This post has been moved here from the Iraq section where it was mistakenly place at first. The previous comments on this post were:

The “positioning of terror” has just entered it’s next phase. Ashcroft specifically noted today that the “terrorists” may try to influence the November election just as they “influenced” Spain’s. In other words: Any attack or threat is a direct attempt to break Americans’ resolve to vote for “their” president. Americans can defeat the terrorists by not succumbing like the Spanish did, and vote to keep “their” president in office.

Because in case you’ve forgotten: This is the “terror president.”

And one last thing: You WILL be afraid. And the only way to deal with that fear, and stop your worst fears from coming true, is to vote for the “terrorism president.”

“The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.”

-Hermann Goering, after Nuremberg

Posted by NotSpunZone at May 26, 2004 02:29 PM

The terrorists have recently used pre-election tactics to their advantage against democracies to great effect. One only has to look at Spain for a fresh and recent example. Turkey has also been hit prior to elections in the past.

Posted by HullBreach at May 26, 2004 02:31 PM

I don't consider Herr Goering to have been any kind of expert on how democracies work, however clever the saying may seem.

NSZ's "use" of "scare" "quotes" is also weak.

But thank G*d NSZ has stated there is no threat from AQ, I'll definitely sleep better at night now!
/sarcasm

That's right NotSpun, Bush Administration = Nazis. How could I be so blind before not to have seen the truth?

NotSpunZone:

“The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked ..."

Um, they don't have to "tell" us that we are being attacked, we have already been with mass casualties, live on morning TV. That's where you start to lose traction in your argument.

You have a point, but it's off the mark and you use gross comparative implications to try to strengthen it (the Hermann Goering quote). If you walked a mile... Let's say that you, personally, were President when 9/11 happened. Would you not warn (emotionaly prepare) the people about likely near-term attacks to lessen the emotional punch, on individuals and the economy, because you fear people would claim a power conspiracy? Would you stand silent? If you had good reason to expect an attack, isn't your duty to warn? We have millions of sirens in our neighborhoods just for that purpose, to warn us against impending danger (bombs, tornados, storms, ...). Your logic is to not flip the siren switch even though you see the tornado coming.

Even if you are right and Bush is doing this to maintain a stronger grasp on re-election, it is a minor thing compared to other things that could be going on. In a Hermann Goering situation, the man whom you quote, we would/could have declared a state of emergency, round up all the Muslims and put them in ghettos, then send them to internment camps and then the unspeakable, as Nazi Germany did, even without 19 Jews driving planes into office buildings in Berlin, and blowing up embassies, and trying to sink German ships, and...

That is not even close to what is happening, so knock off your Hermann Goering / Nazi comparisons and when you see impending danger, please tell everyone around you.

If there is an attack, count on NSZ to crow how "Bush knew!"

Joseph,

That's the most tragic thing about this election, that some people are so eager to defeat George Bush, they're willing to destroy and dishonor their country in the process.

Max. that was a very insightful post. Its just too bad that it was wasted on NSZ.

NSZ's mind is made up so there really is no sense in wasting valuable keystrokes trying to persuade him with insightful argument or even bare facts.

None of that matters to him or the other trolls that post here. They use the liberal technique of demogogery while we try to engage (most of the time) in discourse. Troll feeding is not one of the norms here.

if you were to say to NSZ: "This action today makes sense from a leadership standpoint" (which is at least part of the point you are making) NSZ's will reply with something he heard at a Kuchinich for president rally.

It's interesting to watch NSZ and X find ways to say the same old things over and over.

for the left there truly is nothing new under the sun.

NoSpitZone:

While we quoting people, I'd like to remind us of this one:

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
- Edmund Burke

I infer that you wish Ashcroft, Bush, et al to do exactly that, so maybe you are on the side of evil.

If ever there was a list that should be on America's Most Wanted, this is it. And it should be broadcast everyday.

Skip,

Thanks. Ya, a waste. I should be working.

I suppose NSZ would consider a quote from a Protestant-Catholic-Irish-Brit Whig party member meaningless compared to his selection: the Nazi Hermann Goering.

The idea that failed attacks should be published is an attractive one, but the resulting price is too high to warrant the benefit received.

