A Note on Al Qaeda

"Several readers have been grumbling about the increased use of "Al Qaeda" to describe the enemy in Iraq. There is, I think, good reason for this usage, but only in the context of the current U.S. offensive. The group in question is actually Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, what the military calls Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), which represents the most dangerous sliver--no more than 5%--of the Sunni insurgency."

Joe, there still isn't a good reason for using "Al Qaeda" when you are talking about AQI or Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. The words "Al Qaeda" are emotionally loaded -- using those words to describe the AQI leaves the impression that we are fighting the people who attacked us on 9-11. We aren't.

And while I've got your attention.... have you bothered to think about how is it that 5% of the Sunni insurgency could effectively impose its will on all of Anbar province to the point where they COULD come close to imposing their will on the people in Anbar? Have you considered that we're being fed a bunch of bull by the Bush regime (possibly originating with the tribal leaders in Anbar themselves)? That the tribal leaders are SAYING that their motivation is based on AQI's supposed attempt to "impose a Taliban-like rule", but their real motivation is the bribes in cash and weapons that the US is handing out to anyone who is willing to tow the anti-AQI line? That what we are really doing is creating the circumstances for "instant blowback", and exacerbating the potential for a bloodbath in Iraq once we leave?

Well, Joe, thanks for an informative update with named sources and a clarification of terms which have been the subject of much discussion in the blogos recently. (Now, see how well you can do when you stay away from "Bloody Bill" Kristol for a few days?)

But seriously, I'm glad you are safe. More like this, please.

"Joe, there still isn't a good reason for using "Al Qaeda" when you are talking about AQI or Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. The words "Al Qaeda" are emotionally loaded -- using those words to describe the AQI leaves the impression that we are fighting the people who attacked us on 9-11. We aren't."

------

While I 100% agree with this, he is still technically and factually correct. I don't mind use of language that may be provocative, as long as it is intellectually honest as well.

And given the crowd of commenters here, if it were anything less than such, he wouldn't get away with it anyways. :D

- Scott

(Now, see how well you can do when you stay away from "Bloody Bill" Kristol for a few days?)

So you believe that those other Sunni insurgent groups will probably turn against us in the future, Joe? Aren't those the groups to whom we're currently providing arms?

Should I laugh or cry when winger Bushies scream "Support the troops!"?

"Several readers have been grumbling about the increased use of 'Al Qaeda' to describe the enemy in Iraq. There is, I think, good reason for this usage, but only in the context of the current U.S. offensive."

Label anyone with a gun in Iraq as "Al Qaeda" in order to condone indiscriminate killing of civilians and up the KIAs and try to show some benefits to the "Surge". Good.

Dealing with the realities on the ground in Iraq. Bad.

Leave aside that McClatchy isn't a collection of "readers" and have expressed skepticism that reports of operations that result in dozens of people killed are all "al Qaeda."

Moreover, in order to fan domestic fears of terrorism--fears that have proven to misplaced--the administration, and the people who uncritically conflate people killed in battles in Iraq with Mohammed Atta, "al Qaeda" is strengthened as a brand. Nobody done more to promote the al Qaeda brand than Bush. Defining this brand gives the still uncaptured bin Laden unwarranted stature here and among the world's Muslims.

Joe Klein, by repeating the administration's characterization of everyone who has been killed as "al Qaeda" does what bin Laden wants him to do. bin Laden's endorsement of Bush in 2004 looks positively prescient. It doesn't help when journalists help promote the brand.

You don't have a single defense for why "al Qaeda" should be used to describe anyone we're fighting in Iraq. They're not the people that attacked us on 9/11.

"Meanwhile, the Shi'ites have a lunatic fringe of their own."

You're all about finding the 40 yard lines, aren't you.

Thanks for your responsiveness, Joe. This is a very good post, and it is much appreciated.

As you know, the names we choose to use on this have a loaded meaning.

Al Qaeda attacked us on 9/11.

Do these guys in Iraq calling themselves AQI have anything to do with OBL's al Qaeda?

Or are we, by mucking about in Iraq, merely winning more converts to the cause of anti-American Islamism, as critics predicted?

For one such critic, please see the most perceptive and trenchant opinion piece to appear in the MSM before the Iraq invasion:
http://www.theonion.com/content/point/this_war_will_destabilize_the

Or, "what p_lukasiak said," which pretty much goes for everything he posts...

