#2
"...As a Western-educated Muslim woman... It is apparent at this point that Muslims expect at least an apology from the editors. Undoing the damage done across Muslim communities will require more -- further dialogue, broader respect, and deeper understanding."
Education must have taught her "free speech for me but not for thee."
#3
Moderate Muslims I know in the United States and Europe who did not participate in the street demonstrations
The problem is, they don't do ANYTHING (that is, if they really exist).
Some issued death threats, while non-violent protestors in London, for example, carried signs with violent messages such as "behead those who insult Islam."
so the non-violent ones only THREATEN violence, eh? How civilized.
What "insults Islam" is not the criticism of it, but those things done in its name that prompt the criticism. Death. Terror. Riots. Intolerance. Deal with those things publicly and definitively, missy, and the rest of us will respect you. Here's a tip: You don't demand respect. You earn it. Go mention that to your friends when they take a breather from beheading people.
#4
Feelings of alienation and isolation, particularly among European Muslims, could make it difficult for Muslim communities to co-exist within mainstream Western societies.
Here lies the problem, no assimilation.
Posted by: Jan ||
03/21/2008 11:43 Comments ||
Top||
#5
We need more! More cartoons, videos, commedy routines. The mooselimbs must be bludgeoned with their own ignorance and intolerance.
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
03/21/2008 11:50 Comments ||
Top||
#6
In a post-Sept.11 environment, where relations between Muslims and non-Muslims in the West are at best precarious, at worst distrustful, and above all central to everyone's security, the Danish editors might have known that reprinting the cartoons would provoke destructive behavior rather than encourage peaceful dialogue.
Ya got a point, honey. Shit, even I knew that. Although you don't need the psychic powers of Nostrodamus to figure out how these things are gonna go.
So what are we gonna be pissed off about next month? Headscarfs? No headscarfs? Farting near a Koran? The existence of ham? Let us know, will ya?
#7
In Pakistan's largest riot, 70,000 people gathered in the northwestern city of Peshawar, where I traveled last week, burning cars and cinemas.
now why the hell didn't somebody stop her?
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/21/2008 16:31 Comments ||
Top||
#8
note also, that this muslim tool apologist works at the RAND Institute, the next time someone quotes them as an unbiased source
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/21/2008 16:33 Comments ||
Top||
#9
If you don't like freedom of speech and the negative consequences that go with it, go back to the hell-hole you came from and express yourself there. We don't need to change to live here, but apparently you do.
Overlook his shortcomings and vote for him over better-qualified candidates anyway because we could all feel warm and fuzzy for being able to put slavery behind us [which it already is, but that's beside the point because what we are trying to focus on here is the distraction from reality].
Now when we do that, the fact that we elected this rudderless newbie will somehow magically make the dictators of the world irrelevant, and that the American people will speak directly to the hearts of all people around the world and they will all suddenly love us, and they will somehow rise up and vote out their dictators without bloodshed and become democracies or, better yet, Socialist Utopias.
That's about all I could stomach, but I'll bet the remaining 70% of the video gives supporting "logic".
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
03/21/2008 17:20 Comments ||
Top||
#3
Not The Times, The Post, not even The Globe. The South Coast Times, which I look in to find somebody to get rid of my crap cheap when I clean out my cellar.
Yeah, his career's goin places...
#4
yeah, but he made Rush's show today....bet that wasn't the PR he expected. He's a faux-patrician tool, and a disgusting human being. I'm sure BHO said: "he endorsed me? F*ck. Typical white asshole"
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/21/2008 19:15 Comments ||
Top||
#5
CHIN MIL FORUM Posters > reminded vv LA TIMES on complaints from LA blacks about alleged "ethnic/
racial cleansing" and "black cultural genocide/rape" in LA from Hispanic immigrants.
In my considered judgment as a race and civil rights specialist, I would say that Barack Obama's "momentous" speech on race settled on merely "explaining" so-called racial differences between blacks and whites -- and in so doing amplified deep-seated racial tensions and divisions. Instead of giving us a polarizing treatise on the "black experience," Obama should have reiterated the theme that has brought so many to his campaign: That race ain't what it used to be in America.
He should have presented us a pathway out of our racial boxes and a road map for new thinking about race. He should have depicted his minister, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., as a symbol of the dysfunctional angry men who are stuck in the past and who must yield to a new generation of color-blind, hopeful Americans and to a new global economy in which we will look on our neighbors' skin color no differently than how we look on their eye color.
In fact, I'd say that considering the nation's undivided attention to this all-important speech, which gave him an unrivaled opportunity to lift us out of racial and racist thinking, Obama blew it.
I waited in vain for our hybrid presidential candidate to speak the simple truth that there is no such thing as "race," that we all belong to the same race -- the human race. I waited for him to mesmerize us with a singular and focused appeal to hold all candidates to the same standards no matter their race or their sex or their age. But instead Obama gave us a full measure of racial rhetoric about how some of us with an "untrained ear" -- meaning whites and Asians and Latinos -- don't understand and can't relate to the so-called black experience.
Well, I am black, and I can't relate to a "black experience" that shields and explains old-style black ministers who rant and rave about supposed racial differences and about how America ought to be damned. I long ago broke away from all associations and churches that preached the gospel of hate and ethnic divisiveness -- including canceling my membership in 100 Black Men of America Inc., when they refused my motion to admit women and whites. They still don't. I was not going to stay in any group that assigned status or privileges of membership based solely on race or gender.
We and our leaders -- especially our candidates for the highest office in the land -- must repudiate all forms of racial idiocy and sexism, and be judged by whether we still belong to exclusionary or hateful groups. . . .
We can't be united as a nation if we continue to think racially and give credence to racial experiences and differences based on ethnicity, past victim status and stereotypical categories. All of these prejudices surrounding tribe-against-tribe are old-hat and dysfunctional -- especially the rants of ministers, of whatever skin color or religion, who appeal to our base prejudices and to superstitions about our supposed racial differences. The man or woman who talks plainly about our commonality as a race of human beings, about our future as one nation indivisible, rather than about our discredited and disunited past, is, I predict, likely to finish ahead of the pack and do us a great public service.
Michael Meyers is executive director of the New York Civil Rights Coalition and a former assistant national director of the NAACP. These views are his own.
Posted by: Mike ||
03/21/2008 09:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[4 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Obama offered some hope for change and then he drove deep into the same old rut.
#2
It looks like Meyers should have run for President instead of BHO. I might not agree with his political policies but I wish all had his attitude w/r race.
#3
Very nicely put - I only hope Mr Myers truly believes what he says. I also love the usual disclaimer: "...these views are his own" Yes...I'm sure they are nowhere to be found at the LA Times.
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
03/21/2008 11:37 Comments ||
Top||
#4
Remember the window washer that plunged on his scaffold from some insane height and lived?
Obama must have the same feeling as that guy did while he was still falling.
Thank you Rev. Wright for exposing him for what he is.
