Five Minus Four Equals Al Qaeda Squared
By Larry Johnson on July 21, 2007 at 3:47 AM in Afghanistan, Al Qaeda, CIA, Current Affairs, Homeland Security, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia
by
Larry C Johnson
Someone is not telling the truth and it is incumbent on Congress to get to the bottom of this nonsense.
Until recently George Bush insisted that there was steady progress in decimating Al Qaeda:
1 May 2003 the President claimed:
From Pakistan to the Philippines to the Horn of Africa, we are hunting down al Qaeda killers. Nineteen months ago, I pledged that the terrorists would not escape the patient justice of the United States. And as of tonight, nearly one-half of al Qaeda’s senior operatives have been captured or killed.
A few months later, 7 September 2003, George Bush insisted:
Nearly two-thirds of al Qaeda’s known leaders have been captured or killed. The rest of them are dangerous, but the rest of them can be certain we’re on their trail. Our resolve is firm; the resolve of this nation is clear: No matter how long it takes, we will bring justice to those who plot against America. (Applause.)
And as the 2004 election approached Bush claimed that 75% of al Qaeda operatives were history:
Because we acted, the government of a free Afghanistan is fighting terror. Pakistan is capturing terrorist leaders. Saudi Arabia is making raids and arrests. Libya is dismantling its weapons programs. The army of a free Iraq is fighting for freedom, and more than three-quarters of al Qaeda’s key members and associates have been brought to justice.
Hat tip to Jon Stewart’s writers for latching on to this arithmetic triumph.
Maybe Bush pulled these numbers out of his ass, but White House sources insisted that the figures came from the CIA:
Pressed to explain how and when the estimate went up, a White House official told NEWSWEEK that the revised figure was based on a new CIA analysis that had been repeatedly sought by the White House in recent months and was provided to presidential aides only on Sept. 1, the day before Bush addressed the convention.
Now, in the last three years, Al Qaeda has regenerated and supposedly is capable of striking us again on par with the 9-11 attacks. If this is true, then President Bush is a complete failure in carrying out his duties to protect this nation’s security. He can no longer blame Bill Clinton for being asleep at the switch. His ineffectual policies in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan have injected new life into the nearly extinct corpse of Al Qaeda. They were down to 25% and now have rebounded.
In fact, Homeland Security Chief Chertoff says the sleeper cells are here or on their way.
This demands an explanation. Despite the insistence that the war in Iraq was necessary in order to keep Al Qaeda at bay, it turns out that very war has resurrected the jihadists.
Of course there is another, equally unsettling possibility–intelligence officers at the National Intelligence Council are playing with the intelligence and delivering news that enables Bush to play the fear card in order to keep Congress from pulling our troops from Iraq.
I don’t know the answer. But Bush and the intelligence community must be held accountable. Someone is lying or someone is incompetent. We suspect the answer but we need to know beyond any doubt.
On March 13, 2002–only 6 months after 9/11–Bush held a national press conference and stated that he was no longer concerned about Osama bin Laden and announced that he no longer posed a serious threat!!!!!!
Here we go with the fear election factor again… The American public is still very afraid. Though much of the fear is locked up in the back of peoples minds, there is still fear.
The Bush Administration is playing a terrible game with all of us. It just does want to acknowledge the truth on what it started in Iraq giving AQ a power base to operate from and it wishes to drag this war out until Bush II departs the WH and dumps the war onto someone elses lap.
But its also playing the odds of the second shoe dropping on us, so it can say, “We told you so” and really scare the hell out of the American Public. The plain fact is that if terrorists want to strike us again, they can when they wish too. We are just to big and to open a society and country to stop everything from happening.
We also have to remember, this is not new to us either. We went through almost the same thing back in the 70’s with the Weathermen bombings, the Black Panthers, Black September and the Dawson Field Hijackings, just to name a few. Back then the American public did not climb in a hole either.
But this fear factor now has to stop and we need adults in the WH who know what the hell they are doing. Its time to get real here and stop playing politics with peoples lives. Its really time to stop.
I agree with most of your assessment, Rob, particularly the last paragraph. I’d just add to your points here:
Chaos in Iraq has been very good for Bush’s cronies. Halliburton, Bechtel, Blackwater, et al, have been cleaning up from the lack of an organized government as biilions of our dollars have gone missing. It would be nice if the Dems tried to find out where in hell in Iraq $21 billion of our dollars disappeared and why we keep signing no-bid contracts with the same companies that ‘lost’ it.