"AQI has been pretty much kicked out of al-Anbar province because it tried to impose a Taliban-like rule"

Who convinced you this is something worth paying a lot of attention to? Whatever happened in al-Anbar (where there is continuing violence, btw) is apparently unrepeatable elsewhere and tells us precisely dick about how best to cease violence in, say, Baghdad.

I hope I didn't harsh your buzz by mentioning the capitol.

Acid - "You don't have a single defense for why "al Qaeda" should be used to describe anyone we're fighting in Iraq. They're not the people that attacked us on 9/11."

Of course not. Strictly speaking, all the people who attacked us on 9/11 are dead. That doesn't mean that some of the fighters who moved into Iraq after we invaded aren't part of the same organization, either operationally or idealogically.

Elvis - "Or are we, by mucking about in Iraq, merely winning more converts to the cause of anti-American Islamism, as critics predicted?"

Nail, Head, Hit.

Yeah "Bloody Bill" whined loudly on The Daily Show, out of his element in the loving, supportive environs of Fox News he had nothing important to say. Stewart wasn't hard on him at all, just asked him normal questions and politely remarked that his answers were a load of crap.

I'm all about reinforcing good behavior, but Jay is right about McClatchy. Matter of fact, if people had the opportunity to read more McClatchy and less Time Mag, WaPo and New York Times, they are far better informed than those who don't, and far more informed than the pundits we are burdened with.

"[W]hen I refer to Al Qaeda in this context, it only means the enemy in the current phase of battle, one particular sliver of the Sunni insurgency."

Perhaps it would be appropriate, then, to INDICATE THIS IS SOME WAY when your stories go to print. Let's be honest with ourselves, there are many, many readers of Time magazine who are in no way familiar with the complete lack of a connection between Al Qaeda of OBL fame and Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. If you are truly using the name Al Qaeda in good faith, you need to be prefacing that use (every time) with an explanation that the "Al Qaeda" you are referring to is "one particular sliver of the Sunni insurgency" and not in any way affiliated with OBL or the terrorist attacks against the US.

Agree with Paul here. AQIA is only loosely aligned with Osama.

It's a scheme by the administration who still has 41% of Americans convinced that Iraq was behind 9/11 to think we are doing something differently in this war.

The report headlines are not referring to is as Al Qaeda in Iraq, but simply Al Qaeda. It's deliberately misleading.

**Several readers have been grumbling about the increased use of "Al Qaeda" to describe the enemy in Iraq.**

Oy.

"grumbling"

Dismissive condescension is just a reflex with you, isn't it?

And your assertions of you own infallibility aside (), you don't adress your and your colleagues emotionally inflammatory and intellectually lazy use of what you and they know damn well is term deeply infused with emotion. You're not writing in a vacuum, as you damn well know. More than forty per cent of the country still believes Saddam was directly involved in 9/11. Bush, Cheney, Rice and their supporters still invoke 9/11 as a justification for the Iraqi invasion and our continued presence there. You may have been on a plane or in Bagdhad when Michael Chertoff used the death of nine firefighters in a warehouse fire to talk about the threat of terrorism like we saw on 9/11.

Political context matters, Joe. It's hard for me to believe you don't know that, but let's pretend long enough for me to give you an example: No one would have given a fiddler's fart about the novelistic adventures of a horny presidential candidate named Jack Stanton and his ambitious and controlling wife, Emma, without the context of the media's carefully constructed image of a certain president and his wife. The one then fed the other.

See the parallel to your and your colleagues (mis)use of the term "Al Qaeda"?

Bill Kristol on the Daily Show:

http://www.comedycentral.com/motherload/index.jhtml?ml_video=79869

http://www.comedycentral.com/motherload/index.jhtml?ml_video=79868

I'm wavering on the terminology issue. I think Scottoest makes a good point that, if AQI is calling themselves Al Qaeda, then they ARE Al Qaeda and it is not incorrect to call them that.

Presumably, AQI KNOWS that Al Qaeda attacked us on 9/11, and if they choose to use that name then it is not for U.S. journalists to obscure that connection.

That said, others make good points that for most Americans do not distinguish between shades of Al Qaeda and will make incorrect assumptions based on, technically correct, but out of context reporting.