When we catch bad guys, we crack them and they talk. By not publishing even so much as a notice that an attack has been thwarted, enemy leadership, who maintains a discrete distance from the field operators, does not even know that they have been turned until the next contact deadline has been missed, giving us a significant amount of time in which to make use of the information they reveal.

Its a complex equation, but essentially it reduces to choosing between intimidated enemies, and captured enemies. At that level, the choice becomes simple.

interesting point Jeffers. Perhaps some of the old cold war espionage stuff has relevance here.

Where's James Bond when we need him, eh (just kidding, just kidding)

As someone who was sitting less than a mile from the Pentagon when it was attacked, I really resent NotSpun's strident argument that this is just an attempt by the Administration to scare people. Dead bodies apparently aren't enough to wake people up to reality.

The attorney general said the seven suspects "are sought in connection with the possible terrorist threats in the United States. They all pose a clear and present danger to America. They all
should be considered armed and dangerous."

At least one of the seven suspects is said to have scouted sites across America that might be vulnerable to attack.

Ashcroft said another suspect, Adnan Shukrijumah, speaks English well, had lived in the United States for 15 years and has been trying to reenter the country using various passports.

Another suspect, Abderraouf Jdey, appeared in a video that was seized in Afghanistan.

The tape reportedly represents a last will and testament of a possible jihad martyr, according to Mueller, who said Jdey was a Canadian citizen born in Tunisia.

Another suspect was described as a qualified pilot, another received training at a militant camp in Afghanistan, the officials said.

Ashcroft said they might to seek to travel with a family in order to "lower their profile."

"Let me say that the face of al-Qaeda may be changing," he said.

"Al-Qaeda is a resilient and adaptable organization, known for altering tactics in the face of new security measures.

"Intelligence sources suggest that ideal al-Qaeda operatives may now be in their late 20s or early 30s.

"Our intelligence confirms al-Qaeda is seeking recruits who can portray themselves as Europeans," he said.

http://sg.news.yahoo.com/040526/1/3klsy.html

Pictures of the bad guys:

http://host1.in-motion.net/~jefft/tech/Mapping/afghanistan/7suspects.jpg

The Left frequently uses quotes from NAZIs that seem appropos in oreder to insinuate that their political opponents share views with Hitler, Goerring, et. al. The irony comes in two parts: that by doing so they demonstrate the alignment of their own views with NAZI thought, and they also demonstrate that it's never occurred to them that the NAZI idea they cite is BULLSHIT.

It's funny and creepy all at the same time.

:jackson

They'll say anything to draw attention away from the prision abuses. You know what? I have credible evidence that Mickey Mouse is growing a third ear. It could happen as early as this summer.

Nothing spewed out of the White House or Aschcroft has any legitimacy or credibility. Since America obviously has no real inteligence apparatus, - (monumental 9/11 failures, WMD failures, and the recent insurgency uprising wherein the allpowerful Bush warmongers failed to notice Sadr's militia retrenching, lost four Iraqi cities to Sadr's militia, and then backed down to Sadr's militia while the insurgents slinked back into the Iraqi populace to fight again another day) - then al Quaida threats are obviously a very serious concern.

The Bush governments simplistic dimwitted fundamentalist rightwingideologue warmongers and profiteers failed America on 9/11, failed America in Iraq, failed America on the nebulous waronterror, and are failing to protect Americans here at home today.


Tragically our blood and treasure is foolishly wasted in Iraq fighting the wrong Muslims, providing a recruiting bonanza for bin Laden, and engorging the off sheet accounts of cronies and cartels in the Bush oligarchy, - and failing totally to address our real enemies who are abundantly funded and nurtured by Bush "good friends", and America's arch enemies in Saudi Arabia.

One jihadist freak infected with a chimera weapon strolling through Grand Central Station, or Union Station, or LAX would render the entire region uninhabitable, force a quarantine, a massive healthcare crisis, and send economic, political, and social shock waves reverberating through-out the fragile economy for years.

