A Spork in the Drawer

Getting It Right

William Arkin:

Then there's the question of surrender: Every time the president mentions al Qaeda in Iraq, he is advertising a brand. Al Qaeda's success from the very beginning has not just been the appeal of Osama bin Laden's description of Islam under attack, nor even the abundance of angry, dissatisfied, and driven men; nor has it necessarily even been anti-Americanism. The success has been a macabre form of his success and the hope it suggests. When U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were attacked in 1998, bin Laden's first spectacular and a follow-on to his fatwa that declared war on the enemies of Islam, volunteers flooded in. Young men who had never even heard of bin Laden were captivated: someone was striking back in their name.

[...]

By conferring such power on al Qaeda, by framing a bigger battle between healthy nations and a marginal terrorist organization, the president is mightily adding to the al Qaeda mystique. We are successful enough to pin down hundreds of thousands of American forces, many terrorists and would-be terrorists think. We are responsible for all of those deaths and injuries against the world's greatest army. We are the centerpiece of the president's State of the Union address, they must happily observe.

It's no wonder that conspiracy-minded types believe that BushCo™ are in league with bin Laden.

Meanwhile:

Five U.S. Soldiers Are Killed When Convoy Is Hit in Mosul

It should go without saying that there was no mention of this last night.

356 days.

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Kill Me Now

Fox News: Al Qaeda is causing the CA wildires.

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It's Official

They think we're idiots. Why does the administration repeatedly conflate Iraq with al-Qaeda? It's simple!

The reason to emphasize al-Qaeda, aides said, is simple. "People know what that means," said one senior official who spoke about internal strategy on the condition of anonymity. "The average person doesn't understand why the Sunnis and Shia don't like each other. They don't know where the Kurds live. . . . And al-Qaeda is something they know. They're the enemy of the United States."

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Former Bush White House press secretary Ari Fleischer, one of the group's founders, said the ad is not misleading by saying "they attacked us" in the context of Iraq and showing the image of the Sept. 11 attack. "Iraqis did not attack us on 9/11," he agreed. But it does not matter, Fleischer added, because some of the same sorts of people who did are now fighting U.S. forces in Iraq.

"Nine-one-one absolutely is a bona fide, legitimate reason to remind people what's at stake," he said. "The point is not that Iraq was responsible for 9/11. They're not. But 9/11 should be a vivid reminder to everyone about how vulnerable our country is and that's why we need to win in Iraq."

I've been trying to unpack that statement. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 therefore Iraq has everything to do with 9/11. Have I got that about right?

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Bush Determined To Strike In US

Another NIE that will be ignored:

The White House faced fresh political peril yesterday in the form of a new intelligence assessment that raised sharp questions about the success of its counterterrorism strategy and judgment in making Iraq the focus of that effort.

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But this line of defense seemed to unravel a bit yesterday with the release of a new National Intelligence Estimate that concludes that al-Qaeda "has protected or regenerated key elements of its Homeland attack capability" by reestablishing a haven in Pakistan and reconstituting its top leadership. The report also notes that al-Qaeda has been able "to recruit and indoctrinate operatives, including for Homeland attacks," by associating itself with an Iraqi subsidiary.

So what's a corrupt administration to do? Trot out, again, blatant lies:

Although only a portion of the instability in Iraq is attributed to al-Qaeda and the group had no substantial power base there before the U.S. invasion, Bush again cast the war as a battle against its members, whom his aides have described as key provocateurs there.

"These people have sworn allegiance to the very same man who ordered the attack on September the 11th, 2001: Osama bin Laden," the president said. "And they want us to leave parts of the world, like Iraq, so they can establish a safe haven from which to spread their poisonous ideology. And we are steadfast in our determination to not only protect the American people, but to protect these young democracies."

9/11! Iraq! Saddam! bin Laden! Second verse, same as the last.

Paul R. Pillar, a former CIA analyst who has been involved in previous intelligence estimates, said that the administration has correctly identified the danger posed by al-Qaeda in Iraq and that there are indeed links between the Iraq group and the larger international terrorist network. But he said the White House is drawing the wrong conclusion, and argued instead that it is the U.S. presence in Iraq that is fueling the terrorists' cause.

"Iraq matters because it has become a cause celebre and because groups like al-Qaeda in Iraq and al-Qaeda central exploit the image of the United States being out to occupy Muslim lands," Pillar said.

Who ever would have guessed that invading and occupying Iraq would harm our national security? Only Dirty Fucking Hippies, I guess.

It's a good thing that the adults are in charge.

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Time To Play The Fear Card Again

Trying desperately to get those poll numbers up:

President Bush is at odds with the American public and a restive congressional majority over the Iraq war, and even some Republicans talk about imposing new requirements that could trigger a troop withdrawal.

It's time to play the Qaeda card.

In a speech about Iraq yesterday morning at the Willard Hotel, the president mentioned Osama bin Laden's group -- 27 times. "For America, the decision we face in Iraq is not whether we ought to take sides in a civil war, it's whether we stay in the fight against the same international terrorist network that attacked us on 9/11," Bush told a group of construction contractors.