Better yet… Maybe mother nature will do what the Bush Administration is afraid to do…
Situation Update No. 2
On 2007-07-21 at 15:35:45 [UTC]
Event: Flash Flood
Location: Pakistan Dirbala
Situation
Officials say a flash flood that tore through a remote mountain village in north-west Pakistan has killed at least 56 people and left dozens missing, feared dead. Local official Subhan Khan says rescue workers are searching for more bodies after Friday’s flood, brought by torrential rains, swept away hamlets in the Upper Dir district in North-West Frontier Province. “Fifty-six bodies have been recovered while efforts are under way to retrieve more dead bodies,” he said from the remote area near the border with Afghanistan. “Dozens of people are still missing.” District Mayor Sardar Tariqullah says the floods destroyed several hamlets in Dir, 320 kilometres north-west of the capital, Islamabad. Officials say four Afghan refugee girls also died when the roof of their mud house collapsed in a heavy downpour in the provincial capital of Peshawar. Pakistan has suffered a wave of extreme weather in the past month. Floods unleashed by a tropical cyclone and monsoon rains in the south and south-west have claimed over 200 lives and affected 1.6 million people. Dozens of people have also been killed in recent months in accidents caused by monsoon rains along Pakistan’s rugged north-western border with Afghanistan.
Number of Deads: 70 persons
Alternate Reality Theory: Bush has boosted al Qaeda everywhere outside of Iraq. Proving Kristol’s theory that Bush’s war in Iraq is a catastrophic success.
Andrew,
Posted a comment, which didn’t get posted. But my comment did change the comment count from one to two. However, when I tried to repost the comment, I kept getting a message saying “you’ve already said that.” Well, yes, according to the comment count. But my comment is still invisible?
So trying again:
In Bush’s alternate reality, Bush is boosting al Qaeda everywhere outside of Iraq. Therefore, according to Bill Kristol and the other nuteo-cons, Bush’s war in Iraq is a catastrophic success.
Ohhh, there’s my comment, #2, just as the counter thingy said it was there, while it was invisible, before it became visible. So nevermind. Commenting can be s-l-o-w sometimes.
Leslie,
A couple of my comments acted that way too. My guess is that it’s the spam machine at work.
PS I am sure you have figured out that the e-mail I sent out last night was a response to your question regarding the possibility of increased slaughter in Iraq as a result of US withdrawal. I did post a rougher draft of that in the comments for that thread. I must thank you for forcing me to finally pull my thoughts together on that issue and turn it into a fairly coherent analysis. Several people, Iraqis and others, who received the e-mail have responded in a very positive way, and at the urging of one of my colleagues at work I will be further editing it and will post it on Daily Kos. I will post the link here when I do in case anyone wants to go over there and see the final version, and perhaps comment.
Shirin,
I never said there’d be increased violence if the US withdraws. You missed my point.
Leslie,
No, I did NOT miss your point. I understand that you did not say there would be increased violence. What I did was to use your “what if” question as a stimulus to discuss the question “will there be increased violence”.
Sorry I did not make that clear enough.
Shirin,
Hope you didn’t use my “what if” question to present a question I never asked?
Leslie,
You asked (and I quote directly via copy and paste) “…what if the slaughter does get worse without the US there?”. I understand that you were not saying the slaughter will get worse. That is clear. However, your question certainly implies that you at least see an increase in the slaughter as a possibility, even if a remote one, and in fact there was nothing in your comment to indicate just how much of a possibility you thought it might be. I responded honestly by enumerating the reasons that it is extremely unlikely the slaughter could get worse. You seem annoyed by my response. Why?
Yeah, you guessed correctly, I’m somewhat annoyed. Because I get the feeling you used me to pose a Bushie question I didn’t ask. But it was a question you wanted to pose so that you could debunk it, only you used me to do it.
My question wasn’t will the violence get worse if the US withdraws, which you acknowledge above. My question didn’t concern what the US is doing or not doing, but what the Iraqis are doing. There’s ethnic cleansing going on. Turkish troops are massing on the Kurdish/Iraqi border and threatening to invade. There are foreign fighters, mostly from Saudi Arabia, taking advantage of the strife. Some of this is irrespective of the US presence, even though the US in no small part helped create the conditions for it.
I feel you’re being somewhat dishonest in the way you posed this question, perhaps with yourself most of all, and a little used. So, yes, I’m annoyed with you right now.