"Bold vision" my ass. "What's the difference"? The Bush government maintains it's death grip on America, deceiving America, suppressing Americans, robbing from the poor and middleclass to feed the superrich, shaming, bankrupting, and redefining American government, ravaging the Bill of Rights, creating enemies and hostility toward America all over the world, heaping the enormous and debt and bloodletting on Americas children, and profiting obscenely in the process), - the gospel according to fox and the Bush government war profiteers and sloganeers mindlessly and deceptively frame this horroshow as "decisive leadership" and refuse to recognize or admit OBVIOUS FAILURE, - and all the while the people burden and hazard the horrible consequences.

We will all get what we deserve for foolishly allowing the Bush government to destroy America's credibility and goodwill.

"One jihadist freak infected with a chimera weapon strolling through Grand Central Station, or Union Station, or LAX would render the entire region uninhabitable, force a quarantine, a massive healthcare crisis, and send economic, political, and social shock waves reverberating through-out the fragile economy for years."

Sounds like a damn good reason to hunt them down and kill the FIRST.

And why is it the neo-hippies all seem to be writing from the same template? Is there a FEARMONGERING.DOT out there some where on the net?

And I thought being nefarious was bad....It just means I am American.
Operation Media Monopoly Freedom
Statement by Nancy Snow to FCC Public Forum on Media Consolidation
University of Southern California Los Angeles,
April 28, 2003

Washington, D.C. is in the liberating people in other countries' habit these days. Mr. Copps, we the people of the United States could use more than our own fair share of liberation from our media oligopoly. About a month from today (June 2, 2003), the FCC is expected to substantially relax the regulatory cap on how many TV stations a single company may own. Right now rules bar American broadcasters from owning TV stations reaching more than 35 percent of homes. They are likely to be raised to 45 percent coverage. Further, it is very likely that rules will be lifted that limit the ability of broadcasters to buy second TV stations in their markets or bar a city’s newspaper and broadcast station from merging. While the FCC has been holding a few window-dressing public forums across the country, the real decision-making regarding the new FCC rules is being made between the few existing media companies and a government agency with appointed, unelected officials.

The FCC will do what is politically expedient, while the public interest will continue to be talked about in newspaper editorials and college textbooks. How do I know this? Because of what happened with the Telecommunications Act of 1996 when the public was left completely out of the discussion.

Brian Lowry, media writer of the Los Angeles Times, has stated that the FCC new rule changes affecting consolidation and ownership of media is tremendously underreported, perhaps the most underreported news story of our time. In fact, the consolidation story is being reported, but not on the front pages of our newspapers. It is in the business and finance sections of newspapers and broadcast industry publications where only those in the know and industry insiders follow the subject. We the people have become Walter Lippmann's "bewildered herd," and are forced to function like the angry mob at the gates or the proverbial peanut gallery, occasionally whining that nothing is on to watch, but we know not where to turn for help, so we just keep watching. And by the way, no one in this room has bothered to address the addictive qualities of television. Jerry Mander wrote about the insidiousness of TV over twenty years ago in Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television.

It is truly ironic that as we sit here today discussing American press ownership, the United States Government is rebroadcasting Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw and Peter Jennings on Iraqi TV to show the Iraqi people what a free press looks like in a democracy.

Before we teach others about democracy, we might try practicing it here at home.

Media power is political power. No wonder the public is being left out of this major decision that affects all our lives. We’ve been asked to sit on the sidelines, keep shopping, follow the NBA playoffs or watch Must-see TV while the corporate mega media and their appointed friends in government cozy up and bring us anything but a democratic landscape of information and news we can use. If democracy is about vigorous and antagonistic debate full of a wide spectrum of voices and opinions, we’re hardly there, brothers and sisters in Iraq. We have less than a handful of media who bring us all our news and those news sources that bring us the news are increasingly dependent on their close ties to official Washington and other corporate sources of news.

Our 24-hour news cycle requires constant feeding, which advertising and publicity pre-packaged sources of news are only happy to nourish. In the federal government, the largest public relations division is inside the Pentagon, where government public relations specialists provide M-F feeds to the national media. Embedded reporters didn’t just accompany the military to the Middle East, but they also sit regularly for pre-arranged briefings from Donald Rumsfeld, Torie Clarke, and Ari Fleischer. In the corporate media environment today, the best journalist is increasingly the dutiful journalist, who understands that symbiotic relationship between official channels of information sources and the news story product. Long gone are the days of independent journalists like George Seldes, who would have gladly been kicked out of his first Washington press briefing in exchange for the neighborhood goings on back home.

