However, the governments making these decisions were outside the Middle East and were acting in their own interests, not the interests of the people living in the areas affected. When the United Nations recognized Israel as a political entity after World War II, it did so in response to the outrage of Germany's Holocaust. While this was understandable to Western countries, Palestinians felt that they had been cheated out of their homeland and that instead it had been given to Israel. The differences between fundamentalist and more moderate Islam comes down to the nature of Islamic belief. Islam does not make any real distinction between religion and government. In the Koran, religion and government are completely intertwined. So to fundamentalist Moslems, a non-fundamentalist Islamic country in which Moslems live is an affront to Allah. This fact had a lot to do with the overthrow of the Shah's government in Iran and the fact that a religious leader was installed as their head of state. It is an important part of why the Taliban became so closely intertwined with Afghanistan's government. It explains why some Islamic terrorists make threats against Saudi Arabia: they believe the government does not follow Mohammed's teachings closely enough, that the ruling family has been too influenced by the secular.

Would the capture of Osama Bin Laden be good or bad for the war against terrorism and why? Would it be better to capture him alive or dead and why?

It is possible that we cannot predict the effect of capturing Osama Bin Laden.

His capture would be a tremendous morale boost for our troops in Iraq, our government at home, and probably most people in the United States. Even those who are opposed to the current war were largely outraged by the attacks orchestrated by Bin Laden on September 11, 2001, as...

Cole and on the two embassies in Africa.
However, Bin Laden's followers are fanatical. If their great leader were captured, it might trigger a new wave of violence. That violence would probably be aimed at any country who had any hand in capturing him, which would mean not only the United States but any other government that has aided us either in Iraq or Afghanistan.

President Bush has repeatedly said that he wants to "bring Osama Bin Laden to justice" (Merey, 2004), but that justice might come at a terrible price in the form of new waves of terrorism. The problem with fighting terrorism is that those trying to prevent it must be successfully vigilant 100% of the time, while the terrorists only have to get lucky, and break through the protective nets, once.

It seems likely that those who support Osama Bin Laden are continually re-evaluating how they might slip through our protective nets designed to prevent terrorism. Before 2001 we were aware that terrorists might hijack planes and use them as weapons, but the scenario was not given great attention. Bin Laden's group is probably planning other ways to make terrorists attacks, and capturing Bin Laden would be a tremendous motivation to put such plans into action.

Bibliography

Merey, Can. 2004. "Still no trace of Osama bin Laden."

Manila Bulletin, December 29.

Staff writer. 2005. "Irish Republicans in crisis over money laundering probe. Agence France Presse English, Feb. 19

Weisbach, Jessica. 2004. "The Psychology of the Terrorist Mind: Attempting to Understand as a Possible Means towards Prevention," in Peace, War and Human Nature. Accessed via the Internet 8/4/05. http://gseweb.harvard.edu/~t656_web/peace/Articles_Spring_2004/Weisbach_Jessica_terrorist_mind.htm