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

To: one_less who wrote (238150)	7/29/2007 12:38:27 AM
From: Win Smith	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

I wrote a long argument on this thread back in 03 or so describing Al-Sadr as the bigger threat to the mission and I was mocked by all sides. Well, I don't remember that, but that's cool. My understanding is that that's pretty much still the case, except that the new Iraqi government is, you know, got all these visible and not so visible ties to Sadr and Iran. So what's the solution? If you go with the PR flow, it's obvious: "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." ( from washingtonpost.com , previously quoted elsewhere. Froomkin had another column on the topic, with this concise summary: Nearly six years after President Bush pledged to capture him "dead or alive," Osama bin Laden is not only still at large, but he and his al-Qaeda organization have apparently benefited greatly from Bush's decision to invade Iraq. That's not just me saying so. It's the inevitable conclusion from the declassified summary of a White House intelligence report released to great fanfare yesterday. It turns out that bin Laden and his al-Qaeda leadership are safely ensconced in Pakistan. They're still trying to attack us. And the U.S. occupation of Iraq has provided them with a potent rallying cry, recruiting tool and training ground they would not have had otherwise. The White House has time and again used the specter of al-Qaeda to cow Capitol Hill into doing its bidding. Similarly, Bush and his aides have lately gone to great lengths to conflate the multifaceted insurgency in Iraq with al-Qaeda. After all, when it's Bush vs. al-Qaeda, how many Americans will side with al-Qaeda? washingtonpost.com Except that that's not what the surge was advertised as originally; there was all this talk about the Iraqi government stepping up. 9/11 24/7 is always the fallback position of choice, though, so now it's back to the old conflation routine. Who cares if the Iraqi government is a mess? Who cares if ethnic partition looks like the most likely outcome? Al Qaeda, Al Qaeda, Al Qaeda, 9/11 , 9/11, 9/11. And, as ever, things are going really well in Iraq, and always have been, ever since W got the war of his heart's desire.