Just last week a little truth emerged from the fog of war. MSNBC journalist Ashleigh Banfield told a gathering of students at Kansas State University that the American people didn’t see what happened after mortars landed in Iraq, only the puffs of smoke. There were horrors completely left out of the war coverage in the U.S. What we did see was what advertising, converging media and official sources of news want us to see—a nonstop flow of images “by cable news operators who wrap themselves in the American flag and go after a certain target demographic. It was, she said, a “grand and glorious picture that had a lot of people watching and a lot of advertisers excited about cable TV news. But it wasn’t journalism.”

I teach in a College of Communications where journalism concentrations are all but dead while advertising and public relations concentrations are thriving. Why? Because students are wise to the fact that the news business is where the jobs are, not creating the next Murrow or Cronkite. They know that broadcasting used to have a clear mandate for public service that’s been lost in the fog of consolidation. Try telling someone that the American people are the real landlords of the broadcast airwaves and that broadcasters are enjoying rent control perks and see what kind of looks you’ll get.

We all know the truth of what’s really going on here. When President Bush assured the Iraqi people that Iraq’s oilfields were properly owned by the Iraqi people, I couldn’t help but think about that other hot rhetoric we hear so often that the American public own the airwaves. We’re sick of empty promises. Everyone in this room needs to carry around the following statement as an organizing principle: The airwaves do not belong to the broadcasters. They do not belong to the advertisers. The owners of the broadcast airwaves, by law, are the people of the United States. Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change this dynamic. We will. And it’s the best advertisement we can have to Iraq, Afghanistan, or anywhere else about what a truly free and liberated people’s media looks like.

Nancy Snow (www.NancySnow.com) is the author of Propaganda, Inc. and Information War. She is assistant professor of communications and journalism at California State University and adjunct professor in USC's Annenberg School for Communication.

I've noticed that the Bush haters insist that there's no real threat, while everyone else accepts that there's a real threat. I have yet to hear a Democrat politician assert that's it's all a big fake. That position is reserved for the lunatic fringe.

Our enemies are funded and nurtured by Saudi Arabia so, if it "Sounds like a damn good reason to hunt them down and kill the FIRST" - why are we wasting our time, treasure, political oxygen, and our soldiers, contractors, and innocent Iraqi's blood in Iraq?


Truebelievers mindless heroworship of the Bush government, hysterical blindness to the realities of the world and the real problems facing America, and robopathic regurgitation of the same hollow tired, utterly meaningless rhetoric or mantra's have ZERO credibility, legitimacy, or veracity. I have two words for all those mindless Bush worshipers - Ahmed Chalabi.

(Silencing Farenheit 9/11 is fundamentally un-America, and creepy), (sliming our fellow Americans patriotism for questioning the OBVIOUS deceptions, failures, abuses, and negligence of the Bush government is cowardly, despicable and telling) - and - (failing to recognize or redress the radical miscalculations, failures, abuses, deceptions, rightwingideologue delusions (what happened to that democracy at the tip of spear jibberish?) and all the truebeliever myths, false homilies, fictions, and partisan hagiography is sure to get more American's and innocent people all over the world killed.

The Bush government is responsible for all the cataclysmic failures in Iraq - all of them. Truebelievers parroting the same hollow fictions, blindly worshipping a failing, abusive, deceptive, and negligent tyrant, and pimping the partyline in lockstep mindlessness - have no validity, credibility, legitimacy, or grasp of reality.

Look around you Emro, you ship is sinking, and your captain is blaming everyone else for crashing into the iceberg, and pushing women and children aside to commandeer a lifeboat.