#6
I remember tee shirts with the Malcom X and rebel flag both on the front, printed below "Your "X". My "X", quite effective at pointing out that racism worked both ways, not just white to black.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
03/21/2008 13:52 Comments ||
Top||
There's a reason Hillary Clinton has remained relatively silent during the flap over intemperate remarks by Barack Obama's former pastor, Jeremiah Wright. When it comes to unsavory religious affiliations, she's a lot more vulnerable than Obama.
You can find all about it in a widely under-read article in the September 2007 issue of Mother Jones, in which Kathryn Joyce and Jeff Sharlet reported that "through all of her years in Washington, Clinton has been an active participant in conservative Bible study and prayer circles that are part of a secretive Capitol Hill group known as "The "Fellowship," also known as The Family. . . . The Family's most visible activity is its blandly innocuous National Prayer Breakfast, held every February in Washington. But almost all its real work goes on behind the scenes--knitting together international networks of right-wing leaders, most of them ostensibly Christian. . . . At the heart of The Family's American branch is a collection of powerful right-wing politicos, who include, or have included, Sam Brownback, Ed Meese, John Ashcroft, James Inhofe and Rick Santorum. . . .
What drew Clinton into the sinister heart of the international right? Maybe it was just a phase in her tormented search for identity, marked by ever-changing hairstyles and names: Hillary Rodham, Mrs. Bill Clinton, Hillary Rodham Clinton and now Hillary Clinton. She reached out to many potential spiritual mentors during her White House days, including New Age guru Marianne Williamson and the liberal rabbi Michael Lerner. But it was the Family association that stuck.
Sharlet generously attributes Clinton's involvement to the under-appreciated depth of her religiosity, but he himself struggles to define The Family's theological underpinnings. The Family avoids the word Christian but worships Jesus, though not the Jesus who promised the earth to the "meek." They believe that, in mass societies, it's only the elites who matter, the political leaders who can build God's "dominion" on earth. Insofar as The Family has a consistent philosophy, it's all about power--cultivating it, building it and networking it together into ever-stronger units, or "cells." "We work with power where we can," Doug Coe has said, and "build new power where we can't."
Obama has given a beautiful speech on race and his affiliation with the Trinity United Church of Christ. Now it's up to Clinton to explain--or, better yet, renounce--her long-standing connection with the fascist-leaning Family.
Posted by: Mike ||
03/21/2008 08:42 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Don't look in her eyes! DON'T LOOK IN HER EYES!!!
#3
The reason Hillary has remained silent during the flap is that Obama has not stopped digging yet. I'm sure Hillary has a shovel ready to fill in the hole (with Obama inside) if needs be.
The Family avoids the word Christian but worships Jesus, though not the Jesus who promised the earth to the "meek." They believe that, in mass societies, it's only the elites who matter, the political leaders who can build God's "dominion" on earth. Insofar as The Family has a consistent philosophy, it's all about power--cultivating it, building it and networking it together into ever-stronger units, or "cells." "We work with power where we can," Doug Coe has said, and "build new power where we can't."
The Family? Well, I've always said that the Democratic party is just the political arm of the mob- so in that light, it all kind of makes sense :-)
#1
FTA "It may not fit the legal definition of fraud (as a key Democrat strategist Axelrod has to know boatloads of lawyers), but it does mean that Axelrod is quite comfortable misleading the general public. And Barack Obama is evidently quite comfortable around people who think the gullible public is just waiting to be tricked into following their advice."
Most of the media and their fellow liberals were positively giddy over Barack Obamas speech Tuesday, all but comparing it to the Sermon on the Mount.
I wont deny it was a masterful piece of oratory -- the man can be spellbinding -- but when you stop to consider what Sen. Obama was really doing up there on the podium, invoking the specter of slavery and Jim Crow and the era of whites only, it becomes clear that it was a con job designed to make the voters as giddy as he knew his worshippers in the submissive media would be.
The speech was meant to be an explanation and expiation of his guilt for his years of remaining mute in the face of the outrageous anti-Americanism spewed by his pastor and bosom buddy, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright.
Until Tuesday, Barack Obama (you cant use his middle name, which has now become the H-word, allegedly a code word for anti-Muslim rhetoric) had steadfastly denied he ever heard his friend and pastor make his hateful remarks. In the speech, however, he just kind of mentioned that well, yes he guesses he was aware of the Reverend Wrights offensive rhetoric after all. Mea Minima Culpa.
He then launched into a defense of his friendship with the man he credited for bringing him to Christianity, and helping to form his social and political philosophy and set him on the path to a life of public service. Admirably, while denouncing Wrights extremism, he refused to denounce the man himself.
Nobody expected him to declare Wright anathema and cast him into the outer darkness where there is weeping and wailing and the gnashing of teeth -- one simply doesnt do to that sort of thing to a longtime friend, benefactor and mentor even if he has been shown to have slipped the rails time after time.
What was not expected was Barack H. Obamas use of a litany of Americas past racist offenses to justify not only Wrights blatant hatred of white America but his suggestion that it was a sentiment shared by most African Americans. And that is simply not true.
Nor was it true, as Obama charged, that the Reagan coalition was created out of white resentment for affirmative action or forced busing.
He charged that anger over welfare and affirmative action helped forge the Reagan coalition. Politicians routinely exploited fears of crime talk show hosts and conservative commentators built entire careers unmasking bogus claims of racism while dismissing legitimate discussions of racial injustice and inequality as mere political correctness or reverse racism.
Poppycock! These are not only outright falsehoods, but echoes of what Obama learned at the feet of Jeremiah Wright and now preaches as his own beliefs. He learned his lessons well.
When he suggested that my fathers coalition was based on anger over affirmative action and welfare he was peddling a blatant falsehood as egregious in its falsity as Wrights charge that whites created AIDS to wipe out the black population.
Everything Obama said was directed at suggesting that while Rev. Wright should not have used such inflammatory language, he was somehow justified because of Americas white racism.
Try as he might, Barack Obama cannot claim the innocence of a lamb in his long years of worshipful association with the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. He was either fully aware of the seething racial hatred that motivated Wright, or something of a blithering idiot who cant spot a racist hater when he spends years genuflecting at his feet.
Barack Obama is not an idiot. He is a brilliant orator who exudes charm and arouses near-worship from his host of giddy, hypnotized supporters. He is also a committed socialist and a talented salesman for his brand of Marxist snake oil.
Beware of camels bearing gifts, and politicians promising utopia.
Mike Reagan, the eldest son of President Ronald Reagan, is heard on more than 200 talk radio stations nationally as part of the Radio America Network.
Politicians, ministers, used car sales men all engage in selling themselves because they really don't have a viable product to sell. It's all a confidence game. It's the exception rather than the case that keeps us from chasing them all out of town.
#2
"I wont deny it was a masterful piece of oratory -- the man can be spellbinding"
I remember reading a story like this when i was a little boy:
it involved a guy with a flute and a lot of little kids that today would have ended up with their pictures on milk cartons.
this guy is dangerous as there are many out there that have fell under the spell of his flute and will be votebots come November.
