Dec 20 2006
US Attacking Al Qaeda, While Zawahiri Attacks Democracy
The news out today that Al Qaeda’s number two is upset at signs of democracy in Palestine is interesting. It reinforces the view that it is not Bush that caused Al Qaeda to attack the US (since 1991) but freedom. Zawahiri also was quite clear in reminding Democrats and spineless Reps that if they want to surrender Iraq they must talk to Al Qaeda and not these regional puppet regimes. Too funny. Maybe Sen Nelson should go and meet with Zawahiri, and complete is transformation into the modern Neville Chamberlain. He can tell Zawahiri we admit that we over reacted to 9-11 and that all we want is for his people to run the ME in a way that doesn’t make it hard on Congress to face the voters every two years. And while Democrats and other surrender-at-all-costs types are working to lose in the ME, the effort continues apace to destroy Al Qaeda one terrorist at a time – as we just captured the Al Qaeda leader in Mosul. So which path does America prefer: surrender or success? Well only the truly clueless would get the answer to that one wrong.
Ken, why is it that when 60% don’t support Pres Bush, you think that’s an indicator but when 60% of the professionals choose to stay in Iraq, it’s not significant.
Are you ever right on anything?
You’re a liar, FE. I am of Dutch-Irish and English extraction if you can retain knowledge . Never said otherwise, and when you attack others like Gil for misspelling, better fight off that senility so you don’t embarrass yourself with typos.
Bush has 19% war support, not 40%. Its very significant
that you sit in comfortable surroundings and never express one word of empathy for the victims of your dear leader’s botched occupation.
It means your amorality outweighs your inanity.
Ken, It’s an honor to be attacked by you and to be called names.
It, of course, is because you have never been able to put together a coherent argument on any subject or defend any position you state and it must feel terrible to only be able to resort to name calling to get attention.
When you actually start acting like a grown-up and defending your arguments, maybe someone will begin to respect you, other than Gil.
By the way, now that you recognize that I am senile, you should cut me some slack.
Have you ever been right on anything?
Do you want me to go back and cut and paste where you said you were French? It would be easy to do.
I’m not sure if I can find the French Muslim part, but for sure the French admission.
Let me know.
Ken, you said:
dear leader’s botched occupation.
So we are occupying a country that we lost to?
That would be like saying the Japanese occupied the US after WWII.
Or, is that an admission we won and are still there occupying it?
Or, do you want to have it both ways?
As usual wrong again.
Senile people a slow-witted and perhaps can’t latch onto the fact that
for an insurgency– by standard definition, a tie is a win.
It is you who wish to have it both ways and ignore the responsibilities
of an occupier under the terms of Geneva.
Yeah-paste it– and if you can’t find it, allow Strata to ban you, promise?
Ken:
Why don’t you go to Glenn Greenwald, or Daily Kos, where you belong? You won’t change a single opinion here, in fact you are having what intelligent people refer to as a “galvanizing effect.”
And by the way, you are truly an idiot.
One should be very careful about using number of attacks or casualty numbers to gauge the strength of an insurgent group. A group could become more active yet have fewer members and access to fewer resources. Also, casualty rates can be inflated and non-existant attacks could be reported.
CENTCOM, for example, has noted that daily casualty rates for bodies found about the city of Baghdad tend to be reported in the media tend to be about twice as high as the numbers they have. So while they might find 20, the media reports will carry a number in the 40’s. These reports are rarely attributed to an individual even though the Iraqi police have official offices for releasing this kind of information.
To give a couple of examples.
From December 19th via Reuters:
BAGHDAD – Police found 53 bodies in different districts of the Iraqi capital, many with signs of torture, an Interior Ministry official said.
From December 16th via Reuters:
BAGHDAD – Iraqi police said they had found around 53 bodies in Baghdad in the last 24 hours, 9 of them apparently killed execution-style.
In fact, over only the last three months there have been about a dozen reports of from 52 to 55 bodies being found in Baghdad with 53 being some kind of magic number that gets reported more than the others.
None of these reports carries a name of a source and it appears that AP is about to get their chops busted soon for reporting attacks that never happened along with inflated casualty numbers from a source who apparently doesn’t actually exist.
Most of these killings in Iraq have nothing to do with al Qaida and have been attributed to factional militias. In other words, Iraqis attacking Iraqis. al Qaida is currently in full blown retreat in al Anbar province as tribes are finally joining together to track them down and eliminating them. In other words, I see no evidence that al Qaida is in any kind of comeback in Iraq and in fact all evidence points in the other direction.
