Jesus Take the Wheel

Have you noticed how most of the fresh hawk/Republican arguments about Iraq boil down to: "Shut up and wait for David Petraeus's report, already"? Take the example of Sen. Linsday Graham (R-S.C.) on Meet the Press.

SEN. GRAHAM: I will not vote for anything until generous—General Petraeus passes on it. No senator, no congressman—no matter how much I respect you—you're not going to be able, in my opinion, to give the advice that General Petraeus can give, and I'm going to wait till he comes back and listen to his advice and not some politician.
…
RUSSERT: Though Hayden had listed al-Qaeda as the fifth most pressing threat in Iraq, President Bush regularly listed al-Qaeda as first."

SEN. GRAHAM: So did General Petraeus. General Petraeus says the number one enemy of America is al-Qaeda in Iraq, and Lee Hamilton in December said that our chief national security interest, in a sense, is al-Qaeda in Iraq.
…
On this show in September last year, everyone said Anbar has—is gone. What did Petraeus do? He said, "Give me more troops, and I'm going to get out behind these walls, I'm going to live with the Iraqi army and police forces, and I'm going to try to align myself with people who reject al-Qaeda." And it is working.
…
What I would like to see happen is to allow Petraeus to keep doing what he's doing,
…
MR. RUSSERT: Quote, "Iraqi forces can sear—secure their country—can secure their country at any time." He's basically saying, "You can leave and we're just fine."

SEN. GRAHAM: To be honest with you, I think the—General Petraeus will tell us about that scenario.
…
MR. RUSSERT: Before we go, what happens in September?

SEN. GRAHAM: I think General Petraeus will determine what happens in September,

And finally:

God bless General Petraeus and these troops.

James Fallows has a spot-on post about this, about how Petraeus is the "new Jesus" -- the savior that drops in to a failing organization, is expected to solve everyone's problems, is drenched in praise, and then inevitably fails to raise Lazarus.

[Petraeus] is not Jesus, nor is he supernatural in any way. His manual of counter insurgency strategy is a big step forward from the stupid brutalize- and-alienate approach of the early stage of the Iraqi occupation. (The manual is here -- a 12 meg PDF download.) But that manual and its underlying strategy -- which I heard discussed and thrashed out by Petraeus and his colleagues at Ft. Leavenworth last spring; I think Tom Ricks was there for that conference, and I know that Kristol and Graham weren't -- is neither magical nor holy. It is not going to undo what has gone wrong in the last four-plus years. It is not going to make the Maliki government seem legitimate, and it is not even going to shape up the Iraqi security forces.

Whole thing here.

Comments

[de stijl]

Someone take the wheel, 'coz I don't know where we're going.

[The Wine Commonsewer?]

great headline

[NotThatDavid]

since the "surge" started, I've been amazed at how the Republicans have tried to manufacture a guy nobody outside of military circles had heard of before into some kind of all-knowing war hero who could be expected to right the ship just by being so amazingly...amazing. It's nice to have a suitably derisive name for the process.

[Sen. Lindsay Graham]

In fact, I love General Petraeus so much that if I were a woman, I would **** him so hard!... but I wouldn't do that, because I'm a man, and that would be VERY VERY WRONG! In fact, I don't even think about caressing him with my tongue because just thinking about it is a MORTAL SIN! But DAMN I love that man!

[matthew hogan]

Come on, David, don't you read Hit and Run? It's "Jebus".

[Lindsay Graham as toddler]

Give me back my ball or my daddy will beat you up when he gets home!

[de stijl]

I saw a Grassley interview last night and he was tea-bagging Petraus too. Gosh, It's almost like he and Huckleberry Graham got the same memo or something!

Any guesses as to what the party line will be after the September report?

[The 50 is the new 20]

It was about this time that the telephone rang inside of the SECRET BRIEFCASE belonging to THE ONE MORTAL MAN who might be able to stop all of this senseless destruction and save 'AMERICA HERSELF'! STUDEBAKER HOCH, fantastic new SUPER HERO of the CURRENT ECONOMIC SLUMP!

[creech]

LINCOLN: "We are all sitting by the telegraph here just waiting for Gen. McClellan to report in how he has crushed General Lee's rebel army
that he now has trapped on the hills above Antietam Creek."
REPORTER: "So, you think the rebellion is just about over and the boys in blue can start coming home?"
LINCOLN: "I have full faith in Gen. McClellan and his intelligence staff under Pinkerton.
We have given him all the tools needed and Lee
has placed his army in dire peril. It reminds
me of the time the farmer in Illinois went to town to sell his pigs and................"