Surely White House Spokescritter Tony Snow must, on occasion, regret taking the job:

These awkward truths left White House press secretary Tony Snow with hard work at the podium in his first televised briefing since returning from cancer surgery.

Fox News Channel's Bret Baier noted: "This morning the president said that al-Qaeda seems to be a bigger problem than sectarian violence. That seems to fly in the face of what we've heard in recent weeks and months on the ground in Iraq."

"Well," the game press secretary replied, "you've got a shifting series of circumstances."

NBC's Kelly O'Donnell wasn't convinced. "Wasn't the whole point of the surge to quell the capital and really to diminish the sectarian violence? And now he seems to be saying the enemy is more al-Qaeda."

Snow repeated his view that "there has been some change in status on the ground."

Martha Raddatz of ABC News took a turn calling Snow on the Qaeda card. This exchange, too, proved inconclusive. CBS Radio's Peter Maer took a final stab at the "systematic al-Qaeda attack" allegation, with a similar result.

While squirming from that barrage Tony was saved by a bit of surreality:

Raghubir Goyal of the India Globe held up a basket wrapped in colored cellophane. "Mangoes from India arrived, and here is a basket for President Bush," the reporter offered. "My question is: What message does mangoes bring, as far as India-U.S. relations are concerned?"

Ooo-kay.

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This Is Interesting

Passed along without comment:

PARIS (AP) — A French intelligence service learned as early as January 2001 that al-Qaeda was working on a plot to hijack U.S. airliners, and it passed the information on to the CIA, Le Monde reported Monday.

[...]

Le Monde reported that the documents included a note dated Jan. 5, 2001, which said al-Qaeda had been working on a hijacking plot for months. The intelligence note reported that bin Laden had attended a meeting in Afghanistan in October 2000, where a final decision to carry out the plot was made, the newspaper said.

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Low Comedy

Reg Henry:

The other day, the smarter clown, the one who had five exemptions from the war of his generation and who may really be in charge, was on the Rush Limbaugh show -- the Mecca of clowndom -- once again peddling the old line about al-Qaida being linked to Saddam, a notion now so threadbare a nudist could carry it at a summer picnic without compromising his nakedness.

But the real joke was that he spoke on the very day that the Pentagon declassified a report that said, as the Washington Post reported, Saddam's regime was not directly cooperating with al-Qaida before the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

Most of us knew this already, but this fellow doesn't. Funny isn't it? If you are not sobbing yet, look for more hilarity because for this vice presidential prankster and his straight-man president no joke is worth repeating like an old joke.

[...]

Supporting the troops might mean insisting that they be deployed sensibly on ground not favorable to the enemy. Instead, it will mean insisting shamelessly that they go back to Iraq for three, four, five -- perhaps six or seven tours? -- and still fight in the midst of a civil war.

Osama bin Laden is laughing all right. More than four years into this tragi-comedy, he and his pals can be the only ones.

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He Can't Stop Lying

DeFib Dick:

Vice President Dick Cheney repeated his assertions of al-Qaida links to Saddam Hussein's Iraq on Thursday as the Defense Department released a report citing more evidence that the prewar government did not cooperate with the terrorist group.

Cheney contended that al-Qaida was operating in Iraq before the March 2003 invasion led by U.S. forces and that terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was leading the Iraqi branch of al-Qaida. Others in al-Qaida planned the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

"He took up residence there before we ever launched into Iraq, organized the al-Qaida operations inside Iraq before we even arrived on the scene and then, of course, led the charge for Iraq until we killed him last June," Cheney told radio host Rush Limbaugh during an interview. "As I say, they were present before we invaded Iraq."

But then:

However, a declassified Pentagon report released Thursday said that interrogations of the deposed Iraqi leader and two of his former aides as well as seized Iraqi documents confirmed that the terrorist organization and the Saddam government were not working together before the invasion.

The Sept. 11 Commission's 2004 report also found no evidence of a collaborative relationship between Saddam and Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network during that period.

Cheney (and the rest) need to be removed from power. It's that simple.

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ADDED: At least the WaPo debunks this nonsense.

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The Return Of Ricky

Just like you can't keep a neocon down it's difficult to keep a theocon down. I speak this morning of none other than former Senator Rick "Man-On-Dog" Santorum. Today, he takes to the pages of what he pretends to be his hometown newspaper to tell us that John Murtha is a big poopy-head. Let the incoherence begin!

Rep. Murtha's policy and the reasoning behind it are seriously flawed for three reasons: It would make America less secure, it ignores the realities faced by our troops on the ground and it is at odds with the reality that America possesses the greatest fighting force on Earth.

What the third point - "greatest fighting force on Earth" - has to do with the first two is beyond me. Would dnot having the greatest fighting force on Earth make America more secure? Would it acknowledge the realities faced by our troops on the ground? Or is Li'l Ricky just engaging in rah-rah claptrap?

