Clueless, Dangerous Idiots-Hot Air Edition

The other day I discussed how clueless the neocons and the Bush administration is when it comes to the realities of Iraq. Not to be outdone our friend Ed Morrissey writing at Hot Air proves he is either in denial or just as clueless.
Iraqis aren’t stupid — and they’re watching us

As Michael reminds us, we can argue over 2002-3 all we want, but it doesn’t have anything to do with 2008. We are in Iraq, and al-Qaeda is arrayed against our troops. In fact, this is the best possible situation if we want to fight terrorists — to have them on a battlefield in straight-up fights against our military. It’s exactly what terrorists don’t want. If they wanted to fight our military, they wouldn’t use bomb commuter trains and fly civilian airplanes into their targets.

OK, Ed is even more delusional than the administration - not even they think al-Qaeda is a significant force is Iraq. He then goes on to say that al-Qaeda wants us to leave Iraq - nothing could be further from the truth. Both al-Qaeda and Iran love the fact that our military is tied down and rapidly being worn down in Bush's ill advised Mesopotamian quagmire. And speaking of Iran - they are all ready the winners in Iraq. Their longtime nemesis, Saddam, is gone and their very good friends of the ISCI and Da'wa party a firmly in control. If we really think the government of al-Maliki is "our" ally we are really fools.

When will they ever learn?

Will they ever learn that when you give guns to people who hate you they will eventually use them to kill you?
U.S. Hopes to Use Pakistani Tribes Against Al Qaeda

A new and classified American military proposal outlines an intensified effort to enlist tribal leaders in the frontier areas of Pakistan in the fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban, as part of a broader effort to bolster Pakistani forces against an expanding militancy, American military officials said.

Now I seem to recall that we supported the Mujahedeen next door in Afghanistan to fight our enemies, the Russians. Of course the result of that was al-Qaeda. Now we are going to support Pakistani tribesman to fight our enemy, al-Qaeda. The tribesman will be happy to accept our help but are probably more sympathetic to the Taliban and al-Qaeda.

Losing the WOT

While the Bush administration continues to spin it's wheels in the sands of Iraq and threaten Iran the real war against the real enemy, al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Pakistan.
Pakistan Seen Losing Fight Against Taliban And Al-Qaeda

PESHAWAR, Pakistan -- Pakistan's government is losing its war against emboldened insurgent forces, giving al-Qaeda and the Taliban more territory in which to operate and allowing the groups to plot increasingly ambitious attacks, according to Pakistani and Western security officials.

The depth of the problem has become clear only in recent months, as regional peace deals have collapsed and the government has deferred developing a new strategy to defeat insurgents until Pakistan's leader, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, can resolve a political crisis that threatens his presidency.

Meanwhile, radical Islamic fighters who were evicted from Afghanistan by the 2001 U.S.-led invasion have intensified a ruthless campaign that has consumed Pakistan's tribal areas and now affects its major cities. Military officials say the insurgents have enhanced their ability to threaten not only Pakistan but the United States and Europe as well.

"They've had a chance to regroup and reorganize," said a Western military official in Pakistan. "They're well equipped. They're clearly getting training from somewhere. And they're using more and more advanced tactics."

Pakistan's military, on the other hand, is considering pulling back from the fight -- at least partially -- in the face of mounting losses, the official said.

While the Iraq war creates more enemies daily the real 9/11 enemy is regrouping and becoming an even greater threat to the US and the world. The occupation of Iraq and the saber rattling towards Iran are not only foolish but treasonous.

The Cost Of Oil

Someone who's not a screaming lefty finally said it:

AMERICA’s elder statesman of finance, Alan Greenspan, has shaken the White House by declaring that the prime motive for the war in Iraq was oil.

In his long-awaited memoir, to be published tomorrow, Greenspan, a Republican whose 18-year tenure as head of the US Federal Reserve was widely admired, will also deliver a stinging critique of President George W Bush’s economic policies.

However, it is his view on the motive for the 2003 Iraq invasion that is likely to provoke the most controversy. “I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil,” he says.

Greenspan, 81, is understood to believe that Saddam Hussein posed a threat to the security of oil supplies in the Middle East.

Britain and America have always insisted the war had nothing to do with oil. Bush said the aim was to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction and end Saddam’s support for terrorism.

The war in Iraq of course has done nothing to increase the security of oil supplies and has in fact decreased security. When Republican Senator John Warner asked General Petraeus if Iraq policy had made the country more secure he would not answer. He wouldn't because the answer is no. Al-Qaeda is stronger now than it was prior to 9-11 in large part because of Dick Cheney's war for oil in Iraq.