The failure to provide proper context is not a problem that is limited to Joe Klein. It is the dominant form of journalism practiced today. Sometimes, as in the cases of a Solomon-AP hit piece, the lack of context is intentional. But often it is inexplicable -- at least to me. Why do so few journalists and editors apparently fail to ask basic questions like, "what is a reader likely to believe after reading this?" I am stumped.

Joe,

Would you consider the presence of an occupying army to be one of the "enemies of stability" in Iraq as well?

Thanks for explaining. And thanks, everyone, for making him explain it. I'm one who can remember how everyone used the GOP's term "Privatize Social Security" until it didn't poll well, and then switched to the next chosen phrase when the GOP cracked the whip. I believe it was the NYT that even went so far as to claim the GOP term was a Democratic phrase.

It's astonishing how the media feels obligated to always use whatever language polls best for the GOP, and claim that same GOP phraseology is a Democratic invention when they shoot themselves in the foot. So, I'm glad to see people insisting on reminding Klein not to simply run with GOP press packets as gospel truth.

We IS the only stabilizing force in Iraq.
We IS the only stabilizing force in Iraq.
We IS the only stabilizing force in Iraq.
We IS the only stabilizing force in Iraq.
We IS the only stabilizing force in Iraq.
We IS the only stabilizing force in Iraq.
We IS the only stabilizing force in Iraq.
We IS the only stabilizing force in Iraq.
We IS the only stabilizing force in Iraq.
We IS the only stabilizing force in Iraq.
We IS the only stabilizing force in Iraq.
We IS the only stabilizing force in Iraq.
We IS the only stabilizing force in Iraq.
We IS the only stabilizing force in Iraq.
We IS the only stabilizing force in Iraq.
We IS the only stabilizing force in Iraq.
We IS the only stabilizing force in Iraq.
We IS the only stabilizing force in Iraq.
We IS the only stabilizing force in Iraq.
We IS the only stabilizing force in Iraq.
We IS the only stabilizing force in Iraq.
We IS the only stabilizing force in Iraq.
We IS the only stabilizing force in Iraq.

The full McClatchy article is helpful here:

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/iraq/story/17302.html

***The Bush administration's recent shift toward calling the enemy in Iraq "al Qaida" rather than an insurgency may reflect the difficulty in maintaining support for the war at home more than it does the nature of the enemy in Iraq.
....
The U.S. military has identified more than 20 enemy insurgent and militia groups in Baghdad...***

I'd be interested in learning what McClatchy is going on in terms of the administration PR campaign and al Qaeda.

I agree that if the group calls itself al Qaeda, and especially if it was trained by al Qaeda in Pakistan, then it is al Qaeda. But 500 foreign fighters would certainly seem like a small part of the insurgency.

"Presumably, AQI KNOWS that Al Qaeda attacked us on 9/11, and if they choose to use that name then it is not for U.S. journalists to obscure that connection."

You assume that the intended audience for the name "Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia" is America -- its not. The audience is Sunnis in occupied Iraq, who aren't too thrilled with the outcome of the invasion and occupation, and who see "resistance" to the attempted imposition of US control of Iraq as justified.

Ok Joe -- I'll give you credit on this one. Thanks for providing your point of view, though I still think the usage even in the current phase to be sloppy, lazy, and more confusing than it is helpful.

I know I shouldn't but ---

Sorry Joe -- you're still the same large idiot who told us in a NYMagazine cover story that the release of Spike Lee's "Do the Right Thing" would undoubtedly cause race riots all across our great nation.

As a result, your opinions on anything -- let alone this parsing of the Al Qaeda brand -- are shall we say suspect at best.

Also, we already know of the blowback in the arming of the Sunnis, when will Joe report on this?

You know, Elvis, that Onion piece is remarkably accurate. Look at the trolls here. They mirror the counterpoint guy purposefully.

As has been mentioned earlier, the "good reason for this useage" Mr. Klein mentions is for White House propaganda.

That is all.

Also, I see the peanut gallery is commenting.

Joe: glad you are safe. I want to put forward another way of looking at those opposing the US troops and the Maliki forces (those being trained by the US).

Al Qaeda is now a loosely integrated group of foreigners and locals with local leadership being determined by the strength of the local participants. The Sunnis and Shias have at least three identifiable groups: those supported by AQ, those by Saudi Arabian funds (not from government but from SA) and those by elements in the Gulf States. The Shias draw their support and sustenance from local purloined oil, from Sadr and from Iran. They are divided among themselves but united in one thing: they have a clearly identifiable target dressed in US army fatigues and other resplendent gear useful in conventional fighting but not always effective against insurgents. Against this the US have the unreliable Iraqis and the effective but limited in numbers special forces and the army.