[thoreau]

He doesn't look a thing like Jesus. But he talks like a gentleman.

[Taktix?]

Any guesses as to what the party line will be after the September report?

I suspect General Pee-Tree-Ass was picked specifically because he would deliver a Bush-favorable report.

Therefore, I am guessing Petraeus will deliver his report, dressed as a cheerleader, chanting:

Iraq is going great!
The end will have to wait!
Flip-flop
Flip-flop
Vote Rudy in '08!

[Lindasy Graham\'s id]

...Petraeus will deliver his report, dressed as a cheerleader...

Oh please, oh please, oh please!!!

[Trea]

Calls to mind the old Midnight Oil song, "When the Generals Talk"

Up there on the platform
He is speaking to the people
The people are responding
With clapping and a'cheering
But the meaning of the message
Not revealed to those assembled
They're taken for a ride
Taken in his stride

When the Generals talk
You better listen to him
When the Generals talk
You better do what he say
...

Who knows, perhaps Petraeus will some day whisper sweet nothings into Lindsey's ear, and the whole world will know salvation.

[Lindasy Graham\'s superego]

Hey! Knock that off right now. You're a fucking US Senator and that means YOU CAN'T GO THERE. Seriously, do you wanna end up like Mark fucking Foley?

[joe]

I predict that General Patreus will report progress on a small fraction of the benchmarks, and Lindsey Graham will tell us that the next six months are crucial. Again.

[Timothy]

Look, we all know that David Koresh was Jesus #2. Gen. Patraeus is obviously The Word #3.

[Chavez is a thug]

"It is not going to undo what has gone wrong in the last four-plus years. It is not going to make the Maliki government seem legitimate, and it is not even going to shape up the Iraqi security forces"

Petraeus may not be Jesus, but evidently James Fallows is. His ability to predict the future is astounding

[bb]

This is not just a New Jesus strategy. It is New Jesus + Democrat Surrender. Bush and the hawks will claim they were on the road to total victory. A victory that would reshape the world. Until the Democrats snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. Get ready. We will hear it for the rest of our lives. They want Petraeus nailed to the cross - by Democrats.

[Warren]

Petraeus is just the latest rationalization for denying the complete failure, at every turn, of our Iraqi policy.

[David McElroy]

Reading that transcript sort of reminds me of the part in "Atlas Shrugged" when the looters keep telling the public to wait for the "John Galt Plan" which is going to fix everything. Of course, there is no "John Galt Plan," in the book or in real life.

[Warren]

Remember the old USSR? Every year they came out with a new five year plan that would fix the horrific results of the first year of last years five year plan. This reminds me of that.

[John]

I don't know, hopefully Petreus will fail and a few million people will die in Iraq and Al Quada will have a base the size of Texas. I am not sure if anything beyond that will make Weigel happy.

I suspect Joe is right, there will be some progress and whether that is enough will depend on what you think about the war. Either way, no one will have a plan for getting out of Iraq beyond just bare surrender and hoping for the best. At this point, if we do in fact pull out of Iraq, we should probably look at doing what the Romans did with the barbarians and just pay protection money to Al Qauda since we clearly don't have the will to fight them. I am sure a few hundred billion a year and the agrement to crack down on Hollywood and pornography and the like, would probably keep them off of our backs for a while anyway and be cheaper than fighting them.

[thoreau]

Warren-

Bravo! Hawks don't know how to take Commie comparisons. I think righties are used to being compared to the-group-whose-name-invokes-Godwin-so-I-won't-actually-type-it, but they don't know how to take Commie comparisons.

Nicely done.

[John]

We would probably have to agree to turn over our Jews like Vichy France did, but hey, small price to pay for peace in our time.

[thoreau]

John, sometimes you make excellent points, but today you're burning a hell of a lot of strawmen. There's more than one way to fight terrorists, you know. It isn't a choice between exactly what we're currently doing and surrender. There are choices in between.

Anyway, be careful. If you burn enough straw, you might accidentally elect a new Pope. Remember all the trouble there was the last time there was a Pope and an anti-Pope?

[lunchstealer]

Does anybody else hear a bunch of orangutans singing "Dr. Zeus"?

