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« NY Sun: "Mystery Surrounds Kerry's Navy Discharge" (UPDATED) | Main | Iraqi Security Forces Update » October 13, 2004
You're Not the Boss of Me
FLASHBACK: Al Qaeda and Iraq Posted by Bill
While I hope that you enjoy this footage of Bruce Springsteen trying to rock the vote in DC by claiming that Bush misled America into war, I'd advise you not to take your foreign policy cues from "the Boss." Team America creator Matt Stone was correct: In talking about the film, which ridicules Hollywood liberals (but not Penn), Stone said he thought Diddy's voter drive was a "danger to democracy" because, "If you don't know what you're talking about, there's no shame in not voting." Here's a very brief educational primer (mp3 file) for the MTV crowd, starting with a sober report filed by ABC News in 1999, long before George Bush set foot anywhere near the White House: SHEILA MACVICAR: (voice-over) With an American price on his head, there weren’t many places bin Laden could go, unless he teamed up with another international pariah, one also with an interest in weapons of mass destruction. VINCE CANNISTRARO: Osama believes in “the enemy of my enemy is my friend and is someone I should cooperate with.” That’s certainly the current case with Iraq. SHEILA MACVICAR: (voice-over) Saddam Hussein has a long history of harboring terrorists. Carlos the Jackal, Abu Nidal, Abu Abbas, the most notorious terrorists of their era, all found shelter and support at one time in Baghdad. Intelligence sources say bin Laden’s long relationship with the Iraqis began as he helped Sudan’s fundamentalist government in their efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction. Three weeks after the bombing, on August 31, bin Laden reaches out to his friends in Iraq and Sudan. Iraq’s vice president arrives in Khartoum to show his support for the Sudanese after the U.S. attack. ABC News has learned that during these meetings, senior Sudanese officials acting on behalf of bin Laden ask if Saddam Hussein would grant him asylum. (on camera) Iraq was, indeed, interested. ABC News has learned that in December, an Iraqi intelligence chief, named Farouk Hijazi, how Iraq’s ambassador to Turkey, made a secret trip to Afghanistan to meet with bin Laden. Three intelligence agencies tell ABC News they cannot be certain what was discussed, but almost certainly, they say, bin Laden has been told he would be welcome in Baghdad. (voice-over) And intelligence sources say they can only speculate on the purpose of an alliance. What could bin Laden offer Saddam Hussein? Only days after he meets Iraqi officials, bin Laden tells ABC News that his network is wide, and there are people prepared to commit terror in his name who he does not even control. OSAMA BIN LADEN: (through translator) It is our job to incite and to instigate. By the grace of God, we did that, and certain people responded to this instigation. Read the entire transcript over at Awptimus. The video can be watched here. The post-mortem analysis by the 9-11 Commission found no proof of a collaborative relationship between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, but a shallow read of that determination ignores the fact that members of Al Qaeda were operating in Iraq, and there was a history of communication between the two sworn enemies of the United States. Fast forward to the invasion of Iraq, 2004: In Iraq, the Pentagon's special operations forces were critical to the capture of most of the top leaders of Saddam Hussein's regime, and they led two of three major battlefronts in the war to liberate Iraq. In one of them, in northern Iraq, Army Special Forces soldiers faced down 13 Iraqi divisions and attacked a camp believed to be harboring al Qaeda terrorists and other foreign jihadists, as well as a shadowy figure named Abu Musab Zarqawi. That battle, Operation Viking Hammer, turned out to be one of the most intense conflicts Special Forces have fought since Vietnam. And from a pre-war assessment by Human Rights Watch: Scores of Iraqi Kurds affiliated to Ansar al-Islam, including key leaders, consider themselves veterans of the Afghan war. They had spent time in Afghanistan, initially fighting against Soviet forces during the 1980s. Representatives of other Iraqi Kurdish Islamist groups who maintain links with Ansar al-Islam told Human Rights Watch that a small number of Iraqi Kurds affiliated to the group had also fought alongside the Taliban, and that they then returned to Iraqi Kurdistan following the latter's defeat. There are also other indications of possible Ansar al-Islam connections with al-Qaeda operatives in Afghanistan. Documents discovered in