How BUSH Created a Terrorist Haven

“Not doing a great job there Pitts. LOL!”

“Semantics? No, I'm just assuming people would know the difference. Willful ignorance abounds here, though, to not address you specifically.”

“Tell me about it...”

“"Terrorists that are more than a regional-opportunistic threat - it remains to be seen.�
Mutt
9:13:43 AM
9/20/05

Not only a semantic distinction, but a practical one.

However, if we take the anti-Soviet Jihadis in Afghanistan in the 1980s, I think there is a strong basis for disagreeing with Nigal's assessment supporting Treebeard and the UN's panels assumptions.

People went to Afghanistan to fight the Soviet Union's occupation, but they learned and developed skills and formed a network that remained significant danger in the long run. Without the coalescing of militant Islamists against the Soviet occupation, you would have no Al-Qeda. The fact that there are not substantial portions of Iraq has not fallen to Taliban like groups is a plus, but there will certainly be blow back from this. I suspect the London bombers would not have acted if not for the Iraq war.”

“"I suspect the London bombers would not have acted if not for the Iraq war."

A lot of contractors are flush with cash who would not be if not for the Iraq war.

It almost seems like the whole point of the thing since peace and stability and democracy may not take hold in Iraq and the oil companies may not get control of the oil.”

“if we take the anti-Soviet Jihadis in Afghanistan in the 1980s

While the two wars arguably have similarities, their differences make such juxtapositions tenuous at best.”

“I think the comparisons between USSR/Afganistan - USA/Iraq are holding up pretty well.”

“Isn't it pretty much self-evident that terrorist are breeding in Iraq?�
Treebeard
8:05:57 AM
9/20/05

Did you mean bleeding? We have seen a lot of that.”

“I think the comparisons between USSR/Afganistan - USA/Iraq are holding up pretty well.�
Y2
11:45:57 AM
9/20/05

15,000 Soviets were killed in Afghanistan. Of course the US was providing assistance to the resistance. The Soviets are not providing assistance to the resistance. Iran probably is.”

“"The Soviets are not providing assistance to the resistance. Iran probably is.�

And Cindy Sheehan...”

“Those who support the war are giving inspiration to the resistance.

Which came first, the war or the resistance???”

“Those who support the war are giving inspiration to the resistance.

Oh, I've GOT to hear your logic behind that.”

“NO war...............no resistance.
Bush started the war.
Too tough for ya??”

“So stupid, it's tough!”

“Certainly those who prosecute the war are giving inspiration to the resistance. That's obvious.”

“If you can call being killed inspirational. But I guess that is not as obvious.”

“Personally I think you have to discount any religion that holds life in such low regard. Not just the lives of their enemies but the lives of their own followers. Islam is right up there with the Jim Jones religions.”

“Certainly those who prosecute the war are giving inspiration to the resistance. That's obvious.

Well in the trivial sense of the war being waged at all, then that is stating the obvious - at least for the beginning of the sunni insurgency. It's a lot more complicated than that, though, in the bigger picture.”

“Ain't any more simplistic than saying Cindy Sheehan is giving inspiration to the resistance.”

“Certainly prisoner abuses in Iraq have inspired resistance.

The behavior of many of the private contractors in Iraq has inspired resistance.”

“The bulk of the inspiration comes from the desire for power - a struggle for power in a power vacuum. All else is tertiary.”

“BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- An Iranian opposition group based in Iraq, despite being considered terrorists by the United States, continues to receive protection from the American military in the face of Iraqi pressure to leave the country.

It's a paradox possible only because the United States considers the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, or MEK, a source of valuable intelligence on Iran.

Iranian officials tied the MEK to an explosion in February at a girls school in Zahedan, Iran.

The group also is credited with helping expose Iran's secret nuclear program through spying on Tehran for decades. And the group is considered an ally to America because of its opposition to Tehran.

However, the U.S. State Department officially considers the MEK a terrorist organization -- meaning no American can deal with it; U.S. banks must freeze its assets; and any American giving support to its members is committing a crime.

The U.S. military, though, regularly escorts MEK supply runs between Baghdad and its base, Camp Ashraf.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/04/05/protected.terrorists/index.html”

“Heck of a job, Bushie.



[...]
The Iraq war, which for years has drawn militants from around the world, is beginning to export fighters and the tactics they have honed in the insurgency to neighboring countries and beyond, according to American, European and Middle Eastern government officials and interviews with militant leaders in Lebanon, Jordan and London.

Some of the fighters appear to be leaving as part of the waves of Iraqi refugees crossing borders that government officials acknowledge they struggle to control. But others are dispatched from Iraq for specific missions. In the Jordanian airport plot, the authorities said they believed that the bomb maker flew from Baghdad to prepare the explosives for Mr. Darsi.

Estimating the number of fighters leaving Iraq is at least as difficult as it has been to count foreign militants joining the insurgency. But early signs of an exodus are clear, and officials in the United States and the Middle East say the potential for veterans of the insurgency to spread far beyond Iraq is significant.

