Al Qaeda No. 2 Slags U.S., Iran, Sunnis, Starbucks Coffee
Nick Gillespie | April 18, 2008, 8:35am
From the AP, via the Cincy Enquirer:
Al-Qaida's No. 2 said in an audiotape released Friday that the United States will lose whether it stays in Iraq or withdraws, and he sneered that President Bush just wants to pass the problem on to his successor....
"The truth is that if Bush keeps all his forces in Iraq until doomsday and until they enter hell, they will only see crisis and defeat by the will of God," said al-Zawahri, the deputy of al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden.
"If the American forces leave, they will lose everything. And if they stay, they will bleed to death," he said....
He said Tehran "has clear goals, which are the annexation of southern Iraq and the east of the Arabian Peninsula" as well as strengthening ties to its followers in southern Lebanon.
He said that if Iran achieves its goals, "this will add oil to the fire which is already ablaze. This will explode the situation in an already exploding region."
The tape, which is titled "Five Years of the Invasion of Iraq and Decades of Injustice by Tyrants," couldn't be verified but the AP noted it "the logo of al-Qaida's media wing," for what that's worth. Al-Zawahiri also trashed Iraqi Sunnis who created "Awakening Councils" and joined up with American forces.
More here.
What say you, Hit & Runners? Is A-Z right that U.S. options are all bad? That God is on al Qaeda's side? That Iran is on the march regionally? That the title of this audiotape sounds like a track from Love's Forever Changes? And shouldn't he be asking whether al Qaeda is bleeding to death in Iraq and elsewhere?
Ebeneezer Scrooge | April 19, 2008, 1:13am | #
Is A-Z right that U.S. options are all bad? That God is on al Qaeda's side? That Iran is on the march regionally? That the title of this audiotape sounds like a track from Love's Forever Changes? And shouldn't he be asking whether al Qaeda is bleeding to death in Iraq and elsewhere?
Well I'm not sure, but if you like I can ask my Magic Eight Ball.
What is clear, is that while Iraq is nothing like Vietnam, the US today is nearly the same creature it was during the Vietnam war. At least in most ways that matter.
The MSM, and US universities, are predominantly run by post modernist, liberal left pacifists. And this remains true no matter how many liberal left pacifists care to jump and say "it ain't so". These people are painting one of the pictures we get of Iraq and of course it isn't pretty.
But when I talk to soldiers who've been in Iraq (and I've talked to many), the stories I hear them tell are nothing like what the MSM is telling us.
I'm married into a Vietnamese family and have talked to many who were in the South Vietnamese army and government. Likewise, the stories I hear them tell are nothing like the picture I get from our MSM, and most of the books written about the Vietnam war since then.
What do you expect from pacifists? They're consistent, but their view of how the world really works is sadly mistaken.
I'm convinced that Vietnam is a war the US could have won, if it wanted to. Whether it should have been fighting that war is an entirely different matter.
Meanwhile, in the other corner we have the war hawks. Their best and brightest today are apparently Bush and Rumsfeld, which I submit as proof that the war hawks have been lobotomized, today just as they were during Vietnam. These people paint the other picture we get of Iraq, and its credibility is doubtful.
The hawks push us into wars of questionable merit. The pacifists, meanwhile, have made themselves full time volunteer members of the US military. Their job is simply to be there and bitch, whatever may happen. The end result is as predictable today as it was in 1968 during the Tet Offensive (which both the MSM and Washington lied about in their own ways).
That we fight wars of questionable merit is bad. That we fight such wars and then loose them, is a monstrous injustice.