Now I don't know if Osama bin-Laden is dead or alive but as Bruce Hoffman explained earlier in the week it really doesn't matter, Ayman al-Zawahiri is Scarier Than Bin Laden. The Telegraph supplies a few more details today.
Bin Laden sidelined as al-Qaeda threat revives

Osama bin Laden's deputy has seized control of al-Qaeda and rebuilt the terror network into an organisation capable of launching complex terror attacks in Britain and America.

Intelligence officials have told The Sunday Telegraph that bin Laden has not chaired a meeting of al-Qaeda's ruling shura, or council, in more than two years.

Instead, Ayman al-Zawahiri, bin Laden's nominal number two, is credited with rebuilding the terror network since the Afghan war in 2001.

Intelligence sources in Washington have revealed that Western spy chiefs were recently forced to revise dramatically their view that al-Qaeda was so depleted that it was little more than a cheerleader for extremists.

Instead, British and American intelligence agencies believe that a network of terrorist cells, funded, controlled and supported by al-Qaeda's central command, based in the lawless tribal areas of Pakistan, is in place again.

All of this occurred while George W. Bush and Dick Cheney were wasting American lives and treasure in an attempt to realize their dream of controlling the Iraqi oil fields. Because of their incompetence they have failed to do even that. Meanwhile al-Qaeda has rebuilt and reinvented itself to become an even greater threat.

Al-Zawahiri's task has been made easier because not a single prominent al-Qaeda leader has been captured since March 2006, nearly 18 months ago.

Citing information gathered by Pakistani intelligence, Bruce Hoffman, a member of the US Military Academy's Combating Terrorism Centre, said: "Bin Laden is the brand name but al-Zawahiri is the grand -strategist.

"He has taken control of al-Qaeda. Despite the new video [released this month], bin Laden has ceased to be a major force in decision-making and propaganda effort."

A window on the changing outlook on al-Qaeda came in July when a US government National Intelligence Estimate, concluded that the organisation had "regrouped".

Prof Hoffman said: "The idea that they were just a franchise for ideology was simply not true. While we were saying that al-Qaeda had been diminished and degraded, it was just wishful thinking."

What forced the re-evaluation was the plot last August to blow up 10 aircraft en route from Britain to the US. "That sent shock waves through the intelligence -agencies of both countries," said Prof Hoffman. "It was incontrovertible evidence that al-Qaeda was back, and that it was prepared to go after hard targets."

A former British intelligence officer said that al-Qaeda under al-Zawahiri's direction had promoted a new generation of leaders to the highest echelons of the shura, a group of about 20 to 30 leaders who govern operations, finance and religious fatwahs.

George W. Bush and Dick Cheney should be impeached for failing to protect the United States.

So How Goes That Global War On Terror

We saw yesterday that General Pretaeus would not or could not answer John Warner's question "Do you feel that [Iraq war] is making America safer"? . Of course it hasn't, in fact it has made us less safe by creating new recruits for the group that was actually responsible for 911 ans inflaming much of the Muslim world. One indication of that can be found here:
Poll: Bin Laden tops Musharraf in Pakistan

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf -- a key U.S. ally -- is less popular in his own country than al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, according to a poll of Pakistanis conducted last month by an anti-terrorism organization.

Additionally, nearly three-fourths of poll respondents said they oppose U.S. military action against al Qaeda and the Taliban inside Pakistan, according to results from the poll conducted by the independent polling organization Terror Free Tomorrow.

"We have conducted 23 polls all over the Muslim world, and this is the most disturbing one we have conducted," said Ken Ballen, the group's head. "Pakistan is the one Muslim nation that has nuclear weapons, and the people who want to use them against us -- like the Taliban and al Qaeda -- are more popular there than our allies like Musharraf."

The poll was conducted for Terror Free Tomorrow by D3 Systems of Vienna, Virginia., and the Pakistan Institute for Public Opinion. Interviews were conducted August 18-29, face-to-face with 1,044 Pakistanis across 105 urban and rural sampling points in all four provinces across the nation. Households were randomly selected.

According to poll results, bin Laden has a 46 percent approval rating. Musharraf's support is 38 percent. U.S. President George W. Bush's approval: 9 percent.