[lunchstealer]

John, sometimes you make excellent points, but today you're burning a hell of a lot of strawmen.

Which is bad, because while they are carbon-neutral biomass fuel, they do emit a lot of particulate pollution.

[highnumber]

lunchstealer,
No, but I do hear them singing "Dr Zaius."

[Tacos mmm...]

Either way, no one will have a plan for getting out of Iraq beyond just bare surrender and hoping for the best.

I'm impressed that words like "surrender" as still being tossed around. The war is over. Sure, there's a low-grade Iraqi civil war being fought right now, but it's mostly being done over and around the US military. What we're in the middle of now is an occupation. And occupations don't have a victory or defeat. They just go on. And on. And on.

[Mike Laursen]

Does anybody else hear a bunch of orangutans singing "Dr. Zeus"?

No, actually, I was thinking that "General Petraeus" would be a great name for a character from Star Wars or some Shakespearean drama set in Ancient Rome.

[Rattlesnake Jake]

"I am sure a few hundred billion a year and the agrement to crack down on Hollywood and pornography and the like, would probably keep them off of our backs for a while anyway and be cheaper than fighting them."

The best way to get them off our backs is to stop meddling over there.

[John]

Yes we can end the occupation and declare victory and go home. But when that happens, the betting seems to be that Al Quada takes over Iraq or a good part of it and turns it into Afghanistan West, only this time with Iranian protrection and probably in a three or four years Iranian nukes. What happens then? Al Quada pulls another 9-11 or two being supported and protected by a nuclear armed Iran? Would have made things a bit sticky wouldn't it have? Do you really think that Europe, then within range of Iranian missiles would support action against Iran after another 9-11? Hell no. There would be deniability and lying and calls for peace and negotiations and meanwhile, the US will be left powerless to do anything without running the risk of starting a nuclear war. The whole world will fold and supplicate themselves before the Iranians and abandon the US to avoid that. The US will be like the Corleone family after the drug dealer gets the protection of the cop. All the families will turn against them just to prevent a nuclear war. I have a feeling that once Iran has the bomb, the US will get hit and hit hard and will continue to get hit with impunity. That is the future.

At this point what does the US do? In all seriousnes, why not just pay them and make some adjustments to our culture and hope they leave us alone because clearly fighting them is not an option, if a war that causes 20,000 casualties in a nation of 300 million is too much to bear.

[Tacos mmm...]

John,
And endless chain of implausible what-if's is insufficient to convince me of the necessity of several generations of blood occupation. I am much more convinced that the best way to avoid conflict in the middle east is to stop meddling in the middle east. After all, in eliminating Al-Quaeda, we're likely to do little more than breed its predecessor. These conflicts are fundamentally endless and self-perpetuating, and the only way to win is not to fight.

[John]

Tacos,

What if after 9-11, Al Quada woudl have been protected by a nuclear armed iran rather than a powerless rebel state like the Taliban? Do you think the US is just going to invade a nuclear armed country like it did Afghanistan or Iraq? You think that the rest of the world would support us in a nuclear war? I sure don't. Given what Iran is saying and the likly outcome of a US pullout in Iraq, I don't see any other more likely outcome than the one I described above.

[John]

"These conflicts are fundamentally endless and self-perpetuating, and the only way to win is not to fight."

Which I guess is why you surrender and pay protection money and change your culture

[Rattlesnake Jake]

"I have a feeling that once Iran has the bomb, the US will get hit and hit hard and will continue to get hit with impunity."

Why would they do that when they know we could retaliate in kind many times over?

[Rattlesnake Jake]

"if a war that causes 20,000 casualties in a nation of 300 million is too much to bear."

A war in which we have no business in with only one casualty is one casualty too many.

[mk]

What if after 9-11, Al Quada woudl have been protected by a nuclear armed iran rather than a powerless rebel state like the Taliban?

What if they had been protected by Klingons? Or the Romulans?

Are you being willfully obtuse?

[Rattlesnake Jake]

"Which I guess is why you surrender and pay protection money and change your culture"

We don't have to do any of those things, just stop meddling.

[John]

"Why would they do that when they know we could retaliate in kind many times over?"

