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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (237993)	7/26/2007 4:39:20 PM
From: one_less	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

”They believe the version of events where there is no connection, and they want to downplay evidence to the contrary as much as possible, to say that all the best minds don't believe it no matter who is captured or what the Army says. There isn't a hint that any of the analysts will be swayed in the least by this new piece of evidence. I have a real tough time dealing with the word ‘believe’ these days. As I get older, I doubt more and more that most people actually believe what they report their beliefs to be, especially when political or material interests are intertwined with the statement. I doubt the members of left wing media actually disbelieve evidence presented from military in the field. I can’t believe, for example, that millions or billions of people ‘believe’ one perspective on Jesus and just happen to be born in the same location while millions or billions of other people ‘believe’ an opposing perspective on Jesus and just happen to have been born in a different location or as part of a different ethnic group. I can’t believe that a couple thousand people born in a small town in Illinois who coincidentally have a Methodist church in town believe you have to be sprinkled as a babtism, while a few miles away in a small town near the same corn fields there is a Babtist church and all the people there believe you will go to hell if you don’t get a good dunking. I can believe that statements of belief are genuine for maybe 2% of the population but that the other 98% are simply making announcements to declare culturally derived loyalty to one group or another. I also bet the 2% of true believers, whether Buddhists, Muslims, Christians, Jews, indigenous sages, or undeclared humanist philosophers, etc. would love each other if they got together. Anyway, that’s how I filter all these strong statements from people on one extreme side or another of these debates. You don’t believe the military and you declare Bush to be a liar… I don’t believe you believe it but I believe it is useful to you to declare you believe it. Please pardon my use of long sentences.

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (237993)	7/26/2007 5:58:06 PM
From: Sam	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

That's the news part. So this a strong point of evidence for what the US Army has been saying for months, that AQ and AQI are linked at the leadership level. Personally, I don't doubt that there was some sort of interaction between Zarqawi and the leadership in Pakistan/Afghanistan. If only through their public statements, though I am even willing to believe that there were courier messages between them as well. And I am willing to believe that there has been some sort of interaction between whoever is in charge of Al Qaeda in Iraq and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan/Pakistan. However, that doesn't mean that the implication of what Bush said earlier in the week was correct. It simply isn't the case that the group in Iraq poses the same threat as the group in Afghanistan/Pakistan, or that the group in Iraq is responsible for most of the violence in Iraq, or that the people we are fighting and that are killing Americans are primarily the group in Iraq that takes orders from Afghanistan/Pakistan. Nor is it the case that the group that takes orders from Afghanistan/Pakistan is very large or that it will survive on its own after the US pulls out. They will be decimated by both other Sunnis and by Shiites. The successes in Anbar are not the result of the surge, the successes predate the surge, the reports of the switch began, if I recall correctly, sometime last fall--this success is the result of the non-fundamentalist Sunnis getting fed up with fundamentalist crap and deciding that they simply had to get rid of the them. And assuming that it continues--and I believe that it will due to the basic nature of most Iraqi Sunni society--the Sunni fundamentalists don't stand any chance of surviving inside Iraq other perhaps than a fringe group that is seen as lunatic by most Iraqis. The issue of whether or not the leadership of Al Qaeda in Iraq has any interaction with the leadership of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan/Pakistan is therefore irrelevant.

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (237993)	7/27/2007 9:54:15 PM
From: Win Smith	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Funny thing about Bergner. Seems like your kinda guy, in the evidentiary sense. This article has a nice general roundup on the latest PR blitz, chock full of links and all. On the specific subject of Bergner: But there was no evidence to back up Bergner's claims. And as Mike Nizza pointed out on the New York Times Web site, Bergner showed at least some willingness to make insinuations based not on intelligence, but on his imagination. Consider the following exchange: Bergner: "Our intelligence reveals that senior leadership in Iran is aware of this activity. . . . " Question: "Can you define senior leadership?" Bergner: "I think I'll leave it at that." Question: "Would you exclude the supreme leader?" Bergner: "I'll leave it at 'senior leadership in Iran'" Question: "Put it this way: Do you think it's possible that he doesn't know?" Bergner: "That would be hard to imagine." At least one report since then appears to cast some doubt on Bergner's claim of an Iranian role in the Karbala attack. As Gregg Zoroya wrote on July 12 for USA Today: "A previously undisclosed Army investigation into an audacious January attack in Karbala that killed five U.S. soldiers concludes that Iraqi police working alongside American troops colluded with insurgents." Sudarsan Raghavan wrote in the July 12 Washington Post: "U.S. military officials on Wednesday said they expected the Sunni insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq to 'lash out and stage spectacular attacks' and fuel sectarian violence in response to an ongoing U.S. offensive north of Baghdad. "Calling al-Qaeda in Iraq 'the principal threat' to Iraqis, Brig. Gen. Kevin J. Bergner, the chief U.S. military spokesman, said the group was the main focus of the U.S. security campaign. Like other U.S. officials in recent weeks, Bergner stressed that al-Qaeda in Iraq is supported by the organization led by Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, an assertion that intelligence analysts have disputed." But where's the evidence? Not to be found. Can it be verified? Not a chance. So should we believe him? (from washingtonpost.com