Instead of pursuing victory in Iraq, Rep. Murtha supports a premature U.S. withdrawal that would endanger America. Rep. Murtha's reasoning that Iraq's government will hold after U.S. forces leave, that Iraq's security forces will not disintegrate and that the Islamic fascists will not be able to establish a safe haven in Iraq is seriously flawed.

Why is it flawed? Only Ricky knows and he's not sayin'.

Aw, but now we arrive at the nut:

Contrary to what Rep. Murtha believes, for five years we have been at war with a highly motivated, innovative, persistent and lethal enemy. And we will be for a long time.

Aaaannnddd...BINGO! Iraq = al Qaeda!

Unlike antiwar activist Cindy Sheehan and her ilk, Rep. Murtha has the burden of knowing the nature and gravity of the threat of Islamic fascism.

Islamic fascism!

That this war may last as long as or longer than the Cold War, and may be much deadlier, is another factor.

Longer than the cold war!

Will Ricky assign cynical motives to Murtha? Need you ask?

Yet Rep. Murtha has looked past this to score short-term, domestic political advantage.

Will Ricky imply treasonous motives? But of course!

I can only assume that he and his comrades hope they do not succeed, for if they did, they not only would ensure our defeat and withdrawal from Iraq, but they also would dramatically increase the threat we face at home.

Why is Ricky writing all of this? Why, he only wants to help the "left"!

This, of course, would spell political disaster for the left.

But it all makes Ricky very sad:

It is sad indeed to see this once-great defender of our national security offering proposals that are consistent with the urgings of our enemy, the Islamic fascists. I know Jack Murtha has fought in the trenches for decades for our men and women in uniform and that he has a special bond with them.

And Ricky wouldn't be Ricky without a poorly-informed historical analogy:

But today he reminds me of another Democratic leader during a time of war, Gen. George McClellan. He was twice the Union commander in the early years of the Civil War. He was a great leader, but he loved his troops so much that he was unable to commit them to battle, thus passing up opportunities for a swift and less bloody conflict.

Here's the funny part: Gen. George McClellan not only got got his clock cleaned by Lee he later ran for president on a platform of essentially surrendering to the Confederacy. Is Ricky saying that Murtha et al are advocating surrendering to Iraq al Qaeda Islamofascists? Of course! Ricky is terminally unable to present an argument on its merits but has to impugn the motives of those with whom he disagrees.

Finally:

Jack, if you really love our men and women in uniform as much as you say, let them fight and give them what they need to win.

Say, Ricky, why didn't you in 2003 ask Don Rumsfeld, "If you really love our men and women in uniform as much as you say, why don't you give them what they need to win"? Why didn't you support former Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric Shinseki's call for more troops? Why did you remain silent when he was cashiered out of the Army for making that call?

If Iraq is now crawling with "Islamofascists" then Ricky is as much to blame as anyone in the current administration. His slavish support of Bushcheney and his desire to recreate the Siege of Vienna is so strong then he can strap on some armor and lead the charge. But Ricky is being dishonest, as usual, to assign blame for the current disaster to Jack Murtha or anyone else.

Cry havoc, Ricky! And let slip the, eh, dogs of war!

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ADDED: dayvoe has more.

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I Can't Imagine How This Happened

Delusional Dick is concerned:

Vice President Dick Cheney warned Monday that al-Qaeda is "regrouping" in Pakistan's remote border region and sought President Gen. Pervez Musharraf's help in a stiffened push against Taliban and al-Qaeda militants, Musharraf's office said.

al-Qaeda is regrouping? Didn't we invade Afghanistan and pressure Pakistan to put an end to the group? Back in 2001? And al-Qaeda is still an issue? I can't imagine why.

Oh, right...

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Mendacious Bastard

Stephen Hadley takes to the op-ed page of the WaPo to explain George's new strategery for Iraq. Throughout he cites the Iraq Study Group (aka, "Baker-Hamilton") in support of the new policy.

That's rather amusing.

Let's jump into the Wayback Machine and see what BushCo&trade has said previously:

Asked if Baker would help implement the report, a spokesman for Mr. Bush said, "Jim Baker can go back to his day job."

They'll say anything to convince people of their righteousness.

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al-Qaeda Is Our Friend

In what can only be considered another example of the Librul Media in action the LATimes gives space to respected conservative Dinesh D'Souza. D'Souza believes that the Islamists are right to hate America (because we tolerate Teh Gay and baby killing and watch Baywatch) and thus domestic conservatives should team up with Islamists to oppose Librul decadence.

You know what? I'm not even going to bother. D'Souza is beneath contempt. That conservative institutions respect and support him tells you all you need to know about modern conservatism.

But if you wish watch Stephen Colbert utterly destroy D'Souza. If text is your thing read Jim Wolcott.

Life is too short to deal with such disgusting creatures.

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ADDED: watertiger brings us the visual.

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