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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: DavesM who wrote (39569)	7/12/2007 11:57:15 PM
From: Sam	Respond to of 541759

That aside, exactly how is Al Qaeda in Iraq different from al Qaeda? "Al Qaeda in Iraq" is composed largely of foreigners to Iraq who, by and large, aren't welcomed there. They were sucked in by the US invasion. Fundamentalists in Iraq are Shiites, not Sunnis. Their natural ally is Iran, not Saudi Arabia. Al Qaeda wouldn't even have a toehold there if the US weren't there. Yes, yes, there was a small al Qaeda camp in northern Iraq prior to the invasion. But that was in Kurdish territory, which Saddam didn't control at the time. It could have been taken out by air power with ease, and I still have no idea why it wasn't (maybe because they were Kurdish allies and the Kurds wanted as many allies as they could get? sheer speculation there). What is happening in Anbar right now is what would happen to Al Qaeda wherever they are in Iraq if the US wasn't there--they would be killed or kicked out. Either by Sunnis or by Shias. The tide turned there not with the "surge," but when the Sunnis who lived there decided to kick them out, that they had enough of their mishigas. But your question misses the real way in which Bush's assertions and the assertions of his minions are misleading. The "folks that are bombing innocent people in Iraq" are, by and large, not Al Qaeda at all. There is a civil war going on there. There are, by all accounts that I have seen, only about 1,000 Al Qaeda people in Iraq left, if that after what has been going on in Anbar. The vast majority of the violence in Iraq is Sunni on Shia, Shia on Sunni, Shia on Shia, Sunni on Sunni--native Iraqis killing each other and killing. Americans. And of course, Americans killing Iraqis. None of these people planned or had anything at all to do with 9.11. If I were Zawahiri or bin Laden, I would want the US to consider Iraq the "central front" in the "war on terror." Much better to have 150,000 American soldiers and 170,000 contractors in Iraq than on Afghanistan/Pakistan border. This is what people meant when they said even before this war began that it was simply a distraction from the real deal. Bush's statement today that Al Qaeda is weaker than they would have been if we hadn't gone into Iraq is crazy, absolutely crazy. It shows how loony this guy has become.

To: DavesM who wrote (39569)	7/13/2007 12:15:00 AM
From: Cogito	Respond to of 541759

>>Well of course, the people who attacked us on 9-11 are not the same as those bombing innocent people in Iraq. The actual people who attacked the United States on 9-11 died during the attack. That aside, exactly how is Al Qaeda in Iraq different from al Qaeda?<< DavesM - [edit] I see that Sam responded to you as well, and did a better job. But I'll go ahead and leave this post here, as long as I've made the effort.[/edit] Well, for one thing, al Qaeda in Iraq is not responsible for most of the bombings and violence in Iraq. A recent post here quoted a Bob Woodward report in the Washington Post. "General Michael Hayden, the director of the C.I.A., who provided the most convincing assessment of the war that I have seen from any Administration official. Woodward reports: "Hayden catalogued what he saw as the main sources of violence in this order: the insurgency, sectarian strife, criminality, general anarchy and, lastly, al-Qaeda. Though Hayden had listed al-Qaeda as the fifth most pressing threat in Iraq, Bush regularly lists al-Qaeda first." And though al Qaeda in Iraq is similar to Al Qaeda, it isn't a franchise that is directed by Bin Laden or Zawahiri. The connection between the people who attacked us on 9/11 and the people who are currently calling themselves al Qaeda in Iraq is tenuous, at best. - Allen