Maj. Gen. Achraf Rifi, general director of the Internal Security Forces in Lebanon, said in a recent interview that “if any country says it is safe from this, they are putting their heads in the sand.”
[...]
In Saudi Arabia last month, government officials said they had arrested 172 men who had plans to attack oil installations, public officials and military posts, and some of the men appeared to have trained in Iraq.
[...]
In an April 17 report written for the United States government, Dennis Pluchinsky, a former senior intelligence analyst at the State Department, said battle-hardened militants from Iraq posed a greater threat to the West than extremists who trained in Afghanistan because Iraq had become a laboratory for urban guerrilla tactics.

“There are some operational parallels between the urban terrorist activity in Iraq and the urban environments in Europe and the United States,” Mr. Pluchinsky wrote. “More relevant terrorist skills are transferable from Iraq to Europe than from Afghanistan to Europe,” he went on, citing the use of safe houses, surveillance, bomb making and mortars.

A top American military official who tracks terrorism in Iraq and the surrounding region, and who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the topic, said: “Do I think in the future the jihad will be fueled from the battlefield of Iraq? Yes. More so than the battlefield of Afghanistan.”
[...]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/28/world/middleeast/28exodus.html?_r=2&hp&oref=slogin&oref=slogin”

“Yes, the neocon pipedream has come true.  The only problem is that they still have their Cause and Effect reversed.  I've heard a growing call on C-SPAN to let more of the Iranians who helped us with the fiasco immigrate to the US (recall the Fall of Saigon).  How many actual terrorists could hide in a group of 100,000-200,000?

Also ---- Can't wait for the sequel: "Shock & Awe: Tehran".... Per the Andy Card marketing timetable it should hit the shelves right after Labor Day.”

“ROTFLMAO...US State Dept...theres a group of Clintonista idiots.....

Yeah I bet you libbies wet your double polyester pants thinking about another attack in the US. Well here is the horrible truth, whether you choose to believe it or not is your problem.

The Islamic Fascist thing started in 1979. Due to one incompetent president JIMUH the Rabbit killer and aided by the blithering cowardice of Slick ( you know being offered the killers on a silver platter and turning it down at...STATE DEPARTMENT request) we lost 3000 people who never took an oath to defend the constitution.

But lets talk about Mr. Dennis Pluchinsky and his history....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A54650-2002Jun14?language=printer

Sunday, June 16, 2002; Page B03

I accuse the media in the United States of treason.

Maybe the current security slogan should be: "Prolific pens propagate terrorist plots." The president and Congress should pass laws temporarily restricting the media from publishing any security information that can be used by our enemies.This was necessary during World War II, it is necessary now. These restrictions were backed by the American public during World War II, and I believe the public would support them now.

He was roundly lambasted for this suggestion. My guess is that like any good liberal he is looking for a way to keep his 15 minutes of fame going.”

“"The Islamic Fascist thing started in 1979."

More of your Fractured Fairy Tales, XL.

You forgot to mention that traitor Reagan trading weapons to the "Islamic Fascists" in the '80s.............in secret, of course.

That mess in Iran was begun in 1953 when the Shah was installed by U.S. and British efforts.
The purpose.....?
To keep control of the oil production in the hands of the West.”

“Libbies are so silly.”

“Hey, what's shakin'.........Silly Boy?”

“REALLY....so Marky Mark you are arguing that the decisions in 1980 (trading outdated redeye and other technology) were more damaging than bending the nation over while a bunch of third world thugs thumbed their noses at us?

GEE this must be a favorite photo at your house....



See Marky mark...I went to school with the Senior NCO from that embassy. He told me ALOT about the cowardice of that failed peanut farmer...(and your apparent hero).”

“So, trading with the enemy is OK??

I don't give a rat's ass who you went to school with.

Overthrowing an elected government in 1953 for money......no biggy, huh?”

“http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/uselection2008/democrats/1957428/Demise-of-al-Qa%27eda-in-sight%2C-US-official-says.html

Demise of al-Qa'eda in sight, US official says
By Alex Spillius in Washington
Last Updated: 7:46AM BST 15/05/2008
A senior United States counter-terrorism official has declared that the demise of al-Qa'eda is in sight, as the terrorist group's failure to adapt its violent ideology and tactics has provoked growing dissent across the Islamic world.

The uprising by Sunni tribes against al-Qa'eda in Iraq, combined with protests in northern African countries against suicide bombings and dissent from clerics and former terrorists have put the group's leadership on the defensive as never before, said the official.

"If al-Qa'eda maintains its current state of play of attacking civilians and Muslims, and continuing to not change its philosophy, it will start to fizzle," the senior official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said.
Article continues
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Speaking to the Daily Telegraph, he said the end of the movement as a global threat was "visible" and "foreseeable", in contrast to previous assumptions that it last for generations.