Reading Dreams from My Father, Part Five Jim Geraghty, National Review
Im up to Obamas boyhood years in Indonesia now. . . . Obama goes on to describe life in a country ruled by fear in pretty gripping terms: the way the rich and loamy earth could soak up the rivers of blood that had once coursed through the streets, the way people could continue about their business beneath giant posters of the new president as if nothing had happened, a nation busy developing itself. As [his mothers] circle of Indonesian friends widened, a few of them would be willing to tell her other stories - about the corruption that pervaded government agencies, the shakedowns by police and the military, entire industries carved out for the presidents family and entourage.
But from that vivid experience with a brutal regime as a boy, one would think that Obama would be a relentless fighter on the issue of human rights. And its not like his record in this area isnt without its highlights work with Senator Sam Brownback to pass the Darfur Peace and Accountability Act here, a visit to refugee camps on the Chad-Sudan border there, a resolution denouncing Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe's government here, an amendment to bring former Liberian president Charles Taylor to justice there
But does a visceral disdain for thugs in power flow through Obamas bloodstream, the way it did through the late Tom Lantos, or Democratic Congressman Donald Payne, or Brownback or Republican Congressman Chris Smith? Do we detect the white-hot anger of President Reagans vigorous denunciations of human rights abuses by Cuba and the Soviet Empire? Would he be willing to do what Jimmy Carter did, and pull the U.S. out of the Olympics if theyre hosted by a brutal regime? (As we hear of new abuses in Tibet, is Beijing any more of an outrageous host than Moscow in 1980?)
Does a man who bristles with loathing for the cruel and inhumane rulers in this world tout face-to-face diplomacy with any and all dictators as his primary foreign policy change?
I wrote elsewhere yesterday about a similar pattern on other issues:
A man who claims to have dedicated his career to good, clean government chooses to buy his house with Tony Rezko, and a man who claims to have dedicated his life to racial reconciliation chooses to attend a church that teaches that the government created AIDS to commit genocide against minorities. Obama has this strange habit of choosing a path that takes him in the opposite direction of his stated goal.
Posted by: Mike ||
03/21/2008 06:05 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
The Anniversary: Five years after the start of the war in Iraq, it's become common wisdom among mainstream media and Beltway pundits, anyway that it's all been a failure. They couldn't be more wrong.
The U.S. war in Iraq and by extension, President Bush started coming under withering criticism not too long after it started in March 2003. Quickly forgotten were these salient quotes, made just the year before:
"We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction." Sen. Ted Kennedy, on Sept. 27, 2002.
"It is clear . . . that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons." Sen. Hil-lary Clinton, Oct. 10, 2002.
"We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country." Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002.
We could go on and on. Others said similar things. Suffice to say, support at the time for "doing something" about Iraq was wide and deep. They even egged Bush on, urging him to get tough. Then, in the fall of 2002, Congress authorized Bush to go to war.
Only later, in late 2003 and 2004, as polls showed public support waning, did many of those same prominent politicians who once enthusiastically stumped for war and even voted for it in Congress suddenly do an about-face. It stands as one of the most shameful political turnabouts in U.S. history.
Opponents suddenly claimed the war was a sham, that they were fooled into supporting it by cooked intelligence, that we should have never removed Saddam, that Iraqis were better off with him in power than with us as occupiers.
The war in Iraq, in short, simply wasn't worth it. But they were wrong on all counts.
The data on the war weren't cooked; virtually every major foreign intelligence service, including those of France, Germany and the U.K., among others, believed Saddam Hussein was pursuing nuclear and biological weapons weapons of mass destruction.
Moreover, Saddam's ties to al-Qaida, despite recent news reports to the contrary, were clear. He openly tolerated Ansar al-Islam, an al-Qaida affiliate, in northern Iraq. He welcomed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi with open arms before the war began.
His intelligence service met with al-Qaida cell leader and 9/11 terrorist Mohammed Atta months before he attacked the Twin Towers. Osama bin Laden even wrote a now-infamous letter to Saddam in the 1990s, asking for help.
As 9/11 Committee co-chairman and former New Jersey Gov. Tom Kean said, "There was no question in our minds that there was a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaida."
We achieved many concrete benefits from taking Saddam out none of them, by the way, related to "blood for oil," the libelous and patently false phrase used by the left to tarnish the U.S. war effort.
For instance, Libya's Muammar Qaddafi gave up his nuclear weapons just weeks after the U.S. deposed Saddam. Coincidence?
Syria pulled its troops out of Lebanon, a country it bullied for decades. Elections followed. Iraq and Afghanistan had free and fair elections, while Saudi Arabia, Egypt and even Syria recognized democratic movements. North Korea suddenly decided to talk.
Oh, but we didn't find WMDs?
On the contrary, U.S. troops found more than 500 weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. True, we didn't find an operational nuclear weapon, but U.N. inspectors found lots of equipment and plans clearly showing that Iraq had been working on one and intended to do so again.
All of these are facts. And so are the following:
Iraq is today a growing economy again. From 2002 through 2006, the most recent year for which data are available, per capita GDP in dollars jumped 110%.
Before the war, there were some 833,000 people with telephones. Today, there's 9.8 million. Fewer than 5,000 people were on the Internet during Saddam's rein of terror; today, it's a quarter million.
There were no private TV stations under Saddam; today Iraq has more than 50. There are at least 260 independent newspapers and magazines in Iraq, vs. none under Saddam. Just 1.5 million cars were registered before the war; by 2005, that had hit 3.1 million.
In short, by almost any objective measure one might choose, Iraqis are today much better off than they were under Saddam. Those that deny this are, frankly, deluded.
Better still, Saddam's jackbooted minions no longer pull people screaming out of their homes for torture sessions and murder.
By some estimates, an average of 50,000 people died each year from Saddam's campaigns of genocide, ethnic cleansing and political murder. Last year, the peak of the surge, there were 18,000 civilian deaths mostly by terrorists.
Today, Iraq's nascent democracy, though imperfect, seems solid. A recent look at the Index of Political Freedom shows Iraq ranking as the fourth-freest country in the Mideast, out of 20. Those who term the war a "failure" need to define that term.
Since the surge began a year ago, nearly every indicator of violence in the country is down, and down sharply: civilian fatalities, off 80% from the peak; enemy attacks, off 40%; bombings, off 81%.
Yes, U.S. fatalities are nearing 4,000. And every death of every brave soldier is a tragedy. But we lost more soldiers on D-Day.
In 2007 widely reported by the media last summer as the "worst" yet during the war 901 American troops lost their lives. By comparison, during the Clinton administration, an average of 938 American soldiers died each year in the military. The notion that we've suffered unconscionable troop losses is false and misleading. This is the most bloodless war in history.
So far, we've spent about $500 billion on the war less than 1% of our GDP over the past five years. Yet with that money, we've perhaps recast the history of the Mideast, giving its people a chance to throw off the shackles of tyranny and to live in peaceful democracies. We've bashed al-Qaida severely, killing key leaders and demoralizing the terrorist group's followers.
We've not had a single major terrorist attack since 9/11 no doubt, in part, because we showed our mettle when attacked. Just as important, we've helped make the threat of nuclear annihilation by rogue states a focus of international diplomacy something that might end up saving the West.