There is a real threat and the threat is greater then ever, thanks to President George W. Bush and his aides. The perception on the right is that the President is fighting terror and making the nation safer. The perception on the left is that the President sent the U.S. military into Iraq for his own reasons that had nothing do with fighting terror. The right is spinning the war in Iraq as a major part of the war on terror, even though it is not. The war in Iraq is draining U.S. resources that should have been used in places like Afghanistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, United States, Europe and Africa. Iraq could easily have been contained, with U.N. inspectors, spy satalites, and U2 flights. Saddam would have been ousted from power eventually had the U.S. provided increasing support to the democratic movements in that country. In the mean time the U.S. would have had a more stable region in which to persue Islamic fundamentalist terror groups. More funds would have been available to stabalize Afganistan, and the U.S. military would not have been as extended as it is at this time.

Well spoke Dream. Theright is constantly sliming and misrepresenting theleft. No one EVER said there are no threats silly. The threats are manifold and serious. What theleft has always said, and continues to say today is that Iraq was no threat. Saddam was well contained. Iraq had and has no WMD, Iraq had no connection with al Quaida prior to the Bush governments woefully misguided, deceptive, abusive, enormously costly, bloody misadventure and war profiteering in Iraq.

Our enemies are those other Muslims, - the jihadists, abundantly funded and nurtured by Bush "good friends" and America's mortal enemies in Saudi Arabia. Jihadist mass murderers (15 of them Saudi nationals) attacked America, (while the Bush government slept and dreamed of marauding Iraqi oil,). Those enemies were NOT in, or cooperating with Iraq prior to the Bush governments grotesque abuse of power attacking, colonizing Iraq, erecting a puppet government beholden to the Bush oligarchy, war profiteering, and marauding the oil in Iraq.

Theright continues parroting the same hollow fictions and mindless hagiography, - while thousands of innocent Iraqi's and 802 American soldiers are slaughetered, many thousand more maimed, the America people are forced to burden the enormous costs of the war, (with no accounting, and noendinsight, and not one penny allotted for 2004-2005), the entire world loathes the Bush government and by proxy America, the jihadist enjoy a recruiting bonanza, the Saudi's continue laundering our petro dollars to finance the malignant perversion of wahabism all jihadist mass murder gangs including al Quaida - and mindless flocks of truebelievers chant the hollow mantras of the Bush government neoimperialist rightwiingideologues in lockstepn unison.

Tony, if you read what your friends have posted in this thread, you will find that they said the threat is a fake designed to increase Bush's chances of re-election.

Don't waste any pixels on Tony. Oops, I did. My apologies to the electrons I misaligned in doing so.

Ass covering.

So says Reuters:

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N269710.htm

NotSpunZone -

Don't worry. We don't think you're unpatriotic, we think you're stupid.

i doubt they'll attack the G8 or DNC. maybe the RNC, but even that. they won't attack the G8 becuase that's not US, that's us and some others. they won't attack the DNC for what should be obvious reasons. they might attack the RNC in an attempt to put the dhimmicrats in power. but i really think it's the People and what we're about that they want to destroy. and they want to top 9/11. i'd look for very large gatherings of people (sports events, July 4th on the Mall, etc.) and WMD. probably chemical or biological, but i don't even want to consider whether they could pull off a nuclear explosion (not just a dirty bomb).

but i have tomorrow off so i'm drunk, i hope i don't know what i'm talking about

I don't normally post long things but, here is a letter I picked up from a soldier off of a blog. Considering the discussion I thought it was Appropriate.

Amy, I wrote this super fast, and I have no idea if you can or would want to use it. I have little time on the 'net, so from notes I've made while on missions talking to the guys, I rammed this out. Don't feel committed to using it, but just in case... I wanted to write to the American people about why our fight w/ Sadr is going so well and why they should not be seduced by the media/press image that this is somehow a disaster.

Take Care.

-Joe

------------------------

The fighting we are engaged in against the uprising of Muqtada Al-Sadr is one that is extremely sensitive and risks catastrophe. Had we entered this previously, it would not have been possible for us to win. Over the months, we have been involved in preparations and much planning. Thus, today we are scoring amazing successes against this would-be tyrant.

I ask that the American people be brave. Don't fall for the spin by the weak and timid amongst you that are portraying this battle as a disaster. Such people are always looking for our failure to justify and rescue their constant pessimism. They are raising false flags of defeat in the press and media. It just isn't true.