Well, Leslie, I guess the annoyance is mutual now, and you can add to it that I am personally offended. The difference is that I am not jumping to the conclusion that you are being dishonest in now insisting that your question excluded the U.S. contribution to the overall slaughter, and concerned only what the Iraqis are doing, even though even now I can find nothing at all in the question or its context that even hints at that. I am, instead, operating on the assumption that most likely what is going on here is a failure of communication on the part of two people of good will. And I will continue to operate on that assumption until I have really good reason to believe otherwise.
Has it occurred to you at all, Leslie, that instead of impugning my honesty, you might look back at the post in which you asked your question and ask yourself objectively what in that post even hints, let alone makes it clear to the reader that you were addressing only “what the Iraqis are doing”, and not the overall level of slaughter (and by extension, the overall violence)?
This is how you posed your question:
You know, I don’t buy the Bushie hype that Iraq will go to hell in a handbasket if we pull out. Because our presence is fueling the violence. But, what if the slaughter does get worse without the US there? I’m not arguing for staying. But the US created this mess. Reparations may not be enough if the slaughter continues.
It is quite believable that when you wrote that you had on your mind not the overall level of violence, but “what the Iraqis are doing”, and that somehow that part of what was on your mind did not get into the written expression. That happens to everyone. Where in that paragraph did you indicate at all, let alone make it clear to the reader that you were not talking about the overall situation, including the U.S. contribution, but only to what the Iraqis are doing?
Perhaps, if you had intended to address only slaughter being committed by Iraqis, and not the overall level of slaughter, you could have made that clear. And perhaps, since you did not even give a hint that this was your intention, you should not impugn a person’s honesty when they were unable to divine your true, if unexpressed, meaning.
And finally, Leslie, I see a lot of implied questions in that paragraph I copied and pasted that appear for all the world to speak to US culpability in and responsibility for the long-term effects to Iraq and Iraqis of Bush’s misbegotten adventure. This “our presence is fueling the violence“, and this “the US created this mess“, and this “Reparations may not be enough if the slaughter continues. helped to inform my understanding of your question.
Now, my hope is that people of good will, who, for the sake of both sides have essentially the same goals, can try a bit harder to understand each other, and not be so quick to impugn the motives of the other.
What is that, about 190 percent of Al Qaeda’s leadership that has been destroyed now? Talk about overkill. I’m sure Junior gave 110 percent. But I’m also 1000 percent sure he’s 100 percent full of horse pucky. What do you think — does he throw a dart or just pick a number out of a hat?
BTW, good post, Larry.
Bush can’t add, so he assumes we can’t either.
Leslie, Shirin deliberately misses the point. Again. Imagine that. Surprise, surprise.
Some Pentagon Spokesguy this week announced that the Iraqis are frightened; they need water, electricity, and understanding. It seemed a bit late in the process for them to be discovering this and then I realized, these bastards have gone and spent another million for some PR operation provide them with a campaign of enematic twaddle to justify our continued presence in Iraq as (in part) a humanitarian mission. WE MUST HELP THESE PEOPLE.
Sure enough –
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/20/AR2007072002163.html?nav=rss_nation/special
and bless us, I wronged them. They have been cost conscious. They only spent 400K with Rand. Had they used the Lincoln Group it would have been several million.
I realize this WP report says that although they have sand in their sphincters, a shortage of food, no electricity, no work, and we have blown up their house, dispatched several family members to ancestor land, killed their dog, —- with the proper slogan or catchy jingle the Iraqis can be brought around to see things our way.
WaPo fibbeth. This rebranding is for Homeland consumers.
RJJ, I saw that story too. Unfortunately, every sentence - no, virtually every phrase - activated my gag reflex so strongly that I have been unable to read the whole thing. I take it from your reaction that it doesn’t get any better as you go along.
You know, this is another instance of the same 21st century American version of the 19th century patronizing, condescending, racist European colonialist white man’s burden mythology that gave rise to such package-a-pound-of-shit-nicely- -and-the-natives-will-think-it-smells-like-roses that gave rise to Al Hurra propaganda channel, that now-failed slick “youth” magazine I forgot the name of, whatsername’s infamous “Happy Contented Muslims in America” P.R. campaign (didn’t change a single mind in the Muslim world about U.S. foreign policy), and all the other efforts to “rebrand” the American Imperial addiction to invasion, conquest, economic exploitation, death, and destruction.
Note to the P.R. mavens and their clients: Brown people in the third world are smarter and more sophisticated than you want to think they are. It is one thing to tell them something reasonably plausible, like “things go better with coke”, that is one thing. But if you put a pound of shit in a pretty box, tie it up with a lovely ribbon, and tell them it is a dozen roses, you will never convince them that it looks pretty, smells good and belongs in a vase on the table. And sooner or later they will throw it right back in your face with a few added pounds of their own shit.