Al-Qaeda may have decentralized but it is stronger and more dangerous than ever. Worldwide terrorist attacks have increased significantly since the invasion and occupation of Iraq. And what about those good Bush friends, the Saudis.
U.S.: Saudis Still Filling Al Qaeda's Coffers

Despite six years of promises, U.S. officials say Saudi Arabia continues to look the other way at wealthy individuals identified as sending millions of dollars to al Qaeda.

"If I could somehow snap my fingers and cut off the funding from one country, it would be Saudi Arabia," Stuart Levey, the under secretary of the Treasury in charge of tracking terror financing, told ABC News.

Despite some efforts as a U.S. ally in the war on terror, Levey says Saudi Arabia has dropped the ball. Not one person identified by the United States and the United Nations as a terror financier has been prosecuted by the Saudis, Levey says.

The invasion of Iraq was never about making the US or the world safe. It was always about Dick Cheney's lust for hegemony over the oil rich middle east.

Some Thoughts On Osama (Updated)

Update
Well while I was sleeping it appears that both the right and the left have jumped on the fake tape bandwagon.
We have this from the Booman Tribune

Osama Bin Laden's widely publicized video address to the American people has a peculiarity that casts serious doubt on its authenticity: the video freezes at about 1 minute and 36 58 seconds, and motion only resumes again at 12:30. The video then freezes again at 14:02 remains frozen until the end. All references to current events, such as the 62nd anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing of Japan, and Sarkozy and Brown being the leaders of France and the UK, respectively, occur when the video is frozen! The words spoken when the video is in motion contain no references to contemporary events and could have been (and likely were) made before the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

The audio track does appear to be in the voice of a single speaker. What I suspect was done is that an older, unreleased video was dubbed over for this release, with the video frozen when the audio track departed from that of the original video.

Even uber wingnut Michael Ledeen thinks it's fake:

Third, is it really Osama? As you know, I was reliably told something like two years ago that Osama had died. Nothing in this speech sounds at all like the “old” OBL. That man knew how to give a stemwinder, he used elegant language, his threats were blood-curdling, his calls to the faithful inspiring. This man talks like, well, a high school dropout. In fact it reads like an “Onion” spoof. And the sound is bizarre, at least on my IBM desktop. It sounds almost as if there was enough garble in it to make it difficult to match with voice prints of the “real” guy. I’m not convinced.

So who did it? Rick Moran has some thoughts:

It's it possible that this “tape” was manufactured by the Bush Administration and released just days before the Petreaus Report to Congress on Iraq in order to sway nervous Republicans into standing firm while reminding the American people that Iraq is part of the War on Terror?

The question has to be asked because it will probably be the number one topic of conversation on lefty blogs today. And the answer is a qualified no, it is not possible. One can accuse the Bush Administration of incompetence in many areas but you would think if they were going to run a fake video, they might have done a better job of manufacturing it so that some guy in pajamas sitting in his mother’s basement couldn’t expose them.

And al-Qaeda shutting down it’s various websites immediately after the tape’s release is an interesting tell as well. They wouldn’t want their sympathizers telling the world that the video is an obvious fake.

Yes, I suppose it is possible that the Administration ordered up the video for the Iraq debate. Anything is possible. But there is not one scintilla of evidence that points the finger at the Administration while logic and inference finger this as an attempt by al-Qaeda to stick their nose into the debate themselves – just as they tried to do with the 2004 election when they released the last Osama video.

Rick also questions the CIA:

Funny that the CIA concludes that it’s Bin Laden on the tape but never mentions – or perhaps didn’t catch – the freeze framed video. It is hugely significant because as Maschke points out, all of the topical references that “prove” the tape is recent are uttered when the “video” is in freeze frame.

If our government is going to release a tape showing that Osama is alive, one would think that this kind of little detail would be hugely important to point out to the press and the American public. If anything, this video chicanery buttresses the case that Osama has been worm food for a while.

Wheels within wheels: The CIA knows Osama is dead but doesn’t want al-Qaeda to know that we know. Why? Perhaps they have someone close to al-Qaeda’s inner circle. Not close enough to know where they are, but close enough that our intelligence people are kept abreast of a few things. Letting on that we know Osama is dead might expose that source to al-Qaeda.

And how about the idea that this is a speech that may have been written by some poor deluded leftist twit pretending to be a jihadist read by the world’s number one terrorist? Adam Gadahn may be a useful idiot to al-Qaeda but I hardly think they have grown so unsophisticated that they would be using him as Osama’s ghost writer – literally. Besides, CNN International is seen all over the world. If they want to copy leftist propaganda spouted here in the United States, they can do no better than use Ted Turner’s creation for that.