This is a lethal mix because it looks like everyone is firing in two or three directions at the same time.

In all of this the problem is in indentifying with some degree of certainty the insurgents as distinct from the innocent locals. All in all a recipe for disaster.

The fellows who show us maps of Iraq on TV and talk strategy and tactics are giving us a lot of wind.

Joe;

Thanks for the clarifications; I know it's hard to keep track of who all the players are in Iraq. I would only add that if you shorthand AQI with Al Quaeda; it is likely you're gonna confuse your readers, who cannot read your mind, only your words. which I will continue to read.

sean s.

Thanks for addressing this.

I'm also curious what you think about Michael Gordon as a general matter, especially given his coverage in the run up to Iraq with Judy Miller.

p_lukasiak,
you and Joe are both off in part.

First, your assertion that "their real motivation is the bribes in cash and weapons that the US is handing out" is flat wrong. The US didn't go offering bribes to these folks, the tribes split with the Islamic State of Iraq and approached the United States, not the other way around.

Second, Joe is wrong in the reason for the split. It has nothing to do with ideology and everything to do with the tribal sheiks acting in a self-interested manner. They want to revitalize and preserve their traditional power structure; while they hate the US occupation and initially found common cause with Islamic State of Iraq, the Islamic State of Iraq over reached and became a greater threat to the sheiks than the occupation. There is of course the tribal politics element here which explains why some tribes have split and others haven't. And also why some titular leaders of the Dulaym confederation are attempting to undermine more pro-active upstarts.

"Why do so few journalists and editors apparently fail to ask basic questions like, "what is a reader likely to believe after reading this?" I am stumped."

This is the point exactly. What your audience is going to take away from a piece is a basic consideration in any written communication.

This has been a big problem with this press and this administration. The press prints what the *authorities* say, not what the audience should take away as objective truth. The press shouldn't outsource its judgement to *any* administration. There's actually a book coming out on this subject, "When the Press Fails: Political Power and the News Media from Iraq to Katrina":

http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/weblogs/pressthink/2007/05/31/when_the_press.html

It should go without saying. Just because the administration is releasing PR that al Qaeda is the big enemy in Iraq doesn't mean that the press simply uses this as a template. In fact, the opposite. Part of the story may be that what administration wants us to believe is contradicted by the larger picture. Again, this should go without saying.

"Others may be painting with a broader, and inaccurate, brush, but when I refer to Al Qaeda in this context, it only means the enemy in the current phase of battle, one particular sliver of the Sunni insurgency."

That sounds about right. If you go back and read Gordon for the past few months you'll find that he is one of those who paints with a broader brush. Your use of the term "Al Qaeda" seems reasonable and accurate to me.

Sentinel,
but what about Hakim? what about Fadilah? what about the nationalists?

I think your analysis is a bit off.

To my mind what you have in Iraq breaks down like this:
Kurds
-Barzani
-Talabani

Arabs
-nationalists
+Ba'athists, for example
+Anbar Awakening, Islamic Army of Iraq (despite its name), 1920 Revolution

-sectarianist
+SIIC (formerly SCIRI)
+Dawa
+Fadilah
+Islamic State of Iraq (AQI/Salafi Jihadis)

-unknowns
+Sadr, he draws lots of Shi'a support but he talks and acts like a nationalist -- he's really just an opportunist.

Sentinel,
but what about Hakim? what about Fadilah? what about the nationalists?

I think your analysis is a bit off.

To my mind what you have in Iraq breaks down like this:
Kurds
-Barzani
-Talabani

Arabs
-nationalists
+Ba'athists, for example
+Anbar Awakening, Islamic Army of Iraq (despite its name), 1920 Revolution

-sectarianist
+SIIC (formerly SCIRI)
+Dawa
+Fadilah
+Islamic State of Iraq (AQI/Salafi Jihadis)

-unknowns
+Sadr, he draws lots of Shi'a support but he talks and acts like a nationalist -- he's really just an opportunist.

Sentinel,
but what about Hakim? what about Fadilah? what about the nationalists?

I think your analysis is a bit off.