Seriously, how delusional ARE these people? Is it really, really possible that they believe for even a nanosecond that what they are doing makes any sense at all?
In spite of what the article said, I think the slogans and jingles are not intended for Iraqi consumption. Americans will be the target of a “We’re the Good Guys; it’s the right thing to do.” campaign.
I also think it will work.
The right thing to do = staying in Iraq in order to fix things for the Iraqi People.
Well, why not? Might as well stay there and fix things until there is nothing more left of Iraq at all. I mean, isn’t it better, when you have all but killed a beast, to stick around and put it out of its misery for good?
My heart is to heavy even to allow tears. I can’t stop what they are doing, so why can’t I just give up and forget about it?
Cited from Shirin: “Seriously, how delusional ARE these people? Is it really, really possible that they believe for even a nanosecond that what they are doing makes any sense at all?”
Did the check clear? UnkaSugar comes along and waves a 400K check of magic fiat money in their faces and … new jingle time.
So as long as the check cleared it’s all good.
Not to be too cynical about it but the report was written by an American Ph.D. If the writer had any education in Europe then we might suggest that he got his money and delivered a tongue in cheek satire; but I suspect he is an American educated person so this is his best work. This work will be considered strongly when he goes for tenure or promotion or to a new Institution of Costlier dumbing.
Over the months, I have come to the conclusion that you know a bit about the middle east and about Iraq and Iran specifically. Worse, it appears that you can communicate quite well in English.
Do not take this wrongly, but I think you could be enjoying some of the free flowing funny money readily available from the printing house that is the Fed. All you have to keep in the front of your mind’s eye is that whatever you might write doesn’t have to make sense, it doesn’t have to be logical, it does have to re-inforce the “America is exceptional” “Everything revolves around the needs of America”, “The rest of the world should be America with different restaurants” memes and you could enjoy an improved income stream without really much effort at all……
Dear CK, I know. Iraq really does need its Fu’ad `Ajami.
We had Kan’an Makiya, but we don’t hear from him much anymore - I wonder why? And of course, there was Chalabi, but I think he was done in largely by his own ambition and greed. So, where IS the new Iraqi Uncle Toma - or Uncle Ahmad if you prefer something more stereotypically Arabic-sounding (yes, Toma IS an Arabic name)?
But me? Oh, no! I’d rather come here and be attacked and insulted for free than insult myself every day for lots of money.
Quisling is not an Arabic name but that is what will be necessary to pass that oil theft law. The USA thought they had a Quisling in Afghanistan. Unfortunately his perview is restricted to his palace windows. The USA has tried to find a Quisling for Iraq but all of them appear to have previously sold out to someone closer to home. And of course the preferred Quisling for Iran is one of the Pahlavi byblows. A matched pair maybe Bush 44 and Pahlavi 2.
Hey it is your choice as to who you wish to have insult you and how much you want to bank while laughing at the insults. If I were three decades younger I would be supping at the fed feed trough right up to the minute the check bounced, and still posting my world encompassing cynicsm as a reality check that never bounces. The bank account of cynicism can never be overdrawn the world keeps refilling it faster than anyone can drain it.
Well, that’s just it. One of the very few people whose insults I cannot ever laugh at is - well, me. That’s ’cause I know that if I insult myself, I really have earned it.
Shirin,
Whenever I hear about an Arab Uncle Tom I think of that old Danny Thomas sitcom, “Make Room For Daddy.” To his credit (this was the 1950s), Thomas made his character a Lebanese-American with strong Lebanese roots. As part of this his character had an less assimilated relative Uncle, played by actor Hans Conreid, who played his character extremely broadly, for laughs. And what was the character’s name? UNCLE TONOOSE (sp?). So whenever I think of an Arab Uncle Tom I think of Hans Conreid playing Uncle Tonoose–except that Tonoose would have been too proud to ever stoop to their level.
Yes, Danny Thomas, the philanthropist entertainer. He is always cited as one of the great Arab Americans. He WAS, of course, a great human being in that he used his fame and wealth for the benefit of humanity. The character of Uncle Tonoose sounds familiar, but I do not really know that show well.
I DO have a CD here of Arab Americans performing Arabic music, and one of the tracks is Danny Thomas singing. For some reason I was surprised. I guess I did not think of him as being so connected to the Arab culture, but he really was, and he had a very beautiful voice for Arabic music.
Great thread, Larry.
arabic music…
I’m not sure if I understand it completely. Thank you anyway….