They wouldn't hit us with nukes. They would hit us with conventional terror attacks that they could claim plausable deniablility. With missiles that could reach both Russia and Europe the rest of the world would want to beleive the denials. Meanwhile, what is the US going to do about it? They can't nuke Iran if they haven't been nuked themselves and they can't attack Iran because it would risk a nuclear war and no one would support that. We already know Al Quada in iraq is being supported by Iran. Why would that support stop if we left Iraq, especially considering that Al quada gives iran a way to attack the US with pretty much impunity once it gets the bomb.

[The 50 is the new 20]

What we're doing to Iraq is a "war" in the same way a brutal purse snatching is a "prize fight"

[Tacos mmm...]

Which I guess is why you surrender and pay protection money and change your culture

Where are you getting these strawmen? I'm certainly not advocating either. The Saudis have to pay off some fundamentalists to maintain their hold on power. That's in no way analogous to the situation of the US government. Nor do I advocate any change in our culture (not that we could change it - fundamentalist Christians have been trying unsuccessfully to role back the cultural clock for decades) because our culture isn't the problem. We're probably the most culturally conservative western democracy.

I think that the situation that you describe continues to be implausible. A nation like Iran would not have sheltered Al Quada. Al Quada managed to take advantage of the fact that Afghanistan was still a fundamentally lawless place, the way that Hezbollah takes advantage of Lebanon's political weakness. Strong nations like Iran don't openly shelter terrorist organizations because they can't completely control them, and can get into serious trouble because of them. There's simply nothing to gain by having an Al Quada-like organization within your borders.

[David]

John,

Why would a Shiite state back a Wahhabist terrorist organization?

[John]

They are sheltering them now. Get in trouble? How will they get in trouble once they have nuclear weapons? What is the world going to do about it? Read the papers for God's sake.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A4191-2004Jul21.html

[lunchstealer]

^# - meh. I can spell my lame simpsons references any way I want.

[Taco mmm...]

They would hit us with conventional terror attacks that they could claim plausable deniablility.

Why? What political advantage is there to attacking a country secretly? I suppose if you're trying to destroy a special facility, or assassinate someone, it makes sense. But if we accept that war is an extension of politics, what is the political gain of anonymous killing? Even shadowly terrorist organizations take credit for their actions - that's the whole damn point.

[John]

"Why would a Shiite state back a Wahhabist terrorist organization?"

For the same reason that a allededly secular power like Syria would allign itself with a Shiite religous state like Iran. Power. Power and opportunity make strange bedfellow. The fact is Iran is supporting Al Quada right now. The fact they are wahabiest isn't stoping them now, why would it in the future?

[John]

But if we accept that war is an extension of politics, what is the political gain of anonymous killing?

To get the US to stop supporting Isreal and Iran's enemies like Saudi Arabis. Get the US and Europe out of the way and a nuclear armed Iran can run the entire middle east. Who is going to stop them? Once they do that, they control the world's oil supply and they are one of the most powerful nations on earth. Not bad really.

[Tacos mmm...]

The fact they are wahabiest isn't stoping them now, why would it in the future?

Because the long-term goals of the Wahabists in Iraq are highly likely to be incompatible with the long-term goals of Iran. As soon as the US is gone, expect SCIRI and the Shia militias to grind Al Quada in Iraq into the dirt. If Iran is supporting them now, it's a temporary situation simply to make Iraq more uncomfortable for the Americans without having to put Iran's Iraqi allies at risk - i.e., for Iran, Al Quada in Iraq is a group of useful idiots, to be used as cannonfodder against the US and then discarded when the US is gone. Kind of the way that the Republicans use the religious right every election cycle.

[What John sounds like when you]

Blah blah, they're coming to kill you and your children, blah blah, elect me to something, blah blah...

[Tacos mmm...]

Once they do that, they control the world's oil supply and they are one of the most powerful nations on earth. Not bad really.

I think that this is a possible outcome, but nothing we are doing or can do in Iraq will stop it. In fact, by invading Iraq, I simply suspect we've removed one more obstacle to Iranian domination of the region and have long held that the war in Iraq is over - and Iran won. There's simply no other nation in the middle east that's as politically stable as Iran with similar financial and demographic resources. Not to mention that every day, Iran gets more and more buddy-buddy with China.

The bright thing to do would be to normalize relations with Iran, and start preparing for the future instead of indulging in cowboy fantasies that we can rearrange with the world to our liking at the point of a gun.

[D. Weasil]

I would posit that David Weagal fears Petraeus's success and as such, is part of a surgical team trying its best to hamstring him.