Last year in April while the main war was still going on to defeat Saddam Hussein's military, I myself gave a class to my company of the 16th Engineers about the threat posed by Sadr and the prospects for conflict with his militias. Though my fellow soldiers didn't appreciate having to attend a class at 8am on one of our last days before deploying to Baghdad, they can tell you that what is happening now is no surprise. I used open and general information that my superiors were already aware of.

The basis of our evaluation over a year ago was that Sadr presented a formidable and possibly impossible threat. Last summer, as my unit covered Sadr City -- the sprawling part of Baghdad that Sadr controlled then -- his militias challenged us by making a show of force in defiance of the effort to open up Iraq society to the new freedoms. Sadr clearly demonstrated that he would deny Iraqis democracy and freedom in his quest for power. By the fall, he had most of Iraq's Shia leaders and the community at large intimidated and kowtowing to his bully tactics. In January through March, his arrogance and thuggery led him to pursue two further attacks upon the hopes for Iraqi freedom.

He vigorously pursued courting and forming alliances with Iranian hard-liners. Upon returning to Iraq, he then welcomed many foreign fighters to train and assist his militia in terrorist tactics and guerrilla warfare.

In fact, we almost went into full conflict with him back then, months ago!

So our leaders, Paul Bremmer, Gen. Abizaid, and countless other US and Coalition leaders all over the land, acted w/ caution and care to secure for the US ever stronger cards against Sadr while simultaneously working to achieve four main goals.

Now we today are in a climactic battle against him and his militia. When the remnants of Saddam's regime were in full uprising in Fallujah, Sadr thought his time had come to make his bid for total power and to oust the US from Baghdad. He was very wrong.

It has been subtle and very well done by our leaders. You should be proud. It would have seemed impossible to have achieved our four main goals against Sadr even just a few months ago. Now today, despite the message of the pessimists who are misleading you into despair, we are have scored all the victories needed to bring this battle to a close. First goal was to isolate Sadr. Second was to exile him from his power-base in Baghdad. Third was to contain his uprising from spreading beyond his militias. And the last goal was to get both his hard-line supporters to abandon him, and to do encourage moderates to break from him. This has been done brilliantly, and now we are on the march in a way that just months ago seemed impossible to do. Sadr is losing everything.

Goal one: His so-called Mahdi Army militia is fighting alone. We are out defeating them day and night, and all the time we find them exposed and vulnerable. The people of Baghdad, Karbala and Najaf are not supporting him. His forces are isolated.

Goal two: His one-time powerbase, Sadr City in Baghdad, has been lost. Sadr has been exiled from there, and we have him on the run. He is trying to cloak his presence and activities in Najaf and Kut as planned, but that is damage control on his part. Yes we confront pockets of his followers. Just a couple days ago, I had to maneuver around such a crowd of 300 in Sadr City. The point is, though, we operate in Sadr City, and his followers are merely trying to raise the lost cause of his. It is perhaps better to understand why he is able to mobilize groups like this by seeing him as a mafia leader who is just sacrificing his own people in a mad last plunge to grab onto power. He is no different from any other thug in the world who manipulates and betrays his followers for his own lost cause. The critical thing to see, however, is that in Baghdad, Sadr is gone. He has been effectively exiled and we are destroying his one-time properties of power and abuse there.

Goal three: Other Shia leaders are breaking from him now in large numbers. The overall Shia leader of Iraq, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, has left Sadr's call for jihad and uprising to flounder on deaf ears. Bremmer and Gen. Abizaid stunned the overall Shia community by negotiating a calm in Fallujah. That has tail-spinned Sadr and his efforts to intimidate Iraq's Shia leaders. They see the US hand is strong, and that therefore they are making a mistake in kowtowing to Sadr's terror and violence.

Sadr is now running scared in Najaf. This is great. The Iraqi people of Najaf are offended by this Baghdad thug coming to their city and trying to hijack them into conflict with us. His militias have moved into Karbala too, and the same sentiment is being expressed by the people there. Sadr and his Mahdi Army militia are occupiers of those cities, and are insulting the most sacred sites of Shia Islam daily in their actions. Sadr's forces have stockpiled weapons in mosques and schools, and he continuously is going into the Imam Ali Mosque to call for jihad against us. This is offending Iraq's Shia leaders very much, and the Shia people are not following.