Goitta know
Because I am enjoying the unfolding Iraqi defeat in the cyber company of faux conservatives. After the Mideast gets done with America, we nationalist conservative types not beholden to the Israeli Lobby can re-capture American Conservatism’s leadership.
Crosspatch
al Qaeda was never more than 10% of the Sunni insurgency, despite
Strata’s best attempts to confuse you.
Crosspatch
Now for the bad news–the native Sunni nationalists hate America.
The secular Baathists hate America. The al Sadr Shi-ites hate America
but then so do the Sistani-loyal Shiites–Sistani won’t even meet an American. Moving along, the Badr Corp ultra-Iranian lovers hate America…only the Kurds like America..
You could not build a pro-American government from all the competing factions in Iraq as there are that few Iraqis well-disposed to us. An Iraqi government official found to be well disposed to us
would be assassinated at first chance. There might be thirty
well-armed factions in the Iraq multi-layered civil war and none of them save the Kurdish Peshmerga like us.
Beginning to get the hint?
Looks like the political process is going forward in Iraq, finally:
al Sadr considering ceasefire and possibly joining new political movement.
Sistani seems be back the new movement and appears to be in a position to encourage al Sadr to cooperate.
Iraqi bloggers seem to be in support of the movement. And here too.
So it looks like a foundation is being laid for peace breaking out in Baghdad.
Here is what people don’t understand. This isn’t ours to win, the Iraqis must win this themselves and it finally looks like they are showing the needed courage. I think they had been hoping that things would sort themselves out but failing that are now deciding that the militias and most radical factions must be brought under control. They are now reforming political alliances so that the radicals can be isolated. This is all good news.
“Now for the bad news–the native Sunni nationalists hate America.”
Can you please provide some supporting documentation for that statement? I don’t doubt that there aren’t some that hate us, heck there are Americans that hate America … but can you provide any documentation for the statement that native Sunnis hate America as a general rule?
I am finding exactly the opposite in my research.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bob-geiger/survey-says-iraqis-want-u_b_34698.html
this the latest in a series of perhaps 20 polls taken since 2004 by both American, European and Iraqi sponsors.
if 61% of the people want you dead it means they don’t like you,
meddler.
http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/home_page/165.php?nid=&id=&pnt=165&lb=hmpg2
as far as the Sunnis, 90% approve of insurgent attacks on US troops.
Glad to free you from Strata’s misleading propaganda.
The first thing that we need to understand is that we are fighting fanatical suicidal people. Our President and congress understood this concept in WWII. It took a drastic measure (Hiroshima) to end that war and it will take the same kind of action to end this one. That’s why Rumsfeld failed because he prepared for a fast army fighting conventional forces despite saying that it could meet any type of threat.
Right now Iran is the main threat. If we bomb Iran and kill a few thousands and destroy all their nuclear facilities the ME will be neutralized. Is up to us or Israel. Once Iran is neutralized Iraq will normalize, Hizbollah will have no funding and thus Lebanon will be a democracy and so forth.They are using petro money to create unrest death and eventually control Lebanon and Iraq.
You’re dreaming. Russia and China among others would never let it happen for economic reasons. Wanna pay ten bucks a gallon? Ever heard of the Straits of Hormuz? Finally, Good Doctor (not much Hippocratic Oath here)…wanna sacrifice thousands of US troops in Ira..Q who would be attacked mercilessly by both Iraqi and Iranian Shia were your dreams carried out?
Back to the drawing board. Better yet, take Israel’s nukes away and remove Iran’s desire. Or accept the spread, what’s sauce for the goose, you know..and Bush walked into the trap…
Ken, I think you will find that in the last poll, support for the US has doubled from the last one.
From that WPO poll according to WPO (not Bob Geiger)
Now read carefully what that says. First, it says they don’t want an indefinite presence. Fine. Neither do we want to be there indefinately so their goals and our goals are in step. Second, only a slim majority, 57%, want us out within 6 months down from 83% six months previously. What changed in that six months? I will tell you what changed. Sunni tribes finally banded together to fight al Qaida and are making headway, particularly in Ramadi. We are now seen by more tribes as an ally than as an opponent as we assist them in their fight against al Qaida. Also, Sunnis are now making up a growing portion of the Army and police which had previously been nearly all Shiite.
So that poll you refer to actually debunks the point you are trying to make, Ken. It says that support for the US is growing, not declining.
Also note that al Qaida is resonsible for a shrinking percentage of deaths in Iraq. The main cause the past three months have been killings in Baghdad of Iraqis by Iraqis along religious factional lines.