Not bad for an unpopular war. Democrats may propose a total withdrawal of all our troops, as Barack Obama has done, but increasingly Americans look to be siding with President Bush. On Wednesday, he called for us to stay in Iraq until the war is completely won. We agree.
"I have failed to liberate Iraq, and transform its society into an Islamic society."
-- Moqtada al-Sadr, Asharq Al Awsat newspaper, March 8, 2008
Moqtada al-Sadr -- the radical cleric dubbed "The Most Dangerous Man in Iraq" by a Newsweek cover story in December 2006 -- has just unilaterally extended the ceasefire he imposed on his Mahdi Army militia last summer. And on the eve of the Iraq War's fifth anniversary, Sadr also issued a somber but dramatic statement. He not only declared that he had failed to transform Iraq, but also lamented the new debates and divisions within his own movement. Explaining his marginalization, Sadr all but confessed his growing isolation: "One hand cannot clap alone."
Ismael Roldan
What happened? Over the past five years, Sadr has been one of the most persistent and insurmountable challenges for the U.S. Leveraging his family's prestige among the disaffected Shiite underclass, he asserted his power by violently intimidating rival clerics, agitating against the U.S. occupation, and using force to establish de facto control over Baghdad's Sadr City (named after his father, and home to two million Shiites on the east bank of the Tigris) and large swaths of southern Iraq.
The story of his rise, and fall, illustrates the complex relationship between security and political power that drives the fortunes of the U.S. mission in Iraq.
Sadr's postwar ascent caught the U.S. Government completely off-guard. Iraqi society was impenetrable in the 1980s and 1990s. Neither our intelligence community nor our diplomats, who had left Iraq in 1990, knew anything of significance about Sadr. The western press and punditry had never reported on him before the war (a Nexis search reveals not a single news article mentioning Sadr's name in the year leading up to the war). The oft-cited "Future of Iraq Project," produced by the State Department, failed to warn about Sadr in its thousands of pages of projections and scenarios. Few knew he existed, let alone anticipated the influence he would one day wield.
That influence was vast: Moqtada al-Sadr came very close to establishing a state within a state inside Iraq, much like Hezbollah had done in Lebanon.
It began in 2003, when Sadr's followers orchestrated the murder of Majid al-Khoie, a moderate Shiite cleric whom the U.S. government had hoped could play a pivotal role in building a democratic Iraq. It continued with a series of armed uprisings across the south in April 2004, which took the lives of scores of American troops, and led to the collapse of Iraq's fledgling security forces. These culminated in a dramatic standoff against the Iraqi government and U.S. forces at the Holy Shrines in August 2004. In 2005 and 2006 Sadr expanded his territorial reach, using his militia to expel Sunnis from their Baghdad neighborhoods and massively infiltrating the Iraqi police forces.
In areas under his control, Sadr set up extrajudicial Sharia courts to administer justice against Iraqi Shiite "heretics." Large numbers of citizens found guilty were punished by death. The Mahdi Army militia also established its own security checkpoints in Baghdad and across the south -- supplanting Iraq's weak national army and lightly deployed U.S. forces.
This militia took over petrol stations, skimming funds to finance its own operations. And it had practically halted many of the civic society initiatives launched by the coalition, NGOs, and many Iraqis in Shiite towns. For example, in 2004 our U.S. colleagues Fern Holland, Robert Zangas and their Iraqi translator, Salway Oumaishi were assassinated by Shiite militiamen, just as they had courageously helped a group of Shiite women to build a successful program to train them in advocacy for their rights.
The principal reason for Sadr's ability to augment his power during these years was the absence of security in Baghdad. This vacuum left the Shiite community completely vulnerable to an unrelenting wave of terror attacks from the Sunni insurgency and al Qaeda. With the U.S. Government's failure to engage in serious counterinsurgency and make it a priority to provide basic safety for Iraqi civilians, Sadr and his Mahdi militia moved quickly to fill the void.
As one Sadrist militant told the International Crisis Group last year: "The Mahdi Army's effort to conquer neighborhoods is highly sophisticated. It presents itself as protector of Shiites and recruits local residents to assist in this task. In so doing, it gains support from people who possess considerable information -- on where the Sunnis and Shiites are, on who backs and who opposes the Sadrists and so forth." By the end of 2006, U.S. military officials had concluded that sectarian violence by Shiite militants had surpassed al Qaeda and the insurgency as the principal threat to Iraqi stability.
In retrospect, that assessment marked the high point of Sadr's influence. While his empire had expanded, it had generated its own resentments. Ordinary citizens chafed at the harsh version of Islamic law imposed by Sadr's lieutenants, not to mention the corruption and brutality of functionaries manning checkpoints and patrolling the streets. Sadr's hold on the broader Shiite community was actually quite tenuous, cemented chiefly by fear of the insurgency and al Qaeda.
In 2007, the U.S. military shifted approach, putting in place for the first time a comprehensive counterinsurgency strategy backed by a surge of troops to support it. The new strategy paid large dividends against al Qaeda and Sunni insurgents, as attacks dropped to 2005 levels and Iraqi deaths due to ethno-sectarian violence declined 90% from June 2007 to March 2008. As Sunni attacks against Shiite civilians declined, so did the rationale for Sadr's authority.
As the International Crisis Group concluded, one "net effect" of the surge "was to leave the Sadrist movement increasingly exposed, more and more criticized and divided, and subject to arrest."
Other factors also contributed to Sadr's marginalization. But the increased security provided by more U.S. forces was essential in removing an underlying rationale for the Sadrist movement. Newsweek's 2006 profile had predicted that "the longer the American occupation lasts, the less popular America gets -- and the more popular Sadr and his ilk become." But as a recent ABC News poll of Iraqis makes clear, Shiite support for local militias has plummeted over the past year. The full implementation of the surge helped weaken Sadr, not make him more popular.
To be sure, Sadr's diminished capacity to stir up trouble may not last forever. While he has not appeared in public in close to a year, he still has his family name and a base of support among the Shiite underclass, particularly in Baghdad. He may be biding his time, hoping a U.S. withdrawal will leave him with a weaker opponent in the fledgling Iraqi security services. And as this week's deadly suicide bombing of a Shiite shrine in Karbala indicates, the security threats that enabled the Mahdi Army's rise to power have not yet been fully defeated.
So while the progress made against Sadr has been remarkable, it may also be fragile. Sustaining it means recognizing that political progress depends fundamentally on security. This basic insight of counterinsurgency warfare -- which has driven our progress against Sadr's militants, the Sunni insurgency, and al Qaeda over the past year -- is the central lesson America has learned in its five years of war in Iraq.
Messrs. Senor and Martinez were foreign policy advisers to the Bush administration. They were based in Baghdad in 2003 and 2004.
#3
I know what I'd throw* on them, grom - but I'm not a very nice person.
*Yes, I realize it's hard to get a pack of wolves to pee in a container, but I'm sure someone somewhere knows how.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
03/21/2008 20:23 Comments ||
Top||
#4
When a gunman enters a school and aims to murder as many children as possible and the killer is treated as a national hero, we are dealing with a society that has no equal on the planet in terms of its abandonment of morality and basic human decency.
