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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group
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To: Win Smith who wrote (236382)7/14/2007 3:07:09 PM
From: Nadine Carroll  Read Replies (1) of 281500
 
But while American intelligence agencies have pointed to links between leaders of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia and the top leadership of the broader Qaeda group, the militant group is in many respects an Iraqi phenomenon. They believe the membership of the group is overwhelmingly Iraqi. Its financing is derived largely indigenously from kidnappings and other criminal activities. And many of its most ardent foes are close at home, namely the Shiite militias and the Iranians who are deemed to support them.



So f---ing what? It doesn't count if Iraqis join al Qaeda, proclaim themselves al Qaeda, use al Qaeda tactics and proclaim al Qaeda goals? So what if they include Saddam's former enforcers as well as imported splodeydopes and trained jihadis?

If Bush said they were al Qaeda, but they called themselves something else and said they had nothing to do with al Qaeda, then you might have a point. But they call themselves al Qaeda in Mesopotamia!

Why shouldn't Bush call them al Qaeda, if that's what they call themselves? Why this elaborate effort to make a distinction, to define some "real" al Qaeda that existed in Afghanistan before 9/11, and contrast it with this new "fake" al Qaeda that exists in Mesopotamia now? If Aymin al Zawahiri doesn't make the distinction, why should we?

A glance at current Dem talking points supplies the answer. If US troops are fighting al Qaeda in Iraq, that makes it harder to counsel cut and run. And cut and run is the Democratic position.
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