Our units, in fact, are operating w/in 500 meters of the most sacred Shia religious sites in these cities, and you should notice that the local people are not resisting. This is what the pessimists amongst you are preventing you from understanding. Something like this would have been impossible before Sadr and his militia thugs went into there to hijack Iraqi Shia Islam. The people of Najaf and Karbala know we are not there to conquer and occupying the religious sites; we are there to liberate them from this would-be tyrant who is trying to hijack them. His uprising has been contained, despite Sadr's desperate efforts to expand.

Goal four: Now Sadr's patrons and mentor in Iran are breaking from him. Grand Ayatollah Hossain Kazzam Haeri in Qom, Iran, is no longer backing him and has instead made it clear that Sadr's uprising is not sanctioned. Haeri is his mentor, and was a close intimate to Sadr's respectable father. The Teheran Times has run stories that are largely exaggerated, but still are making clear that Sadr's uprising is counter to Iranian interests and does not have the support of even one of Iran's grand statesman, Hashemi Rafsanjani.

In lieu of this, Sadr has exploded increasingly desperate and offensive. On Friday, he offended perhaps the whole Muslim world when he issued a fatwa (a religious edict) that if his forces in Basra capture a female British soldier, they can keep her as a slave. And as I pointed out already, his militia thugs in Najaf and Karbala are keeping weapons in mosques and schools.

In this, quite frankly, Sadr has done it to himself. He has compelled his would-be supporters amongst Iran's hard-liners to break from him and to put distance between Iran's interests and Sadr's uprising. Along with this, Shiites all over Iraq are breaking from Sadr and ignoring his frantic calls for jihad and slave-taking. Sadr has been abandoned.

I'm not writing you blind to the casualties this is causing us. My battalion, the 16th Armored Engineers, should be home reunited w/ family and friends after serving a full year here. Instead, we are still here where the temp is reaching 115-125 degrees. And some of my fellow soldiers have fallen. Units of my battalion are right in the front of the fighting. Your prayers are needed. [A soldier] lost his eyes and a hand last week. The surgeons are trying to salvage his hand now by re-attaching it. This tragedy is a real nightmare. Another suffered shrapnel wounds in his abdomen. Others have been cut badly. Miracle of miracles, however, Sgt. Morales on Friday was shot in the CVC (helmet) -- the bullet ricocheted around his head and fired into the back of his seat, never cutting his skin!!!

I'm telling you this because you need to know that your soldiers are working their hardest. My unit is just one of many in this fight. What you need to do is be strong and persistent in your faith with us. Sadr's militia is in panic and desperate, so they are dangerous, but you need to keep this all in perspective. The pessimists would have you believe this is a disaster. Don't listen to them. I think some of them feel that their reputations require our failure because they have been so negative all along, so they are jumping at every opportunity to sensationalize what is happening here as a disaster. Eliminating Sadr's threat is part of the overall mission and we are further ensuring the liberation of the Iraqi people. This has to be done, and we are doing it.

Don't be seduced by those who would rather that we sit back and just enjoy the freedoms past generations of Americans have sacrificed to gain for us. This is our time to earn it. I remember President Bush saying after the September 11th attacks: "The commitment of our Fathers is now the calling of our time."

Chads

Credibility?

Bush said he was going to disarm Saddam, and the Liberals said they were going to prevent him from doing so.

Heh.

Damned if he does damned if he dont.
Scenario 1. another terrorist attack hits USA. Pres didnt tell anyone he knew about threat. Not a good plan.
Scenario 2. Threat of attack on high. Pres tells people to be aware. Nothing happens. Then he is scare mongering.
Poor buggers on a hiding to nothing unless there is an attack, and then people will say well you knew it was gonna happen why didnt you stop it??

Lord Downey has hit the proverbial nail squarely on the head. It is quite apparent that the extremes of the anti Bush campaign are no respecters of relevance or consistency.

I have listened/ read over the last few months an apparently never ending stream of "If Bush hadn't invaded Iraq, there wouldn't be a threat against America and the West."