Hellllooooo?
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/21/2008 21:20 Comments ||
Top||
America is always looking for ways to weaken Hezbollah and end its violent operations. The good news is that Hezbollah may now finally be undermining itself from within.
Trapped between Israel's wrath and the disillusionment of the Lebanese people, the "Party of God" is bringing about its own destruction and damaging its credibility by openly taking on the world.
Last month, Hezbollah announced that its top military commander, Imad Mughniyeh, had been assassinated in Damascus. Mughniyeh had been on the most-wanted lists of 42 countries for his involvement in several high-profile bombings, including attacks that killed more than 200 Americans in Lebanon in the 1980s. After Mughniyeh's death was announced, Hezbollah's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, quickly accused Israel, and vowed vengeance: "You have killed Hajj Imad outside the recognized battle zone," he declared, speaking in front of party militants. "If you want an open war, then let it be an open war."
An open war will leave Hezbollah in shambles and destroy its infrastructure and influence. Any operation from Hezbollah in response to Mugniyeh's assassination will surely be met with a massive Israeli retaliation, with consequences harsher than even the last war. This will not be accepted by the majority of Lebanese who are still struggling to regain their livelihood, and will inevitably lead to a civil war. Nasrallah, in effect, is caught between two wars: one of Israeli retribution, and the other initiated against him by the outraged Lebanese people.
Rather than serving as a fearsome threat, Nasrallah's proclamation has trapped Hezbollah. In any future confrontation, Israel will not refrain from bombing economic infrastructure and civilians, whose villages Hezbollah guerrilla fighters use as a launching pad for their attacks. As Nasrallah is well aware, this will inflict on Lebanon a price it cannot pay. The balance of fear, which Hezbollah has claimed is tilted in their favor, has been nullified
Hezbollah operates on the theory of intimidation: Coerce people and they do what you want. Inspire enough fear and you get a response. Carry out a violent action and you get a reaction. But there is also a law of unintended consequences.
Following the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri three years ago, and the end of the 30-year Syrian occupation of Lebanon, the issue of Hezbollah's arms became a hot debate. In the midst of voices calling for the disarmament of Hezbollah and its integration into the Lebanese Army, Nasrallah ordered the abduction of Israeli soldiers along the Lebanon-Israel border.
No one anticipated the severity of Israel's reaction and, by his own admission, Nasrallah confessed that he would never have given the order had he known the consequences.
For more than 33 days in the summer of 2006, the Israeli Army struck military and civilian targets indiscriminately. The outcome was disastrous for Lebanon: More than 900,000 Lebanese were displaced, 1,200 civilians were killed and the economy was paralyzed. Nevertheless, a massive public-relations campaign proclaimed Hezbollah's "divine victory" in the war. Iran offset Shiite rage with enormous infusions of funds into South Lebanon and Beirut's southern suburbs.
This war consummated the divorce between Hezbollah and the majority of Lebanese. Since then, domestic tensions in Lebanon have gradually risen to the brink of an explosion. Violence has erupted in the streets of Beirut between Hezbollah's opponents and its supporters. As a result, the image and aura of Nasrallah, which he tried to forge for himself and his party along inter-communal lines, has become a thing of the past.
Today the Party of God is out of options. By trying to avenge the murder of the party's military commander, Nasrallah would bring disaster upon Lebanon and the Shiite community. He cannot deliver on his vow to wage an open war and will have to backtrack on his threats.
What the international community needs to do now is to capitalize on Hezbollah's troubles by strengthening Lebanon's moderate, democratic forces and the authority of their central government. America should seize this opportunity to undercut the influence of an organization that has the blood of many people on its hands. Time is of the essence.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/21/2008 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[8 views]
Top|| File under: Hezbollah
#1
Does this mean Israel will have actually won last summer's war?
#2
REALCLEARPOLITICS > WSJ - WHAT HAPPENED TO MOGTADA?; + ADNKRONOS/HOTAIR [paraph]> iff Vatican = Pope benedict wants to see Catholic-Christian Churches in SAUDI ARABIA, the former MUST OFFICIALLY RECOGNIZE ISLAM FOUNDER MUHAMMED/MOHHAMED AS A LEGITIMATE [read - DIVINE] PROPHET.
In spite of its ongoing political crisis, an institutionally crippled Lebanon is performing well on a front it ironically has little experience in: counter-terrorism.
Five months after the Lebanese army's bloody though ultimately successful battle against the al-Qaida-inspired group, Fatah al-Islam, in the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp in northern Lebanon, the Lebanese are still concerned about a repeat of that scenario in some other Palestinian camp. And they have every right to worry.
The militant Salafi current in Lebanon may have suffered a heavy blow in Nahr al-Bared, but given its fluidity and the favorable circumstances it operates in - an acutely polarized political environment with heightened sectarian tensions - it is capable of regrouping and finding new leaders. Al-Qaida in Iraq still has its eyes on Lebanon, and the Syrian-Lebanese borders are yet to be secured.
But there is a strong reason for optimism. The recent efforts and initiatives by Lebanese public officials, civil society groups, and official religious institutions aimed at curbing the radicalization current in the north suggest that the country as a whole is starting to think strategically about the threat of Salafi militancy.
The healthy consensus inside the Lebanese military and security institutions on the limitations of the use of force as a means to neutralize the threat of militant radicalism suggests that the counterterrorism campaign is moving in the right direction. Most Lebanese public officials are becoming aware of the tenet that Lebanon's most potent antidote to extremist and militant ideology involves a socio-economic vision that is rooted in policies of balanced development.
A few weeks ago, parliamentary majority leader Saad Hariri announced the launch of $52 million worth of major developmental, educational and health projects in Tripoli, Akkar and other regions in the north. (Initially, those projects were slated to be carried out by the Lebanese state, but funding was severely lacking due to the budget deficit.)
Meanwhile, the newly-elected Lebanese mufti of Tripoli and the north, Sheikh Malek al-Shaar (the highest ranking Sunni religious scholar), declared the promulgation of a new comprehensive program for Dar al-Ifta, the Sunni religious establishment in Lebanon, which aims at creating a directorate for religious education tasked with supervising Islamic schools, colleges and institutes, and an advisory board consisting of all Islamic parties and groups in the north. This directorate should be of great help in making sure Islamic groups' activity in the north does not stray or flirt with extremism.
At the Lebanese internal security forces (ISF) directorate, Major General Ashraf Rifi met with a large delegation of Sunni preachers and religious scholars as well as directors and presidents of Salafist organizations and institutes in the north. The purpose was to start a dialogue and form a cooperative relationship with these individuals and bodies, whose access to Sunni Muslim constituencies and role in convincing extremist elements to snub extremism and militancy is critical.
The international community's efforts in helping Lebanon recover from the widespread destruction of Nahr al-Bared during months of fighting should not be discounted either. The most important actor is UNRWA, which has been working with some 20 non-governmental organizations to implement preventive measures for the children in Nahr al-Bared, such as psychological and recreational activities. UNRWA has also trained about 200 teachers to identify the signs of trauma and refer students for help.
