W: 'there's a good reason they are called al Qaida in Iraq: They are al Qaida ... in ... Iraq'.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/07/20070724-3.html

bush mentions Al Qaeda 95 fucking times in a speech today. It's the 10 pound hammer to the head approach.

Al Qaeda in Iraq--apply directly to the forehead.
Al Qaeda in Iraq--apply directly to the forehead.
Al Qaeda in Iraq--apply directly to the forehead.

but just last week the Pentagon was boasting how they caught an AQ #2 dude who claimed the leader "al baghdadi" was a figment of his imagination...

That one doesn't have nearly as good a costume as some of his other characters.

And since apparently the American People aren't buying democracy in the Middle East at gunpoint anymore, it's now all about Al Qaeda. After that, maybe they'll say that we can't leave because Saddam's followers have brought WMD's into Iraq and we need to find them.

Of course those folks are dismissed as kooks outright.

There truly is a long list of lame reasons not to leave Iraq, all sound silly now.

The Bush Administration's foreign policy is based almost entirely around tipping the balance of power in the region toward Saudi Arabia and against Iran. One major problem with that is of course Iraq's Shi'ite majority. I assume that Bush was hoping that if Iraq goes as planned he'd get a US friendly government that would therefore inherently be friendly.

The other major problem, and this one's even bigger, is that Al Qaeda gets most of its resources from Saudis. Remember that the 9/11 hijackers were Saudi. If Al Qaeda hadn't attacked us, we'd probably be giving them weapons to fight the Shi'ite militias in Iraq. Actually, we're already arming Sunni militants who are in turn joining up with Al Qaeda, but we like to keep quiet about it.

Bush's wet dream would've be that an Iranian terrorist organization had attacked us on 9/11. That way he could've gone straight for Iran and perhaps more important, Iran's oil.

difference is, the administration no longer has credibility to 75 percent or so of the American people.

There doesn't seem to be this concept with Rove and Bush that when you lie repeatedly, and your lies and predictions are shown to be false over time, that you lose credibility, and never gain it back, and that the same propaganda techniques will never have the same effectiveness as they did before.

http://juancole.com/


Bush gave a speech on Tuesday in which he made a large number inaccurate statements. Likely the recent Pentagon and White House practice of referring to all "insurgents" in Iraq as "al-Qaeda" was intended to lead up to this speech.

Bush maintained in his speech that the members of "al-Qaeda in Iraq" have pledged fealty (bay'at) to Usama Bin Laden. There is no evidence for this allegation. The foreign fighters who make up "al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia" are successors to previously-existing radical Muslim groups such as Ansar al-Islam and Monotheism and Holy War, both of which had distinct identities from al-Qaeda. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi even at one point forbade members of Monotheism and Holy War to give money to al-Qaeda. It is unlikely that they have all swung around behind Bin Laden, though some among the Saudi volunteers may have. As far back as 2005, Ansar al-Sunnah clearly feared the influence of Bin Laden and asked foreign volunteers to stop coming.

Bush made al-Qaeda in Iraq the central group in the insurgency. In fact, Pentagon statistics indicate that the US holds in captivity 19,000 Iraqis suspected of insurgent activities, whereas it has only 135 foreign fighters currently in custody. "Al-Qaeda in Iraq" is mostly foreign fighters. Obviously, it just is not that important, though it gets off some bombs, which is not to be taken lightly.

Bush says that tribal sheikhs in al-Anbar province have now taken on the foreign jihadis. But if that is so, why should we worry about them taking over Iraq? They cannot and the Iraqis would not let them (even the Sunni Iraqis would not let them, much less the Shiites or Kurds!) 1200 foreign volunteers cannot take over a country, and the US does not need 160,000 troops in Iraq to fight this small group. In fact, Bush risks raising the question of why 160,000 US troops have not made better progress against the small cohort of foreign fighters.