This fake was truly poorly done which would lead one to believe it was not done by either the US government or al-Qaeda. But how about some not too bright, not too talented freelancers who thought they might be doing the Bush administration a favor?


....End of Update......


Now I don't know if the latest bin-Laden tape is real or a fake although there are reasons to question it. One rather interesting thing happened this weekend - suddenly Osama is irrelevant again. Perhaps the Bush administration and the Republicans did some focus groups or something and they found that the Osama fear mongering is now a minus - people are wondering why the Bush administration let him get away. There is even an early attempt to create an alternate villain, Ayman al-Zawahiri. Of course they are both right, Osama is irrelevant and al-Zawahiri always was the greater threat. Of course the Bush administration let al-Zawahiri get away at the same time they let Osama get away.

Osama bin-Laden is nothing more than an icon, a figure head. He inspires and may well have been even more of an inspiration dead or in prison once Bush invaded and occupied Iraq.

Al-Qaeda Nation

Suddenly everyone in Iraq is al-Qaeda again. It seems like just a couple of weeks ago that the administration and the Pentagon were reporting on how the Iraqi people were standing up against al-Qaeda. But that was two weeks ago and support for the occupation and the surge has declined even more so as Glenn Greenwald reports everyone the US fights is now al-Qaeda.

That the Bush administration, and specifically its military commanders, decided to begin using the term "Al Qaeda" to designate "anyone and everyone we fight against or kill in Iraq" is obvious. All of a sudden, every time one of the top military commanders describes our latest operations or quantifies how many we killed, the enemy is referred to, almost exclusively now, as "Al Qaeda."

But what is even more notable is that the establishment press has followed right along, just as enthusiastically. I don't think the New York Times has published a story about Iraq in the last two weeks without stating that we are killing "Al Qaeda fighters," capturing "Al Qaeda leaders," and every new operation is against "Al Qaeda."

Of course the New York Times chief stenographer for the Bush administration, Michael Gordon is repeating the spin.

In virtually every article from the Times now, anyone we fight is automatically designated "Al Qaeda"

Reporting on the war is not easy.....

But what is not inevitable is to adopt the patently misleading nomenclature and political rhetoric of the administration, so plainly designed to generate support for the "surge" (support for which Gordon himself admitted he has embraced) by creating the false appearance that the violence in Iraq is due to attacks by the terrorist group responsible for 9/11. What makes this practice all the most disturbing is how quickly and obediently the media has adopted the change in terms consciously issued by the Bush administration and their military officials responsible for presenting the Bush view of the war to the press.

Go read Glenn's piece for more details.

More on Iraq and al Qaeda

I'm not really inspired to write on anything in the news today so I'm going to return to an essay I suggested you all read the other day in Foreign Affairs by Bruces Riedel, Al Qaeda Strikes Back. Today we will look at how the invasion not only strengthened but how al Qaeda the anticipated the invasion and prepared for it.

Al Qaeda also moved swiftly to develop a capability in Iraq, where it had little or no presence before 9/11. (The 9/11 Commission found no credible evidence of any operational connection between al Qaeda and Iraq before the attacks, and the infamous report connecting the 9/11 mastermind Mohamed Atta with Iraqi intelligence officers in Prague has been discredited.) On February 11, 2003, bin Laden sent a letter to the Iraqi people, broadcast via the satellite network al Jazeera, warning them to prepare for the "Crusaders' war to occupy one of Islam's former capitals, loot Muslim riches, and install a stooge regime to follow its masters in Washington and Tel Aviv to pave the way for the establishment of Greater Israel." He advised Iraqis to prepare for a long struggle against invading forces and engage in "urban and street warfare" and emphasized "the importance of martyrdom operations which have inflicted unprecedented harm on America and Israel." He even encouraged the jihadists in Iraq to work with "the socialist infidels" -- the Baathists -- in a "convergence of interests."

Thousands of Arab volunteers, many of them inspired by bin Laden's words, went to Iraq in the run-up to the U.S. invasion. Some joined the fledgling network created by the longtime bin Laden associate Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who had fled Afghanistan and come to Iraq sometime in 2002 to begin preparations against the invasion. (Zarqawi had been a partner in al Qaeda's millennium plot to blow up the Radisson Hotel and other targets in Amman, Jordan, in December 2000. Later, in Herat, Afghanistan, he ran operations complementary to al Qaeda's.) Zarqawi's network killed an officer of the U.S. Agency for International Development, Laurence Foley, in Amman on October 28, 2002 -- the first anti-American operation connected to the invasion.

