AQ is a big threat!!!
It looks like the Pentagon has been war-gaming a withdrawal from Iraq, which isn't really a huge deal, they war-game everything, but guess what they figured out? One official who talked to the WaPo said:
"The water-cooler chat I hear most often . . . is that there is going to be an outbreak of violence when we leave that makes the [current] instability look like a church picnic."
Wow, it took the CIA, the State Department and "the private sector" three days last December to come to that conclusion? I wonder how much they billed thew American tax-payer for that little junket?
W. and his rapidly shrinking peanut gallery of deadenders in the bloggosphere think if we were to leave Iraq before the job is done, in his words:
"It would mean we'd allow the terrorists to establish a safe haven in Iraq to replace the one they lost in Afghanistan."
Of course, from what's been clear for a long time -- and was just confirmed a few days ago by the "intelligence community" -- is that the sanctuary al-Qaeda lost in Afghanistan they've now re-built in Pakistan, not Iraq. Al-Qeada in Iraq is a horse of an entirely different color, but don't confuse W. & Co. with the facts. They have a nasty habit of getting in the way when they're trying to throw sand in the American people's eyes.
A case in the point is the new WH PR strategy of implying there's is a new AQ threat to the U.S. Reuters reports today the intelligence community has released unclassified judgments from another NIE, which says: "The United States currently is in a heightened threat environment."
You've really gotta to take those "unclassified judgments" with a grain of salt these days, because you never know what the "classified" parts say. [You just know Cheney had Mrs. Nesmith in there giving the NIE a heavy going over with her white out before he let W. release it.]
It's all very fishy, isn't it?
Congress is on the verge of taking control of W.'s dirty little war and -- what do you know? -- the administration starts crying Al-Qaeda! 9/11!!!! again. Where have we seen all this before? When Tony Snowjob says, "This is not an attempt to divert," you know the fix is in.
'See, we can't leave Iraq now, we have to fight them over there so we don't have to fight them here, but . . . they are here, so we can't leave because, uh-mmm. . .'
In any case, Anthony H. Cordesman writes that al-Qaeda in Iraq is not exactly the biggest miltia in the Sunni insurgent cosmos. They're maybe responsible for about 15% of the attacks carried out in Iraq. Cordesman writes that AQ in Iraq: "Must be kept in careful perspective . . . it does not dominate the Sunni insurgency."
If we were to bug out tomorrow, what is most likely to happen to AQ in Iraq, in my opinion, is that they suddenly find themselves between a rock and a very hard place. On one end they'd have the Sunni tribal militias and on the other they'd have their good friends the Shiites.
Without the U.S. to kick around, AQ in Iraq would surely lose it's whole raison d'etre in a hurry. More than likely they'd relocate to Lebanon or even Saudi Arabia.
And that would be too bad, wouldn't it? I mean, you really have to feel for the Saudis: They take our oil money, turn out the most pshycotic religious fanatics in their Madrassas -- their Wahabbi brand of Islam makes the most radical Iranian look like a Unitarian -- and they're perfectly content to allow all these hyped up jihadi frankensteins they've created to turn their suicidal rage against their good American allies in Iraq. Better them than the Royal family, right?
"The water-cooler chat I hear most often . . . is that there is going to be an outbreak of violence when we leave that makes the [current] instability look like a church picnic."
Wow, it took the CIA, the State Department and "the private sector" three days last December to come to that conclusion? I wonder how much they billed thew American tax-payer for that little junket?
W. and his rapidly shrinking peanut gallery of deadenders in the bloggosphere think if we were to leave Iraq before the job is done, in his words:
"It would mean we'd allow the terrorists to establish a safe haven in Iraq to replace the one they lost in Afghanistan."
Of course, from what's been clear for a long time -- and was just confirmed a few days ago by the "intelligence community" -- is that the sanctuary al-Qaeda lost in Afghanistan they've now re-built in Pakistan, not Iraq. Al-Qeada in Iraq is a horse of an entirely different color, but don't confuse W. & Co. with the facts. They have a nasty habit of getting in the way when they're trying to throw sand in the American people's eyes.
A case in the point is the new WH PR strategy of implying there's is a new AQ threat to the U.S. Reuters reports today the intelligence community has released unclassified judgments from another NIE, which says: "The United States currently is in a heightened threat environment."
You've really gotta to take those "unclassified judgments" with a grain of salt these days, because you never know what the "classified" parts say. [You just know Cheney had Mrs. Nesmith in there giving the NIE a heavy going over with her white out before he let W. release it.]
It's all very fishy, isn't it?
Congress is on the verge of taking control of W.'s dirty little war and -- what do you know? -- the administration starts crying Al-Qaeda! 9/11!!!! again. Where have we seen all this before? When Tony Snowjob says, "This is not an attempt to divert," you know the fix is in.
'See, we can't leave Iraq now, we have to fight them over there so we don't have to fight them here, but . . . they are here, so we can't leave because, uh-mmm. . .'
In any case, Anthony H. Cordesman writes that al-Qaeda in Iraq is not exactly the biggest miltia in the Sunni insurgent cosmos. They're maybe responsible for about 15% of the attacks carried out in Iraq. Cordesman writes that AQ in Iraq: "Must be kept in careful perspective . . . it does not dominate the Sunni insurgency."
If we were to bug out tomorrow, what is most likely to happen to AQ in Iraq, in my opinion, is that they suddenly find themselves between a rock and a very hard place. On one end they'd have the Sunni tribal militias and on the other they'd have their good friends the Shiites.
Without the U.S. to kick around, AQ in Iraq would surely lose it's whole raison d'etre in a hurry. More than likely they'd relocate to Lebanon or even Saudi Arabia.
And that would be too bad, wouldn't it? I mean, you really have to feel for the Saudis: They take our oil money, turn out the most pshycotic religious fanatics in their Madrassas -- their Wahabbi brand of Islam makes the most radical Iranian look like a Unitarian -- and they're perfectly content to allow all these hyped up jihadi frankensteins they've created to turn their suicidal rage against their good American allies in Iraq. Better them than the Royal family, right?
posted by William Duane at 12:12 PM
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