Everywhere but Iraq?
al-Qaeda-that’s-not-in-Iraq issued a press release – boasting of having taken three American GIs captive in Iraq, and threatening to kill them if U.S. forces continue to hunt for them. “Your soldiers are in our hands…What you are doing in searching for [them] will lead to nothing but exhaustion and headaches,” said the online statement from the Islamic State of Iraq – one of al Qaeda’s Iraqi incarnations.
The warning recalls Pelosi’s words from 2006; she said she felt “sad” over President Bush’s insistence that al Qaeda is operating in Iraq. Or Reid, who recently called on the president to “change course [away from Iraq] and turn our attention back to the war on al Qaeda and their allies.”
They’re not in Fort Dix either, or in upstate New York. This whole thing is the product of someone’s fevered imagination.
May 16th, 2007 at 5:48 am
But…
Were Al-Qaeda in Iraq at the time of opening of hostilities?
There has to be a question of whether removing Saddam and collapsing the Ba’ath rule and security infrastructure simpy created a vacuum into which Al-Qaeda moved.
Given the likely small number (if any) of operational Al-Q in Iraq at the time the war started, there may be a case for the US to move to depose the state governments of NJ and NY for allowing Al-Qaeda to operate at similar levels of intensity?:)
Actually I still (just) support GW II but that’s mainly from the perspective that it seems to at least have given the Shia and Kurds a level playing field. They’re no longer the default losers in Iraq.
It’s quite a bloody freedom they’ve got currently but I suppose it’s still better over the long term than their being held at the whim of the Ba’ath.
An odd happenstance that. It’s not as if we go after every repressive regime in order to free their subjects.
Still…
Morally justified? Yes.
In the national interest of the US? Well, let’s not forget the WMD issue which everyone and their aunt or intelligence service thought Saddam had at the time.
Would Saddam have been crazy enought to threaten use or actually use NBC weapons? Don’t know.
Which I guess leads us to consideration of Iran….
Jeff
PS Why do you apparently give credence to a purported AL-Qaeda press release? If I were Al-Qs propaganda guy I’d issue that press release too, even if I knew that I had nothing to do with seizing the US troops.