The U.S. invasion of Iraq took the pressure off al Qaeda in the Pakistani badlands and opened new doors for the group in the Middle East. It also played directly into the hands of al Qaeda leaders by seemingly confirming their claim that the United States was an imperialist force, which helped them reinforce various local alliances. In Iraq, Zarqawi adopted a two-pronged strategy to alienate U.S. allies and destabilize the country. He sought to isolate U.S. forces by driving out all other foreign forces with systematic terrorist attacks, most notably the bombings of the United Nations headquarters and the Jordanian embassy in Baghdad in the summer of 2003. More important, he focused on the fault line in Iraqi society -- the divide between Sunnis and Shiites -- with the goal of precipitating a civil war. He launched a series of attacks on the Shiite leadership, holy Shiite sites, and Shiite men and women on the street. He organized the assassination of the senior leader of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim, in the summer of 2003, and the bombings of Shiite shrines in Najaf and Baghdad in March 2004 and in Najaf and Karbala in December 2004. Even by the ruthless standards of al Qaeda, Zarqawi excelled.

Zarqawi's strategy did prompt criticism from other jihadi groups and some second-guessing within al Qaeda, but it nevertheless succeeded brilliantly. In a letter to Zarqawi dated July 9, 2005, Zawahiri questioned the wisdom of igniting Sunni-Shiite hatred in the Muslim world, and Zarqawi became known within the movement as al Gharib (the Stranger) because of his extreme views. Still, he pressed ahead, and the al Qaeda leadership in Pakistan never challenged him publicly. Although he led only a small percentage of the Sunni militants in Iraq, Zarqawi was at the cutting edge of the insurgency, the engine of the civil war. By late 2004, he had formally proclaimed his allegiance to bin Laden, and bin Laden had anointed him "the prince of al Qaeda in Iraq."

Although they had little if any presence in Iraq before the war al Qaeda began to prepare for the invasion before it started. The result is they have been very successful and more importantly this has strengthened al Qaeda's hand through out the world.

The visible success of its partners in Iraq has strengthened the hand of al Qaeda and its allies, old and new, in Pakistan. With the help of tactical advice and, probably, funds from al Qaeda, the Taliban had already regrouped by 2004. In 2005, bin Laden appeared in a Taliban video advising its commanders. By 2006, the Taliban had recovered sufficiently to launch a major offensive in Afghanistan and even attempted to retake Kandahar. New tactics imported from Iraq, such as suicide bombings and the use of improvised explosive devices, became commonplace in Afghanistan. Taliban attacks rose from 1,632 in 2005 to 5,388 in 2006, according to the U.S. military, and suicide operations grew from 27 in 2005 to 139 in 2006. NATO troops held on to the major towns and cities but suffered significant losses, including over 90 dead.

Al Qaeda has also developed closer ties to Kashmiri terrorist groups, such as Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Muhammad. Some of those links predated 9/11. In late 1999, for example, bin Laden (as well as Taliban forces and Pakistani intelligence agents) was intimately involved in the hijacking of an Indian airliner by Kashmiri terrorists -- an operation that then Indian Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh has since correctly described as the "dress rehearsal" for 9/11. Al Qaeda and Kashmiri groups have continued their deadly cooperation: the spectacular multiple bombings that rocked Mumbai last July had the marks of al Qaeda's modus operandi, and Indian authorities have linked them to al Qaeda's allies in Kashmir.

Enabling Osama

Many of us have been saying the Osama bin Laden's greatest ally has been the administration of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. If you wondered how great an ally the Bush/Cheney/neocon cabal has been all you have to do is read Bruce Riedel's long and detailed essay in Foreign Affairs,
Al Qaeda Strikes Back You should read the entire essay but here is the introduction>

A FIERCER FOE

Al Qaeda is a more dangerous enemy today than it has ever been before. It has suffered some setbacks since September 11, 2001: losing its state within a state in Afghanistan, having several of its top operatives killed, failing in its attempts to overthrow the governments of Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia. But thanks largely to Washington's eagerness to go into Iraq rather than concentrate on hunting down al Qaeda's leaders, the organization now has a solid base of operations in the badlands of Pakistan and an effective franchise in western Iraq. Its reach has spread throughout the Muslim world, where it has developed a large cadre of operatives, and in Europe, where it can claim the support of some disenfranchised Muslim locals and members of the Arab and Asian diasporas. Osama bin Laden has mounted a successful propaganda campaign to make himself and his movement the primary symbols of Islamic resistance worldwide. His ideas now attract more followers than ever.

