Zakaria: Learning to Live With Radical Islam

"We don't have to accept the stoning of criminals. But it's time to stop treating all Islamists as potential terrorists."

By Fareed Zakaria NEWSWEEK

Pakistan's Swat valley is quiet once again. Often compared to Switzerland for its stunning landscape of mountains and meadows, Swat became a war zone over the past two years as Taliban fighters waged fierce battles against Army troops. No longer, but only because the Pakistani government has agreed to some of the militants' key demands, chiefly that Islamic courts be established in the region. Fears abound that this means women's schools will be destroyed, movies will be banned and public beheadings will become a regular occurrence.

The militants are bad people and this is bad news. But the more difficult question is, what should we—the outside world—do about it? That we are utterly opposed to such people, and their ideas and practices, is obvious. But how exactly should we oppose them? In Pakistan and Afghanistan, we have done so in large measure by attacking them—directly with Western troops and Predator strikes, and indirectly in alliance with Pakistani and Afghan forces. Is the answer to pour in more of our troops, train more Afghan soldiers, ask that the Pakistani military deploy more battalions, and expand the Predator program to hit more of the bad guys? Perhaps—in some cases, emphatically yes—but I think it's also worth stepping back and trying to understand the phenomenon of Islamic radicalism.

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Geographers Urge US To Search 3 Structures for Bin Ladin

Located in northwest Pakistan, Parachinar is 12 miles from Tora Bora, the last
confirmed location of Osama bin Laden.
(Credit: Image courtesy of University of California - Los Angeles)

While U.S. intelligence officials have spent more than seven years searching fruitlessly for Osama bin Laden, UCLA geographers say they have a good idea of where the terrorist leader was at the end of 2001 — and perhaps where he has been in the years since.

In a new study published online February 17 by the MIT International Review, the geographers report that simple facts, publicly available satellite imagery and fundamental principles of geography place the mastermind behind the Sept. 11 attacks against the U.S. in one of three buildings in the northwest Pakistan town of Parachinar, in the Kurram tribal region near the border with Afghanistan.

"If he's still alive, he honestly could be sitting there right now," said Thomas W. Gillespie, the study's lead author and an associate professor of geography at UCLA. "It is still the safest tribal area and city in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of northwest Pakistan and one of the only tribal areas that the U.S. has not bombed with its unmanned Predators."

Despite keen interest in the terrorist recluse and a $25 million reward for information leading to his capture, academics have shied away from getting involved in the quest to find him, the researchers contend. Meanwhile, dramatic improvements in remote-sensing imagery have improved the odds of civilians doing so.

"We believe our work represents the first scientific approach to establishing bin Laden's current location," said John A. Agnew, study co-author and UCLA geography professor. "The methods are repeatable and could easily be updated with new information obtained by the U.S. intelligence community."

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CIA head says bin Laden isolated, fighting to survive

U.S. intelligence agencies believe Osama bin Laden is isolated from al Qaeda and spending much of his energy merely surviving, the head of the CIA said on Thursday.

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New Bin Laden Video Coming - Addresses Obama

Osama Bin Laden is set to release a video threat to Barack Obama, fanatics have warned.Hate preacher Omar Bakri led the talk in extremist Arabic chatrooms. He said: “It will be fresh, addressing the Cabinet he chooses.”

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Frost over the World - Benazir Bhutto

go 6 min. into it and listen carefully she says Bin laden was murdered

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Bin Laden appeals to Europeans

Nov. 30 - A new audio recording by Osama Bin Laden calls on Europeans to stop helping the U.S. in Afghanistan.

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Limbaugh named Worst Person runner-up for attempt to link Obama to bin Laden

During the September 21 edition of MSNBC's Countdown, host Keith Olbermann named nationally syndicated radio show host Rush Limbaugh the "runner-up" in his nightly "Worst Person in the World" segment for, as Media Matters for America documented, smearing Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) with references to Osama bin Laden.

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Partial Bin Laden Video & Transcripts of the Video

2007: Ben Laden réapparait en vidéo (lefigaro.fr)
Uploaded by lefigaro

MSNBC has the transcipt of the video, just click here