Acknowledging that the threat of a major al-Qa'eda attack remains significant not just in Iraq but in Europe and elsewhere, his remarks reflected a quiet confidence within the George W. Bush administration that one of its major goals will be achieved before too long.

Major declarations of triumph have been precluded by the mockery that followed the president's "Mission Accomplished" statement in Iraq in 2003, while US generals have been divided about how far to boast about successes in Iraq, where this week Iraqi forces launched an offensive against al-Qa'eda in Mosul, the group's the last urban bastion.

But White House officials are beginning to express confidence that al-Qa'eda will be defeated and offer some justification for Mr Bush's policies even after he has left office.

Juan Carlos Zarate, the White House's deputy national security advisor for combating terrorism, said in a recent speech to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy: "There has been a growing rejection of the al-Qa'eda program and message.

"We know that all of this matters to al-Qa'eda and that its senior leadership is sensitive to the perceived legitimacy of both their

actions and their ideology."

Critics argue that administration officials are merely salvaging scraps of good news from the wreckage of the Iraq war, and point to the continuing radicalisation of young Muslim men.

But Mr Zarate and others have seen several recent encouraging developments. Ayman al-Zawahiri, deputy to Osama bin Laden, held a 90-minute Internet conversation with radicals during which he was forced on several occasions to defend al-Qa'eda's killing of Muslim civilians.

Last year prominent Saudi cleric Salman Awdah wrote an open letter to bin Laden condemning the deaths of innocent parties and accusing the terrorists of harming Muslim charities through association.

The senior official said the formation last month in London of the Quilliam Foundation, the counter-extremist think-tank led by former Hizb ut-Tahrir members Ed Husain and Maajid Nawaz, was another reason for optimism.

"There are indicators all over the world of where al-Qa'eda's programme is not meeting with the grand acceptance that it assumed," he said.

The US is heartened by al-Qa'eda's failure to create a political wing or to dilute its policy of violence as a means to establishing a new caliphate.

"They are not going to stop bombing people and claiming that those who don't think like them are unbelievers. They are almost digging a deeper hole for themselves by finding new enemies," the official added, citing a recent Zawahiri audio message that berated the United Nations, Norway, Japan and Buddhists along with familiar targets like the US and Britain.

Seven years after the September 11 attacks, US policy belatedly now places the propaganda war alongside capturing and killing terrorists.

Officials have taken every opportunity to emphasise the bankruptcy of al-Qa'eda's tactics and message to the Arab world.

Peter Bergen, the author and leading terror expert, said: "While it is true support for bin Laden, al-Qa'eda and suicide bombing is evaporating, it doesn't translate into a long-term embrace of the US. And we mustn't forget that al-Qa'eda in Iraq didn't exist before the war, which gave them a life raft to cling to."

"Certainly tremendous inroads have been made in the past year in Iraq," said Bruce Hoffman. "But it would be premature to sound the death knell of al-Qa'eda. Terror groups can survive without popular support," he added, citing the examples of Farc in Colombia and the Red Army in the former divided Germany.”

“Kinda like how they said two weeks ago that they'd caught the head of alQaeda in Iraq and then had to admit they'd lied.

Whoops.”

“Who admitted they lied?”

“Oh right. It was another "mistake".”

“Link, rosey? I haven't followed up on that one.”

“Okay, slower then, sorry.
Whooooooooo......admiiiited......theeeeeey......liiiiiied?”

“Do your own digging. Or try reading.”

“I sense some irony here.”

“You sound like a typical bitter white person, rosey.”

“"they" (whoever they are) just said that someone else's report might not be true. That's the equivalent of mutt saying something on TT and rosey countering it, then me saying TTers lie because one of them said something that the other disagreed with.”

“Apparently, most people were asleep at the wheel when this event even happened. Kinda like how most people who voted for Shrub must have been asleep at the wheel...No surprise there.”

“the US government didn't say they had killed the guy. It was locals on teh scene that said it. The US government then said that the original reports were wrong. So who is this they you are talking about?”

“Look at the end of this thread

http://www.thebackpacker.com/trailtalk/thread/33509,-1,3.php”

“Rosey = pwned”

“Rosey just got owned.”

“How exactly was I owned? V man was on it.”

“By the way, wasn't this guy arrested a week ago anyway?”

“The original article:

Iraqi security forces have detained a man suspected of being the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq after a captured associate led them to him sleeping in a house in the northern city of Mosul, Iraqi officials said on Friday.

The U.S. military in Baghdad said it was checking the reports that Abu Ayyab al-Masri, an Egyptian also known as Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, had been detained.”

“Rosey was so owned he was apparently struck blind.”

“Sure, it's easy for the Iraqis to take a hit for the White House. those guys don't say a thing unless we tell them to. They don't deploy troops unless we tell them when and where.

Amazing how you guys actually still trust a single thing coming out of this administration. Really, it befuddles all common sense. OH! There's the problem...”