Bin Laden's goals remain the same, as does his basic strategy. He seeks to, as he puts it, "provoke and bait" the United States into "bleeding wars" throughout the Islamic world; he wants to bankrupt the country much as he helped bankrupt, he claims, the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in the 1980s. The demoralized "far enemy" would then go home, allowing al Qaeda to focus on destroying its "near enemies," Israel and the "corrupt" regimes of Egypt, Jordan, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia. The U.S. occupation of Iraq helped move his plan along, and bin Laden has worked hard to turn it into a trap for Washington. Now he may be scheming to extend his strategy by exploiting or even triggering a war between the United States and Iran.

Decisively defeating al Qaeda will be more difficult now than it would have been a few years ago. But it can still be done, if Washington and its partners implement a comprehensive strategy over several years, one focused on both attacking al Qaeda's leaders and ideas and altering the local conditions that allow them to thrive. Otherwise, it will only be a matter of time before al Qaeda strikes the U.S. homeland again.

Iraq and al Qaeda

The U.S. invasion of Iraq took the pressure off al Qaeda in the Pakistani badlands and opened new doors for the group in the Middle East. It also played directly into the hands of al Qaeda leaders by seemingly confirming their claim that the United States was an imperialist force, which helped them reinforce various local alliances. In Iraq, Zarqawi adopted a two-pronged strategy to alienate U.S. allies and destabilize the country. He sought to isolate U.S. forces by driving out all other foreign forces with systematic terrorist attacks, most notably the bombings of the United Nations headquarters and the Jordanian embassy in Baghdad in the summer of 2003. More important, he focused on the fault line in Iraqi society -- the divide between Sunnis and Shiites -- with the goal of precipitating a civil war. He launched a series of attacks on the Shiite leadership, holy Shiite sites, and Shiite men and women on the street. He organized the assassination of the senior leader of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim, in the summer of 2003, and the bombings of Shiite shrines in Najaf and Baghdad in March 2004 and in Najaf and Karbala in December 2004. Even by the ruthless standards of al Qaeda, Zarqawi excelled.

And of course all this time the conflict in Iraq was depleting the treasury of the US and destroying it's military.

There is much more and I suggest you read the entire thing.
-------------------------------------------------
Bruce Riedel is a Senior Fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution. He retired last year after 29 years with the Central Intelligence Agency. He served as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Near East Affairs on the National Security Council (1997-2002), Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Near East and South Asian Affairs (1995-97), and National Intelligence Officer for Near East and South Asian Affairs at the National Intelligence Council (1993-95).

Throwing Bush a life preserver?

Is al-Qaeda throwing their greatest ally, the Bush/Cheney cabal, a life preserver? As the cabal comes under increasing attack from not only the Democrats but also a increasing number of Republicans we hear this:
Bin Laden overseeing Iraq, Afghanistan ops: Taliban

DUBAI (Reuters) - Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden is orchestrating militants' operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, a senior commander of Afghan Islamist group Taliban said in remarks broadcast on Wednesday.

Bin Laden has not made any video statements for many months raising speculation that he might have died.

"He is drawing plans in Iraq and Afghanistan ... Praise God he is alive," Mullah Dadullah told Al Jazeera television.

This sounds like something that could have been written by Karl Rove or The Weekly Standard's William Kristol or Fred Barnes. This bit of absurdity will fuel the wingers but will it stick with the American people? How will the sycophants in the MSM respond?

And how is that war on terra goin!

While Bush continues his failed policy in Iraq and pounds his bully chest while threatening Iran our "good friends" in Pakistan have let al Qaeda regain much of it's former strength.
Al Qaeda Chiefs Are Seen to Regain Power

Senior leaders of Al Qaeda operating from Pakistan have re-established significant control over their once battered worldwide terror network and over the past year have set up a band of training camps in the tribal regions near the Afghan border, according to American intelligence and counterterrorism officials.

American officials said there was mounting evidence that Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, had been steadily building an operations hub in the mountainous Pakistani tribal area of North Waziristan. Until recently, the Bush administration had described Mr. bin Laden and Mr. Zawahri as detached from their followers and cut off from operational control of Al Qaeda.

The United States has also identified several new Qaeda compounds in North Waziristan, including one that officials said might be training operatives for strikes against targets beyond Afghanistan.

Do you feel safer with commander codpiece in charge of keeping you safe?