I do not have the computer skills or education of many of those who come to this site. (However according to my Spam, by spending a $100, I can be as well qualified as anyone. That is a matter for another time).

Fortunately though in my limited education I was introduced inter alia to the concept of linear time and was extensively trained in the use of that most esoteric of devices......The Calendar.

I would now, honestly and sincerely ask the anti Bush Brigade (and you may well have valid reasons) . Iraq was invaded last year. Prior to this event (that means BEFORE) I seem to recall a series of attacks against America and the West.
Do any of the other readers remember these or where they a figment of my imagination??

However , bear with me on this one, if there were attacks before the Invasion of Iraq, how can the invasion of Iraq caused the threat??
Perhaps Bush has managed to invent a new form of non linear time?
Perhaps the Terrorist murdering scum thought that after reshaping the New York skyline, and moving concrete in DC, they would hang up their Jihad and go back to studying the Koran?
Perhaps because the anti Bush at any cost Brigade,
are so fanatical that they are willing to launch these endless intellectual suicide missions?

Ladies and Gentlemen, in the spirit of a polite and well moderated discussion I look forward to your replies.

I remain
As Always Your obedient Servant
Max (AKA A bear of very little brain)

Where’s James Bond when we need him, eh (just kidding, just kidding)

Posted by: skip at May 26, 2004 04:16 PM

But I'm not. At first I was very excited to see what they would do in this situation -- then I remembered who ran hollywood, and I got very scared. Now, I'm just curious to see what the next Bond movie will be like.

Lord Downey,

I add Scenario #3 - another terrorist attack hits USA. Pres gives advanced warning, but is blamed afterwards for failing the War on Terror and causing the attack by invading Iraq.

This is the scenario that has me worried for the future of the USA.

My estimate would have been to keep up the casualties in Iraq to discredit Bush. An attack on the US would solidify support before the election

To clarify the effects of the terrorists bombs in Spain; the major influence to the people's opinion of their government came about because they were lied to, or at least the truth was undisclosed, as to the source of the bombings.

Anzar's party knew full well that it was an Al Qaida style attack, though tried to pin the blame on ETA. The truth came out (through the press) the day of the election.

This only added to the distrust and anger that the people had in the Spanish government as they were about 90% against fighting in America's War in the first place.

I have to agree with the comments above on Spain.
spanis pulbic iopinion was 90% for helping the US with Afghanistan and the war on terror. It was 90% opposed to Spanish troops going to Iraq and the government went anyway.

The main problem was the lie about the bombings though. It turns out the bipartisan inquiry is revealing that Aznar's people were almost certain it was Al Queda but choose to lie. If that happned in the US we would drum out the government in a minute. Aznar is lucky he isn't in jail.

To say the Spanish caved is wrong. They were lied to and foudn out.

I would tend to agree with OutWest.
The question is, how much strategic planning and guidance is given by Al Q leadership to the smaller more independent cells that are undoubtedly in the US at this time? I would not be suprised to see some small attack(s) by local cell(s) at some point before the elections, but I don't think they would have much in planning or support. Perhaps on the scale of pipe bombs or shooting sprees in a mall.

No Jeffers, Bush said he would disarm Iraq to make us safer.... he lied.

Dont underestimate the danger of small attacks. Thanks to Bush's efforts Al Quida recruitment is booming!
A couple years ago we saw the murderous mischief 2 unsupported loosers could wreak in the Altlanta sniper shootings. Now imagine if Alquida sent 50 such teams to cities across the country.

"Al Quida recruitment is booming!" - Loofa

Can you link to a data source that indicates this to be true?

This was in the papers last week about how the 'War on Terror' initially came down heavily on Al Qaida, especially during the attack on Afghanistan, many of the senior leaders were killed or captured.

This initially weakened Al Qaida, though the belief now is that it has adapted so that the organisation itself has become less centred and more cell like, like many similar organisations.

The war on Iraq has bolstered support and encouraged recruitment. It doesn't take much of an imagination to work out that heavy handed military tactics will encourage opposition.

This is a report about a 'pro-war' organisation's account of the subject:

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=524939

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