an al-Qaeda guest house in Afghanistan by the New York Times discuss the creation of an "Iraqi Kurdistan Islamic Brigade" just weeks prior to the formation of Ansar al-Islam in December 2001, and some Ansar al-Islam members in PUK custody have described in credible detail training in al-Qa'ida camps in Afghanistan. The existence of any ongoing links between al-Qa'ida and Ansar al-Islam is unknown. Ansar al Islam probably had closer ties to Iran than Iraq, but make no mistake: the war against Al Qaeda required some form of US Military action in Iraq, especially since a known, influential Al Qaeda operative was playing boy scout in Iraqi Kurdistan. A diversion from the war on terror? I don't think so. UPDATE: Hasty error corrected - "Al-Zawahari" was Bin Laden's number two, not Al-Zarqawi. My apologies. Al-Zarqawi's gold-plated AQ membership card is still good. Posted by Bill at October 13, 2004 01:51 PM | TrackBack (3) CommentsCan I get a witness? He had me almost accepting Jesus until he got to the "take off all your clothes" part. What a laugh! Does anybody take this seriously? Posted by: Michael Hedgpeth at October 13, 2004 02:03 PM Watched that footage of Bruce trying to rock the vote.....sheesh was that LAME LowKey Posted by: LowKey at October 13, 2004 02:08 PM Actually, I think Springsteen may have done us a favor. If you see someone standing naked at their window, yelling "change is coming" you can be sure they're a moonbat. Thanks for the early warning system Bruce. Keep up the good work. Posted by: KBiel at October 13, 2004 02:09 PM Bill, there is an interesting quote in US News and World report from Jay Strell of MTV's 'Rock the Vote.' He is the one who raised the draft issue in his "quest to spur the 18-30 yr old crowd to register to vote." He says (referring to no draft)"Thats a promise that down the road they may not be able to keep." Posted by: Rightwingsparkle at October 13, 2004 02:11 PM But Mr. Diddy says "vote or die". People don't want to die. Why does Matt Stone want people to die from not voting? Posted by: David [.net] at October 13, 2004 02:11 PM Um, aren't you mixing Springsteen in with the unrelated article about ABC's old report? Or am I missing something? Posted by: Joe at October 13, 2004 02:22 PM Springsteen has become another joke of a has been celebrity... I don't need to listen to Springsteen anymore than I need to listen to the Dixie Chicks, etc... There's plenty of great music without listening to these egotistical blowhards who think their political opinion matters so much... Posted by: Anothe rThought at October 13, 2004 02:49 PM Joe - I've elucidated my thought process with revisions. Do I need to spell out that Springsteen's implications that "Bush lied!" and that the war was a busines enterprise are contradicted by countervailing evidence? Let me know, I'll try and write more slowly next time. Posted by: Bill from INDC at October 13, 2004 02:55 PM Just a bit of perspective on this, from NBC news, March 2, 2004: JIM MIKLASZEWSKI reporting: With today's attacks, al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian militant with ties to al-Qaeda, is blamed for more than 700 terrorist killings in Iraq. But NBC News has learned that long before the war, the Bush administration had several chances to wipe out his terrorist group, Ansar al-Islam, perhaps kill Zarqawi himself, but never pulled the trigger. June 2002, US government officials say intelligence revealed that Zarqawi and members of al-Qaeda had set up a weapons lab at Kirma in northern Iraq, producing deadly ricin and cyanide. The Pentagon quickly drafted plans to attack the camp and sent them to the White House, where, say government sources, the plans were debated to death. Mr. MICHAEL O'HANLON (Military Analyst): Here we had targets, we had opportunities, we had a country willing to support casualties or--or risk casualties after 9/11, and we still didn't do it. MIKLASZEWSKI: Four months later, intelligence showed Zarqawi was planning to use ricin in terrorist attacks in Europe. The Pentagon drew up a second strike plan, and the White House again killed it. By then, the administration had set its course for war with Iraq. Mr. ROGER CRESSEY (Terrorism Expert): People were more obsessed with developing the coalition to overthrow Saddam than to execute the president's policy on pre-emption against terrorists. MIKLASZEWSKI: January 2003, the threat turned real. Police in London arrested six terror suspects and discovered a ricin lab connected to the camp in Iraq. The Pentagon drew up still another attack plan and, for the third time, the National Security Council killed it. Military officials insist their case for attacking Zarqawi's