A donor conference is expected to be held in the second half of April to raise money for the reconstruction of the refugee camp. Foreign governments such as Saudi Arabia and Norway, and Lebanese political parties, including Hariri's Future Movement, have also provided substantial financial and logistical assistance to Nahr al-Bared's reconstruction process.
Shocked by the eye-opening experience of Nahr al-Bared, Lebanese society seems determined to erase the memory of last summer's fighting between soldiers and Islamic militants and make sure that the events are never repeated. While some praiseworthy preventive measures have been devised since then by an amalgam of local and foreign actors, they remain largely outside the boundaries of the Lebanese state.
To tap its full potential, the counter-terrorism campaign must be owned by the Lebanese state. Such a campaign should be viewed by all Lebanese (and the international community) as a collective, as opposed to a particularistic effort. Only the state and the large resources it can offer in terms of employment, education, social security and general welfare can neutralize and ultimately eliminate the threat of militant religious extremism in Lebanon. Hence the critical need to break the current political stalemate and immediately reactivate all Lebanese state institutions.
If the Iraqi experience is of any lesson, al-Qaida thrives on political vacuums and looks to exploit societal fault lines. Lebanon should know better.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/21/2008 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[8 views]
Top|| File under: Fatah al-Islam
By Walid Phares
In an audiotape posted on Internet, Osama Bin Laden threatened Europe with punishment because of its "negligence in spite of the opportunity presented to take the necessary measures" to stop the publishing of the Danish cartoons. It also menaced the Vatican with retribution for an alleged role in incitement "against religion."
This al Qaeda warning would have been normal in Salafi Jihad logic. This radical movement obviously considers the drawings as an ultimate insult to Muslims and would unleash extreme violence in retaliation. Actually one would have expected al Qaeda to strike back "for the cartoons offense" a long time ago. In fact, this particular audio is intriguing precisely because it is too "political" (read too sophisticated). Bin Laden's school of Jihadism would have smitten first, explained later. So why is this message more peculiar than previous ones? What can we read into it?
In short, I see in it the imprint of Jihadi "politicians" and strategists in international relations deeply immersed in the diplomatic games across the Mediterranean. Even though it is indeed the voice of al Qaeda's master, one can see the increasing impact of political operatives on the movement's public statements. Here is why:
A raw al Qaeda reaction to the "infidel cartoons" would have been a strike back into the heart of the enemy with simple harshness and highly ideological brutality. But the audio tape has other points to make than just about the drawings. The message is heavily targeting Europe, while using the "cartoon Jihad" as a motive. Bin Laden and the war room behind him are concerned about the rise of tough national leaders on the continent: Sarkozy, Merkel, Brown ???
and a possible reemergence of Berlusconi's party in Italy in power.
In many spots in Europe, citizens are rejecting the Jihadi intimidations and becoming vocal about it. France is going to Chad, Germany has ships in the Eastern Mediterranean and Spain is arresting more Salafists. But the traditional apologists toward the Islamist agenda in Europe, remains strong. Al Qaeda wants to use the apologists against the "resistance." What better means than threatening to strike at Europe's peace if its liberal values are not altered?
In essence this is Bin Laden's message:
Change your laws on liberties and freedom of expression or else. "If there is no check on the freedom of your words then let your hearts be open to the freedom of our hearts."
But a thorough investigation of the origin of this argument leads not to al Qaeda's traditional rhetoric -- the group isn't very concerned with the change of laws in infidel lands -- but to demands that have been made by "long-range" Jihadists on European Governments. A simple check of archives shows that it wasn't Bin laden or Zawahiri who have asked Europe to enact laws against "insult to religion" but more "mainstream" Islamist forces and intellectuals. Among them the Muslim Brotherhoods, the Union of Islamic Clerics (also influenced by the Brotherhoods and headed by Sheikh Yusuf al Qardawi the spiritual mentor of al Jazeera), a number of European-based academics and the bulk of Wahabi radical clerics. This revealing reality if anything shows one of the two trends: Either al Qaeda is using the argumentation of political Islamists to provoke a mass clash against Europe, or is it that the "political Jihadists" are now able to influence the war discourse of al Qaeda. In both cases, it deserves a closer analysis.
Bin laden's tape curiously repeats statements by commentators on al Jazeera who accuse Europe of being the "associate" of Washington in a "War on Islam." It also accuses the "continent" of being hypocritical by refusing to compromise on its "liberal" legal system while it makes "exceptions" when it comes to "exempt American soldiers" from its own laws: An argument simply too complicated to al Qaeda but often advanced by Islamist cadres on al Jazeera and online.
But the audio message nevertheless produces a classical series of threats à la Bin Laden by promising revenge to be "seen." It also goes on to indict the Pope for "inspiring" this "crusade" and doesn't miss a chance to incriminate the "apostate" Saudi monarch for not defending Islam. The tape covers many other issues such as the vital necessity of "Jihad" in Gaza an Iraq. With such a mixture of rhetoric, how to read the letter? I would recommend looking at a changing context in the Bin Ladenist messaging.
Few months ago, he sent out a piece with heavy Trotskyist overtones, using US domestic references: The impact of "American" speech writers was evident. In this audio message one can see the fingerprints of international (perhaps European) Jihadists who seem to be frustrated by demands they made but which have not met by the "renegade" European Governments. In the end, the message to the continent is clear: Either you follow our advice and change your laws and accommodate our ideological agenda or else, al Qaeda is unleashed on the continent.
The voice of these shadow "advisors" -- or at least their arguments -- have made their way to the heart of al Qaeda's messaging machine. From here on, it is up to the Europeans to decipher this enigmatic statement. They have an opportunity to breach a very powerful code which could answer loads of unresolved questions on the continent.
And last but not least, al Jazeera's "rapid response" to the tape came in a show titled Ma wara's al khabar (Beyond the News). The anchor, interpreting the message, said Al Qaeda "is perhaps now an idea," hence very difficult to defeat by counter terrorism measures. A powerful assertion as European security services are bracing for potential strikes -- in response to this tape but also in retaliation to a Dutch documentary assumed to be critical of the Koran, to be released soon. The al Jazeera assessment about al Qaeda is relevant as it projects the movement as invincible physically.
Even more interesting, it coins Bin Laden's threat as serious as it touches an issue of ijmaa bayna al muslimeen, "consensus among Muslims." In other words, while the tape asserted so, it was al Jazeera that claimed that "the cartoons issue has created an Ijmaa-consensus among adherents." The confusion between what Bin Laden said "it should be" and what the Qatari-funded channel said "it is" is somewhat worrisome. For the millions of viewers, including many in Europe, the line is blurred.