[Rattlesnake Jake]

"Get the US and Europe out of the way and a nuclear armed Iran can run the entire middle east. Who is going to stop them? Once they do that, they control the world's oil supply "

First of all, they would control only the oil in the Middle East, not the whole world. Second, they will want to sell the oil at market rates, otherwise, they risk losing their markets to others.

You can't blame Iran for trying to get nuclear weapons. They saw that Afganistan and Iraq didn't have nuclear weapons and we attacked them. They saw that North Korea did have nuclear weapons and we didn't attack them. What more incentive can there be to get nuclear weapons?

[Tammy]

"There's more than one way to fight terrorists, you know."

I favor carpet-bombing (beginninfg with Gaza and the tribal lands in NW Pakistan).

[Taktix?]

Tammy,

How about we take out Ann Arbor, Michigan, while we're at it?

[Taktix?]

P.S. Last post sarcastic, killing is, for the most part, wrong...

[Lost_In_Translation]

John,

Why do we require thousands of troops and billions of dollars to fight a war of terror, which our government feels is committed by small amounts of people (and not the whole of Islam)? What in our history makes you think that by accelerating the killing of Iraqis we can bring peace and prosperity to Iraq? Why do you think Iran would continue to play host to arch enemies if it lacked a serious nearby threat? Why does the US need to continue military support for Israel, a state that is more than capable of its own diplomacy? Can you answer all these questions, can you give me a good reason how we can establish peace in Iraq when the US has been unable to restore order to any country since 1946?

[Tammy]

"P.S. Last post sarcastic, killing is, for the most part, wrong..."

You confuse wrong with trite, a common error.

[joe]

Since John has no idea what to do now, no one else could possibly have any idea, either.

BTW, "Iran-backed al Qaeda" is even dumber than "al Qaeda-backed Iraq." Just to review:

Al Qaeda considers Shiites to be infidels, and has bombed Shiite mosques in Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, and Afghanistan.

When al Qaeda/Taliban troops took Kabul in the 1990s, they slaughtered the Iranian embassy staff.

Iran agreed to assist the American war effort in Afghanistn by sealing their border to escaping Taliban and al Qaeda, rescuing our downed pilots, and allowing us flyover rights (IIRC on that last bit).

Osama bin Laden just declared war on Iran.

People like John and Graham, desperate to prove that they haven't been humiliatingly wrong for the last five years about the subject (military affairs) that they use to prove their superior seriousness and manliness, love to bring up the Anbar shieks turning against al Qaeda and driving them out. Can anybody remember what the American policy was during the time period this happened? If you answered "We'd declared the area lost (surrendered) and all-but-ceased operations there (cut and run)," you are correct.

Everyone on the planet, except perhaps John, understands that al Qaeda is only able to operate in Iraq as long as the Sunni populace views them as useful in the fight against the US. The moment we leave the Sunni areas, all of those al Qaeda terrorists are going to die. There will be no al Qaeda in Iraq within months of our exit.

John doesn't believe this, and John is going to be proven humiliatingingly wrong. Again.

[Les]

John,

General William Odom disagrees mightily with your assertions.

http://hughhewitt.townhall.com/Transcript_Page.aspx?ContentGuid=d7f52e21-cf46-4115-b397-ed1dc70fcdab

Not that he's right just because he's a general or anything, it's just that most people with his educational and military background seem to agree with him.

Tammy,

You were joking about the carpet-bombing, weren't you?

[Tammy]

"Tammy,

You were joking about the carpet-bombing, weren't you?"

I don't joke. These fanatics need a wake-up call. It worked well with Japan.

[Les]

Tammy,

You don't mind blowing to bits and burning alive a few kids to give people in no position to attack us "a wake-up call?" Seems kind of grotesque, stupid, and cowardly to me, but hey, to each his own.

[Scooby]

Yeah... carpet bombing worked wonders in speeding Japan's surrender.

Oh, when you say "carpet bombing", you mean dropping nukes.

OK. Carry on.

[Tammy]

"Yeah... carpet bombing worked wonders in speeding Japan's surrender.

Oh, when you say "carpet bombing", you mean dropping nukes.

OK. Carry on."

Yes, Japan was nuked and a few days later surrendered unconditionally. But Dresden sustained even greater damage without nukes. Today, both Germany and Japan are our allies. Go figure?

[crimethink]

Let me preface this by saying that Lindsey Graham is a pathetic piece of feces, and the fact that he's become the administration's bulldog in Congress shows just how desperate they've become.

