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Politics : Just the Facts, Ma'am: A Compendium of Liberal Fiction -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Suma who wrote (27695)	1/25/2005 7:34:35 PM
From: Selectric II	Respond to of 90947

Did you mean HBO? I don't get HBO.

To: Suma who wrote (27695)	1/25/2005 7:40:56 PM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 90947

ON IRAQ [Michael Ledeen] And here's Greyhawk on the Iraqi elections. A masterpiece: Somewhere in central Iraq an aircraft lands delivering goods that aren't made in country. Nothing unusual in that; go to any bazaar in this land and you'll find imported items outnumber those manufactured locally. Years of brutal dictatorship, UN sanctions, and ultimately war to end both have left this nation's manufacturing infrastructure less than intact, to say the least. The task of rebuilding is a daunting one, made more so by factions that would see to it that success is limited, that progress isn't made. That's the future, at least the future as those with any sense of optimism see it. For now forklifts scurry quickly up the lowered cargo door and hoist pallets of material then return to their starting points, unload and climb for more. A forest of pallets forms on the pavement, soon to be loaded on trucks for transport away from the relative safety of the airbase. Now empty, the plane taxis away to retrieve another load. Now full, a convoy of trucks departs for other locations around the country, the drivers will quite literally risk their lives to get this material to its intended destination. The forklifts stand by as in the distance the drone of another approaching aircraft signals their job is far from over. The scene is repeated in various locations around the country. The payload? The material thought worth dying for by hundreds of men determined to move their nation forward? Election material, of course. The future history of free Iraq is being written. Across the country the people express a commitment to democracy, a determination to vote. Should they see the reports from America they must be stunned; stories of "disenfranchisement" from here and there where the weather was bad and many voters felt the wait in line was just too long, thanks. This is America? Could these people actually be somehow related to the men and women in uniform here in Iraq? Those who are shoulder to shoulder with the people of Baghdad, Mosul, Basra... delivering the ballots, manning the checkpoints, ever vigilant for the appearance of the "former regime loyalist" and the "foreign insurgent" determined to inflict the rule of the knife on a population that has never known anything but? Bloody days are in store. These elections will be like nothing before witnessed. In most areas of the country all will be well, but elsewhere a shredded remnant of the anti-Iraqi forces will make their presence known. Their efforts are nearly impotent; on a recent day five separate car bomb attacks failed to reach their intended targets. Yet even as the terrorists failures mount, even as their ranks are diminished and their slaughterhouses are shut down they know one thing that brings them a glimmer of hope: their allies in the world media will not let them down. Whether to simply sell papers, lure advertisers, or to support a cause they firmly believe in, many in the media are the insurgent’s final hope.

To: Suma who wrote (27695)	1/25/2005 7:45:58 PM
From: Sully-	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 90947

Ya gotta see the picture of this guy. (Hat tip to LindyBill) usatoday.com Would-be suicide bomber angry at those who sent him By Steven Komarow and Sabah al-Anbaki, USA TODAY BAGHDAD — His head and hands were wrapped in bandages and his uncovered face looked like bubbled tar. Ahmed Abdullah al Shaya survived the explosion of the bomb-rigged gas truck that he was driving on Christmas day. Photo from the Iraqi Interior Ministry, via AP The young Saudi man told investigators this month that he wants revenge against the Iraqi terrorist network that sent him on the deadly mission that he survived. Ahmed Abdullah al-Shaya, 18, told Iraqi investigators during an interrogation early this month that he was recruited to drive a car rigged with explosives to Baghdad and blow it up. He said the objective was "to kill the Americans, policemen, national guards and the American collaborators." But Shaya said he was injured even before he went on the mission when insurgents detonated a truck bomb he was supposed to leave at a target site. Shaya's statements were captured on a videotape made by Interior Ministry officials who interrogated him. It is not clear whether the video captures all of the interrogation or part of it. USA TODAY obtained a copy of the tape from an Interior Ministry official. Shaya's video statement describes the journey of a young man ready to die in his zeal to drive Americans from Arab lands. Shaya says he left Saudi Arabia for Syria in late October, right after the holy month of Ramadan, which began in late October. A smuggler he knew as Abu Mohammed took him over the border into Iraq and into the hands of other Islamic extremists who call themselves mujahedin, or holy warriors. In Iraq, he traveled first to Qaim, then Rawa, and finally to the insurgent stronghold of Ramadi, west of Baghdad, where he spent 1½ months with like-minded Muslims from Morocco, Jordan, Syria, Tunisia, Yemen and Macedonia. Most, however, were Iraqis, he says, gesturing with his gauze-wrapped arms. While he was awaiting his mission, he says, he was told that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of a terrorist network responsible for numerous bombings and beheadings, had been captured by Iraqi police only to be let go after seven hours because they didn't recognize him. Iraqi officials have declined to comment on previous reports that Zarqawi had been captured and let go. Shaya moved to Baghdad in December to prepare for his final mission, which he expected to be as the suicide pilot of a bomb-laden car. But on Dec. 24, he was given a preliminary job of driving a butane-gas delivery truck that was rigged with bombs. It wasn't supposed to be a suicide mission. "They asked me to take the truck near a concrete block barrier before turning to the right and leaving it there. There, somebody will pick up the truck from you," they told him. "But they blew me up in the truck," he says. When the gas truck ignited into a fireball near the Jordanian Embassy, nine people were killed, including a family of seven whose house collapsed on them. The explosion burned Shaya on his face and hands but he was thrown from the cab and survived. Authorities at first didn't know who he was. But then a local Baghdad newspaper carried a report from Saudi Arabia about his family mourning his martyrdom. Shaya told the interrogators that he regretted his mission now. "I want the Iraqi people to live in peace," he says, and he can no longer support Osama bin Laden because "he is killing Muslims." As for the Zarqawi network that sent him on the mission that left him permanently disfigured and in prison, he says, "I want revenge for what they have done to me."