Then came al Jazeera's "experts in Islamist movements." Mr Yasir al Zaatra from Jordan said al Qaeda per se doesn't have to send militants to Europe because "local groups could offer to wage operations on European soil." Pushing the comment farther, Zaatra added that "most likely, some groups may have already offered Bin Laden to perpetrate attacks." He asserted that there are existing cells that would carry out these attacks and Bin Laden would take credit. And to reinforce the credibility of the threat, Zaatra referred (strangely) to a statement by Michael Sheuer a former CIA officer who was in charge of the Bin Laden unit. Quoting Sheuer, the al Jazeera analyst said "Bin Laden's threats are always executed."
Following him, another "expert on Jihadist groups," Dr Diya' al Zayyat said the tape is a clear menace by whom he called (for the first time) the "general guide of the Salafi Movement worldwide. He added that Bin Laden would claim responsibility for a potential action "depending on the type of operation and the publicity that would follow." Both commentators agreed that a revenge action will take place and that European based Jihadists will carry it out. Al Jazeera's anchor taking it to the apex called the Bin laden's speech a "Jihadi road map."
What I saw in the al Qaeda message and the al Jazeera debate was clear: The Salafist movement worldwide was "talking" to the Europeans and the Euro-Jihadis. It was threatening Governments to retreat from the confrontation on the one hand and unleashing the pools of indoctrinated Jihadis across the continent to "engage" in violence. The near future will tell us if the trigger will be successful or not.
#1
IMO, Osama's "new threat" is more about the ISLAMIST BOMB and espec Radical Islam's NUCLEAR-BASED NON-RELIANCE ON "INFIDEL" WORLD NATIONS-POWERS TO CONTINUE ITS JIHAD, TO CONTROL ITS OWN FATE AND DESTINY.
NET > POST-NIE Dubya is perceived by many as having no justification save by his obsessive manic beliefs to take any sort of mil action agz nuclearizing Radical Iran. Now add Obama + Hillary's MSM-reported plans to redux or pull US troops out of Iraq, and "end the war" - READ- IN THE STYLE OF A POST-WATERGATE MIL WEAK SOUTH VIETNAM WID ENEMY TROOPS LEFT "IN-PLACE/AS IS" INSIDE SVN. Radical Islam needs NUCTECHS + NUCWEAPONS NOW, and that means RUSSIA + NATIONS NEAR THE ME, NOT EUROPE [read - US defended NATO]. OSAMA, etc NEED IRAN TO BECOME A DE FACTO REGIONAL + GLOBAL NUCLEAR POWER ASAP TO PRECLUDE DEFEAT OF THE ISLAMIST AGENDA - Europe's techs can come later.
McCain was right the first time Iran is helping al-Qaeda in Iraq.
By Christopher W. Holton
In recent weeks, two news reports have circulated about Irans relationship with al-Qaeda. On Tuesday, March 18, Sen. John McCain repeatedly stated that Iran was aiding al-Qaeda in Iraq. Later, however, he retracted this statement.
Senator McCain was right the first time. In fact, al-Qaeda and Iran have a rather long history of cooperation.
A few days before Senator McCains unfortunate retraction, a senior military adviser to the Barack Obama campaign, retired Air Force general Merrill McPeak, was quoted in the March 15 edition of the Washington Times as saying, Iran is a big enemy of al-Qaeda. General McPeaks statement is astonishing for its ignorance, especially coming from a flag-rank retired military officer.
The shadowy relationship between Iran and al-Qaeda was first revealed in the report issued by the bipartisan, independent 9/11 Commission back in 2004.
In compiling that exhaustive report, the 9/11 Commission interviewed over 1,000 people from at least 10 countries. Among the conclusions that they reached regarding Iran and al-Qaeda:
In late 1991 or early 1992, in meetings held in Sudan, Iran agreed to train al-Qaeda operatives. Not long afterwards, al-Qaeda terrorists traveled to Iran and received training in explosives. Subsequent to this, al-Qaeda terrorists also traveled to Lebanons Bekaa Valley, where they received training from Iranian Revolutionary Guards.
Once Osama Bin Laden moved from Sudan to Afghanistan and established terrorist training camps there, Iran facilitated the transit of jihadists to al-Qaeda training camps via Iran. Among other things, Iran did not stamp their passports when they passed through Iran on their way to Afghanistan. This made it impossible for countries to know when someone had attended a training camp in Afghanistan because there was no record. This policy particularly benefited Saudi members of al-Qaeda, and the Commission reported that 8 to 10 of the Saudi 9-11 hijackers had transited through Iran.
The Commission said that intelligence reports indicated continued contacts between al-Qaeda and Iranian officials after Bin Laden had moved back to Afghanistan and it recommended that the U.S. government further investigate the ties between al-Qaeda and Iran.
Other reports have reinforced the 9/11 Commissions findings of al-Qaeda/Iran cooperation in Iraq:
In November 2006, Englands Telegraph newspaper reported Western intelligence agencies as saying that Iran was training al-Qaeda operatives in Tehran and also that Iran had always maintained close relations with al-Qaeda despite differences between their Shiite and Sunni philosophies.
In January 2007, Eli Lake reported in the New York Sun that U.S. forces had captured documents detailing Iranian activities in Iraq, including the fact that Irans infamous Revolutionary Guards Quds Force was working with al-Qaeda there.
In May 2007, as reported by Bill Roggio at The Weekly Standards website, coalition forces captured a courier carrying messages from al-Qaeda in Iraq leaders to senior al-Qaeda leaders who have long been in safe haven in Iran, including Osama Bin Ladens son, Said Bin Laden.
Also in May 2007, Englands Guardian newspaper reported that Iran was secretly forging ties with al-Qaeda elements in Iraq in an attempt to launch a summer offensive that would prompt Congress to vote for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq.
In July 2007, the Financial Times reported that western officials said that Iranian territory was being used as a base by al-Qaeda for terrorist operations in Iraq.
In October 2007, the Dallas Morning News reported on warnings from Kurds in northern Iraq of Iranian support for an al-Qaeda affiliate, Ansar al-Islam, in their region of Iraq.
In February 2008, Muhamad Abdullah al-Shahwani, the chief of the Iraqi Intelligence Service, and Tamir Al-Tamimi, an advisor to the Iraqi Awakening Councils (a key component in the success of the U.S. counterinsurgency strategy), told the Iraqi news service, Azzaman, that Iran was targeting the Awakening Councils with al-Qaeda. Rest at link.
Posted by: ed ||
03/21/2008 10:24 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[4 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
Intelligence analysts are still mulling over the latest audio message from Osama bin Laden, looking for hidden meaning and messages in the terror leader's diatribe. We've never claimed to fully understand bin Laden, and his most recent speech struck us as a bit strange. On the five-year anniversary of the Iraq War, the Al Qaida chieftain ignored that subject altogether, concentrating instead on the recent republication of cartoons featuring the Prophet Mohammed, by newspapers in Denmark. The cartoons, which touched off a firestorm of controversy (and violence) when first published in 2006, were reprinted again last month. So far, the reaction from Muslims in Europe--and elsewhere--has been comparatively mild, at least by the standards of two years ago. Still, bin Laden threatened Europeans with a new "reckoning" for their misdeeds. As the AP reports:
Wednesday's audiotape from bin Laden was posted on a militant Web site that has carried al-Qaida statements in the past and bore the logo of the extremist group's media wing Al-Sahab."The response will be what you see and not what you hear and let our mothers bereave us if we do not make victorious our messenger of God," said a voice believed to be bin Laden's, without specifying what action would be taken.
