The anti-war crowd have one wobbley crutch to stand on with their “surrender Iraq at any cost” attitude. They minimize and dismiss the Al Qaeda threat (which I must point out to the Reps is much more important than punishing workers without proper papers – hint) in order to pretend handing Iraq to Al Qaeda is no biggie. Well the lessons from Al Qaeda’s activities in Africa portends a much different future in Iraq if we give up and leave:

Secrets of how the terrorist network of Osama bin Laden operated throughout East Africa have now emerged.

A key group of 10 terrorists – all branded highly dangerous by the police – were able to plan and execute the three major bombings that rocked the region: the 1998 blasts at the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, and the 2002 car bomb attack on the Paradise Hotel at Kikambala, near Mombasa.

Together the bombings killed 275 people and injured more than 5,000 others.

Ten people did that over 6 years without government support or sanctuary. Imagine what would happen if Iraq became the modern center of the long awaited Al Qaeda Caliphate. Well, you don’t have to imagine.

The men, among them Kenyans willing to cause death and destruction in their own country, posed as ordinary traders in Mombasa and Mogadishu, the Somalia capital.

Yet they evolved into an armed group of mass murderers with the ability to gather crucial intelligence that led them to attack crucial American, British, Israeli and Australian interests in the region.

Details of the way they went about their sinister work, their motives and their masterminds, are revealed in a report by the anti-terrorism police, based on a confession by one of the terrorists who has since been jailed.

Quoting a confession by a Mr Omar Said Omar, the report states the al Qaeda terrorists had a network reaching from Dar es Salaam in Tanzania through Eastleigh in Nairobi and numerous bases and hideaways in Mombasa and Lamu to the Somalia cities of Mdoa, Buurgao, Mogadishu and Kismayu.

The terrorists, passing themselves off as dealers in seafood, engaged in the covert recruitment and training of terrorists in both Somalia and Afghanistan, preparing them for Jihad, or holy war, against foreign targets in Kenya and Tanzania.

…

Mr Omar details in his statement how he smoothed the way for the escape through Lamu to Somalia for the terrorists after the Kikambala carnage. He had to rent a house in Lamu and then hire a boat to spirit the gang from Kenya to Somalia.

He said he received a call from Mr Issa on November 28, 2002 at around 10am, who told him “the operation” was over and that he should be prepared because they were coming.

“When Issa Osman Issa and Swale Nabhan arrived in Lamu on November 29, 2002, they explained to me what had happened. They told me that they fired the missiles at the aeroplane but they did not get it,” said Mr Omar in his confession.

Ten people were able to do a lot of killing. If we let up on Iraq, then the terrorists will have a home base from which to send 100’s of squads of ten people out into the West. We cannot allow them that opportunity. Just because liberals do not see the danger doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Who are you going to believe? The liberal democrat looking the other way or the endless statements of intent from the terrorists themselves? Not too difficult a choice for most of us. I believe the terrorists are being honest when they say they want us wiped from the face of the earth. They have not only shown the truth of these claims, but a willingness and capacity to make good on them. Dems ignore them at OUR peril.