operation was airtight. But the administration feared that destroying the terrorist camp inside Iraq could undercut its case for going to war against Saddam. The US did attack the camp at Kirma at the beginning of the war, but it was too late: Zarqawi and many of his followers were gone. Mr. CRESSEY: Here's a case where they waited. They waited too long, and now we're suffering as a result inside Iraq. MIKLASZEWSKI: And despite the Bush administration's tough talk about hitting the terrorists before they strike, Zarqawi's killing streak continues today. Jim Miklaszewski, NBC News, the Pentagon. Sounds to me like we had a chance at taking these guys out without invading. Posted by: Mantis at October 13, 2004 03:02 PM Sounds to me like we had a chance at taking these guys out without invading. That's a valid criticism, but tell me - would the anti-war left have supported even a limited invasion of a sovereign nation? And this also ignores the belief at the time that Saddam was in possession of WMD, not to mention the whole, "planting Democracy in the region" angle. But the thing that really angers me is, compare that ABC News report issued in 1999 with the way the invasion of Iraq and the AQ-Iraq connection is played with today's hindsight. Bush did not "lie." It's collective, selective amnesia. Posted by: Bill from INDC at October 13, 2004 03:07 PM Sorry, here's a link Posted by: Mantis at October 13, 2004 03:08 PM Bill, I agree with you that the perspective on Iraq has skewed quite a bit the past years. Personally, I don't hate Bush or anything (But I do think he lies, as does Kerry, and about 95% of politicians). But on this, I agree it is silly to pretend that Iraq wasn't considered dangerous (with terrorists) before Bush said it, or that he lied in saying it. And as far as the anti-war left I don't know what they'd support. I'm not anti-war (I thought Afghanistan was a great idea), I just think we shouldn't have decided to take Baghdad (and therefore all of Iraq). I would have supported such a mission as this, it seems like the kind of decisive direct strikes we need in the war on terrorism, rather than occupying a hostile country (though things are looking up in Fallujah). Posted by: Mantis at October 13, 2004 03:16 PM OMG, was that Boss footage BORING. I always thought the liberal moonbats would be more entertaining ... (couldn't he at least made a paper mache puppet or something?) Posted by: Carin at October 13, 2004 03:19 PM I just think we shouldn't have decided to take Baghdad I ultimately disagree, but your point of view is very valid. Posted by: Bill from INDC at October 13, 2004 03:27 PM Al-Zawahari was Bin Laden's number two, not Al-Zarqawi. Andrew Sullivan made that mistake too. Although Al-Zarqawi is definitely connected to Al-Qaida by something that I can't remember at the moment. Posted by: NF at October 13, 2004 04:17 PM My brain-stutter - updated and thanks. As for Zarqawi's ties to AQ: Zarqawi went to Afghanistan to fight the Soviets in the late 1980s, which has been the ruin of many a poor boy. In Afghanistan, Zarqawi plugged into the al Qaeda terrorist network, at the time fighting the Soviet Union with the support of the CIA. In Afghanistan and Pakistan, Qaeda ran training camps where angry young men met other angry young men and formed lifelong friendships. Posted by: Bill from INDC at October 13, 2004 04:25 PM Watched the "boss" video. Umm...yeah. He sounded like Adam Sandler doing Al Sharpton. Posted by: Chris at October 13, 2004 06:15 PM Son of a bitch. Posted by: Scott at October 13, 2004 07:45 PM Well shoot, I guess I'm not voting for Bush. I take all my Politcal Advice from Hollywood. Hopefully I live to November 2nd though. I'm having my kidney transplant done by the janitor next week. He kinda sounds like he knows what he's talking about, and that's good enough for me. Posted by: Robert at October 13, 2004 09:19 PM He's just a broken hero on a last chance power drive. Posted by: joey at October 13, 2004 11:21 PM No kidding Joey - He's one of those old rockers with no demographic left except the oldies station and those people don't tend to buy CD's like they used to. It's a sad fact about getting older but it happens to everybody. Posted by: jacktanner at October 14, 2004 08:49 AM He was born to run. Posted by: Jane at October 15, 2004 01:24 AM The thing that I *didn't* see when I watched the video (although my buddy who was watching it with me echoes the "Al Sharpton" comment) is anything like the quoted text below the pictures. We were anxiously awaiting the dedication of "Born to Run" to Zarqawi, but it wasn't there. What's the source for the caption? 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