He said the cartoons "came in the framework of a new Crusade in which the Pope of the Vatican has played a large, lengthy role," according to a transcript released by the SITE Institute, a U.S. group that monitors terror messages."You went overboard in your unbelief and freed yourselves of the etiquette's of dispute and fighting and went to the extent of publishing these insulting drawings," he said. "This is the greater and more serious tragedy, and reckoning for it will be more severe."
So, why did bin Laden ignore Iraq in favor of a "recycled" crisis? A few answers come to mind. First, things are hardly going Al Qaida's way in Iraq. Since the troop surge began, Al Qaida and its local allies have suffered a series of staggering defeats, losing territory, support and influence. With the terror group Iraqi affiliate now a shadow of its former self, bin Laden can hardly chortle about the "defeats" being inflicted on the "crusaders." And, as Rusty at the Jawa Report observes, there's the very real possibility that the latest bin Laden tape is simply a recycled product:
There is literally no doubt in my mind now. This is an old audio, probably from 2006, of bin Laden. As Sahab must have been embarrassed that they had nothing to offer the world on this the anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, so they hurriedly released an old audio they had lying around. The fact that there was no accompanying banner is evidence that they threw this together last minute.
If Jawa's analysis is correct, that raises another question, namely why was Al Qaida's normally- astute propaganda arm unable to offer any new audio or video on the anniversary of the Iraq War? For starters, it is possible (as Jawa proposes) that bin Laden is now dead--although there's no compelling evidence to confirm that assertion. A better explanation might be that the Al Qaida leader has moved deeper into the mountains of Waziristan, making it more difficult for his propaganda arm to create new products. Such a relocation would be in response to recent air strikes in the region that have killed several top Taliban officials.
Indeed, those attacks may have eliminated key figures in As Sabah, including Adam Gadahn, the American traitor who (in recent years) has played an increasingly important role in Al Qaida's propaganda machine. Unconfirmed reports suggest that Gadahn died in a 29 January airstrike on a terrorist safe house in Waziristan. But there is a problem with that theory, as the Long War Journal observed last month:
Al Qaeda would have capitalized on Gadahn's death, given his unique status as an American member of al Qaeda. "I would imagine that if Gadahn got knocked off they would have announced his death just as quickly as they did [Abu Laith al Libi's death]," said Nick Grace, who closely tracks al Qaeda's propaganda and activity at jihadi forums. "Having an American become a martyr would be a propaganda coup for them and I imagine that ultimately Gadahn will be more useful for al Qaeda dead than alive."
Grace noted that Gadahn plays a leading role in al Qaeda's propaganda apparatus. "He has a leading voice within As Sahab's management," Grace said. Gadahn has taken over a significant role in As Sahab since the summer of 2006, and the propaganda has become more "sophisticated" since Gadahn's direction.
But signs of Gadahn's absence have been seen with the latest release of the Yazid video, said Grace. Files were not properly uploaded in the correct sequence. "Since taking the reins of as-Sahab, Gadahn instituted standards and practices that have been closely followed over the past year," Grace noted. "This is the first technical mistake that I have seen them make since the events back in September 2007," when the Osama bin Laden videotape was improperly handled.
Al Qaida's odd reaction to the five-year anniversary of Operation Iraqi Freedom may led more credence to reports of Gadahn's death. Some of the terror group's propaganda efforts have grown clumsy in recent months, lacking their past focus on U.S. audiences and themes. That may indicate Al Qaida's highest-ranking American may no longer control the media show, because he became "one with the cosmos" a few weeks back.
#1
"The response will be what you see, not what you hear" > I've been seeing FIREBALLS + EXPLOSIONS, ETC. IN DEEP SPACE [Gamma Ray Bursts?]FOR AWHILE NOW, but it took the death of ARTHUR C CLARKE to formally acknowledge what are now ascribed as "GAMMA RAY BURSTS", AS SAME AND THAT THEY'VE BEEN OCCURING FOR A TIME NOW.
I loved and read CLARKE's books myself, but I don't think CLARKE or HAL THE COMPUTER can give Radical Islam the significant = decisive battlefield victory(s) it needs over the USA in IRAQ-ME, to stop US entrenchment.
IMO, PRAGMATICALLY ARMY-US INTEL should interprete Osama's new message that "SHIA VERSUS SUNNI" competition is out, + that Osama = Radical Islam will NOW TACITLY SUPPOR, PROMOTE, AND EMPOWER NUCLEAR IRAN BY ASSISTING IRAN IN REINCARNATING THE OLD PERSIAN-OTTOMAN EMPIRES AND BEYOND. THE "IRAQ-AFGHANI INSURGENCY" IS NOW TRANSREGIONAL + TRANSCONTINENTAL, A PAN-ISLAM/MUSLIM "WAR FOR THE ACQUISITION AND DEFENSE OF THE ISLAMIST BOMB" VIA NUCLEAR IRAN [USE?]. Radical Islam needs NUCTECHS and NUCWEAPONS NOW, to include control of arsenals on former Cold War Soviet SSR's NOW - Iran is "DA ONE". IRAQ INSURGENCY A LOCAL "HOLDING ACTION"???
Counter-"Surge", Counter-Crusade [vvPope Benedict], COUNTER-EMPIRE = ISLAMIST-FUNDAMENTALIST BLOC??? "VLAD/PUTVEDEV" + RUSS'S AMBITIONS TO DOMINATE EURASIA + SCO-CSTO LIKELY JUST GOT MORE COMPLICATED, + ESPEC MUCH MORE "NUCLEAR".
This is an editorial by student, Mike Warren, about an appearance by Ayaan Hirsi Ali at Vanderbilt University in the student newspaper. It takes guts to put this article in a major university paper these days and it should be encouraged. Keep up the good work, Mr. Warren!
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Barbara Ehrenreich, The Nation
What drew Clinton into the sinister heart of the international right? Maybe it was just a phase in her tormented search for identity, marked by ever-changing hairstyles and names: Hillary Rodham, Mrs. Bill Clinton, Hillary Rodham Clinton and now Hillary Clinton. She reached out to many potential spiritual mentors during her White House days, including New Age guru Marianne Williamson and the liberal rabbi Michael Lerner. But it was the Family association that stuck.
Moqtada al-Sadr -- the radical cleric dubbed "The Most Dangerous Man in Iraq" by a Newsweek cover story in December 2006 -- has just unilaterally extended the ceasefire he imposed on his Mahdi Army militia last summer. And on the eve of the Iraq War's fifth anniversary, Sadr also issued a somber but dramatic statement. He not only declared that he had failed to transform Iraq, but also lamented the new debates and divisions within his own movement. Explaining his marginalization, Sadr all but confessed his growing isolation: "One hand cannot clap alone."
America is always looking for ways to weaken Hezbollah and end its violent operations. The good news is that Hezbollah may now finally be undermining itself from within.
By Walid Phares
