regional trains simultaneously on July 31. Investigators say that only a flaw in the construction of the propane gas bombs prevented a disaster.

There are parallels with the alleged London plot to blow up airliners and the Madrid train bombings. The plan, hatched in Germany, however, lacked the necessary sophistication. The propane gas was supposed to be detonated by an electronic device attached to alarm clocks in two suitcases. A mixture of petrol and oil in the same suitcases was intended to spread fire through the carriages. But the mechanism failed.

The DNA samples on one case corresponded to the genetic characteristics of the suspect, a police spokesman said. There is also a fingerprint match.

Whoops, my bad!  Germany never invaded Iraq.

[The Rabbi]

Germany has been known to "buy off" Islamic fundamentalists by not hassling them on German soil probably since Munich.  There is a reason that the 9/11 hijackers all had some connection with Hamburg.
Maybe now they'll get the idea that coddling terrorists does not make you immune.

[mtnbkr]

Maybe now they'll get the idea that coddling terrorists does not make you immune.

No, they'll find a way to blame it on us.  

Chris

[El Tejon]

But Germany did send knights to invade Islamic lands in Palestine!

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

Germany, of all nations, should know that appeasement doesn't work.

[The Rabbi]

Germany, of all nations, should know that appeasement doesn't work.

Actually it did.  The appeasment at Munich bought Hitler enough time to solidify his position.  It is when the allies stood up to him and committed money and troops on an open-ended basis that he lost.
Imagine if today's press was covering WW2.  Roosevelt has gotten us into a quagmire.  What did Hitler ever do to us?  He's only responding to our aggressive moves elsewhere.  We are only increasing hatred against us in the German-speaking world.

[Perd Hapley]

Germany, of all nations, should know that appeasement doesn't work.

Actually it did.  The appeasment at Munich bought Hitler enough time to solidify his position.

I think he meant that it doesn't work for the appeaser, which Germans should know based on your historical illustration.

[The Rabbi]

Germany, of all nations, should know that appeasement doesn't work.

Actually it did.  The appeasment at Munich bought Hitler enough time to solidify his position.

I think he meant that it doesn't work for the appeaser, which Germans should know based on your historical illustration.

Oh, yeah.  Duh on my part.

[BayouBlogger]

What did Hitler ever do to us?

He declared war on us.


*****
Taking the longview, yes, if we had stayed out of WWI - at the time called "The War for Civilization" - then that war probably would have ended in stalemate.  There would not have been the humiliation of Germany at Versailles.  The ground would not have been sown with dragon's teeth.  The nightmare of the Third Reich and the subsequent annihilation of European Jewry could have been avoided.

This observation does NOT absolve Hitler's willing executioners of the guilt for their actions. It's just an observation of how the policies of nation states influence the flow of history.    

In other words, a policy of nonintervention would have been far superior.

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

What did Hitler ever do to us?

He declared war on us.


*****
Taking the longview, yes, if we had stayed out of WWI - at the time called "The War for Civilization" - then that war probably would have ended in stalemate.  There would not have been the humiliation of Germany at Versailles.  The ground would not have been sown with dragon's teeth.  The nightmare of the Third Reich and the subsequent annihilation of European Jewry could have been avoided.

This observation does NOT absolve Hitler's willing executioners of the guilt for their actions. It's just an observation of how the policies of nation states influence the flow of history.    

In other words, a policy of nonintervention would have been far superior.

Wars don't end in stalemate.  They can't.  "End" and "stallemate" are mutually exlcusive.

When a war ends, one side notably victorious over the other.  When neither side can attain a victory, the war doesn't end.  It simply festers for a while, until it flares up again at some future time.  

The modern fascination with UN-brokered cease-fires, negotiated peace settlements, and so forth is folly.  These sorts of deals never end wars, they simply punt them off into the future, where presumably they will be some other politicians' problem.

Anyway, regarding US intervention in WWI...  US nonintervention would not have resulted in a stalemate.  Both sides would have continued to fight until one side was demosntrably defeated, or the hostilities would have gone dormant for a time only to flare up again in the future.  

One could even argue that Germany wasn't truly defeated in WWI, in the sense that the west never destroyed Germany's will to fight.  The Versailles Treaty, despite being tough on Germany, was probably premature.  All it did was give Germany a breathing spell in which to re-arm and re-equip, thereby allowing her to re-open hostilities a few years later from a position of much greater strength.