That said, I saw this exchange, and one thing you've left out is the fact that Sen. Jim Webb was sitting next to him interrupting him constantly, and then when it was Webb's turn to talk, shouting "it's my turn to speak!" whenever Graham made a peep. Kind of sad for Webb that he came out looking like more of a douche than friggin' Lindsey Graham.

[Tacos mmm...]

I favor carpet-bombing (beginninfg with Gaza and the tribal lands in NW Pakistan).

Why the fuck would we bomb Gaza? The Palestinians haven't done shit to the United States. We might as well be bombing Belfast or the western Pyrenees for all the relevance that would have.

[Rick H.]

I favor carpet-bombing

This preference is overwhelmingly advanced by those who have yet to see their own children's arms blown off.

[Les]

Tacos, it's a "wake-up call," see? If Muslims don't love us, we'll blow them and their families right the fuck up. I mean, it worked in WW2, right?

This preference is overwhelmingly advanced by those who have yet to see their own children's arms blown off.

Precisely.

[matthew hogan]

I'm still trying to figure out who "al-Qauda" is. Lots of discussion in this thread on that subject.

[Hugh Akston]

Yes, Japan was nuked and a few days later surrendered unconditionally. But Dresden sustained even greater damage without nukes. Today, both Germany and Japan are our allies. Go figure?

Is it silly of me to point out that both WWII-era Germany and Japan were industrial nations capable of making war with other countries? For relevant comparisons re: effective bombing, perhaps we should look at the cases of Viet Nam, Cambodia, or Clinton-era Iraq.

[Isaac Bartram]

Osama bin Laden just declared war on Iran.

Looks like it.

For the same reason that a allededly secular power like Syria would allign itself with a Shiite religous state like Iran.

The Assad clan are members of the Shia minority in Syria. As such they are likely to have a serious problem with a Sunni organization, especially one that wants to exterminate Shias. It would really help if you would provide some evidence that they are helping Al Queda. They are directing Iranian money to the Shia Hizbollah.

It would not surprise me if some of Saddam's weapons made it into Syria but to the extent that the regime controls them they are going back to Shia militias in Iraq who are as happy to kill Al Queda's Sunnis as they are Americans.

Hizbollah may have in the Israelis a common enemy with Fatah and Hamas, but you can be fairly sure that if they ever succeeded in "driving the Jews into the sea" they would soon turn there guns on eachother.

Oh and the Iraqi and Syrian Baath Parties are completely separate entities, and enemies. That is why old man Assad backed the Coalition in GW I. Anything to put Saddam in his place was worth doing.

Like I said a few threads back. Get the enemies straight and you won't make so many stupid comments.

Honestly sometimes I think the problem is that you and Bush learned your "facts" about the ME in the same place.

[Alex Quada]

John and others, I just wanted to let you know that I'm suing you all for libel. I'm not a part of a terrorist organization, and never have been.

[eb]

This war has become an irritant to our dainty sensibilities I see.

Based on the majority of comments here, it appears that a lot of people don't understand that al qaeda and its ilk are BATSHIT CRAZY and they don't follow your simple concepts of logic. Sunnis and Shiites have been killing each other for over a thousand years but that never stopped them from teaming up to kill infidels.

I'd really suggest that people that insist Iran would never work with al qaeda etc. etc. etc. blah, blah, blah make an effort to learn about the people they seem to think they understand.

This kind of talk really reminds me of the assurances I heard as a teenager that the only difference between the US and USSR was economic policy.

When the US pulls out of Iraq early and the region falls into chaos and 10s of thousands, perhaps houndreds of thousands, begin to die horrible deaths, at least we'll know that we took the logical step that allowed us to be relieved of having to see our soldiers in a battlefield...for now.

[Stevo Darkly]

I'm still trying to figure out who "al-Qauda" is. Lots of discussion in this thread on that subject.

It is apparently difficult to transliterate the sounds of the Arabic language into the spelling of the English language.

Several alternative spellings exist, including:

al-Qaeda
al-Qaida
al-Qa'ida
al-Qa'idah
al-Cola
al-Koala
al-Kaseltzer
MoveOn.org
Michael Moore
Berkeley, California
al-Asbabylon
Kasey Kasem
Qasei Qas'm
Kelly Clarkson
George Carlin
Ralph the Wonder Llama