To my mind what you have in Iraq breaks down like this:
Kurds
-Barzani
-Talabani

Arabs
-nationalists
+Ba'athists, for example
+Anbar Awakening, Islamic Army of Iraq (despite its name), 1920 Revolution Brigades

-sectarianist
+SIIC (formerly SCIRI)
+Dawa
+Fadilah
+Islamic State of Iraq (AQI/Salafi Jihadis)

-unknowns
+Sadr, he draws lots of Shi'a support but he talks and acts like a nationalist -- he's really just an opportunist.

"First, your assertion that "their real motivation is the bribes in cash and weapons that the US is handing out" is flat wrong. The US didn't go offering bribes to these folks, the tribes split with the Islamic State of Iraq and approached the United States, not the other way around. "

sorry, but you are wrong. Working with (i.e. bribing) the tribal leaders with part of the "clear, hold, and build" strategy that was supposedly doing wonders in Anbar BEFORE this latest burst of propaganda. In other words, what we are looking at is really nothing new -- although it may have expanded as more local shieks decided they wanted a piece of the action too.....

Okay, so how can you term that "sliver" so that it's clear you're not falling in with the administration's new line that all insurgents in Iraq are "AQ"?

Your magazine readers might not be reading this blog, and might assume that you mean everyone using IEDs is united in "Al Qaeda". Are they really AQ? How? Why? What is the connection to Bin Laden? (I don't know-- I'm actually asking.)

no, p_lukasiak. the folks that make up Anbar Salvation initially approached the United States nearly three years ago. The United States warmed to the idea last year. Anbar Salvation formed in August/September. The United States is not providing arms to these people - hell, they're already well armed to begin with.

This was all happening well before any of you all took notice of it in the last three months.

>These more secular elements of the Sunni insurgency have turned on AQI and are providing the U.S. with--for the first time in this war--actionable intelligence.

Mr. Klein,
It really is too bad that plain text does not carry the same intonation as spoken words.
Otherwise, we would hear you being sarcastic here(or we should).

p_luk:

I did not presume that AQI's intended audience was America. But, if Al Qaeda is primarily identified as an organization that engages in terrorist attacks on Western -- even in Mesopotampia -- and AQI adopts their name in sympathy for the cause, it is not an irrelevant fact.

I agree that we should not act as if these are the same people who hit us on 9/11 (and hit the Cole and our embassies). But they are sympathetic to the cause and it would be just as much of a mistake to act as if there is no link between the two organizations. For all I know, there may even be communications between Ayman al-Zawahri and AQI.

My main beef remains that the reporting tends to be overly simplistic, not that it is incorrect.

> drawdown of troops, starting now, remains our best option.

Wait... what?

Since when have you been calling for drawdown "starting now"?

If it's just one sliver of one group, why is every single battle and bombing attributed to them, no matter where it is in Iraq?

"and that a careful drawdown of troops, starting now, remains our best option."

That would be what you continued to describe as a "precipitous withdrawal" and that you denounced so forcefully for so long, no?

Since when have you been calling for drawdown "starting now"?
******
zota,
This is news to me too. I recall when Joe blogged about the Senate vote on the Supplemental Funding. I said at the time that I had no idea how long it would take to build and transport the new super-armored vehicles to Iraq, but a year at minimum seemed a reasonable guess. I said that it made more sense to me to spend that money on bringing our troops home. Joe appended a comment to my post saying that the vehicles were also needed in Afghanistan.

Joe has said repeatedly that we need to come out of Iraq more carefully than we went in, but I don't recall that he has ever specifically stated
we need to start a drawdown now.

That was MURTHA's stance Thanksgiving week--almost two years ago!

Why don't we drop "Al Qaeda" altogether and just go with "fanatical Saudi bastards":

www.asecondlookatthesaudis.com

And maybe one day we can consider (just for kicks) the idea of fighting back against the people who are actually attacking us.

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003537.php

"At an acrimonious hearing underway of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs on the surge, retired Major General John Batiste, a former division commander in Iraq turned critic of the war, got on the administration's case for recently attributing most violence in Iraq to al-Qaeda. ..."

(Excerpt of Batiste testimony)"'I also believe we cannot attribute all the violence in Iraq to al-Qaeda. There's a tendency now to lump it all together, and call it al-Qaeda. We have to be very careful with that. This is a very complex region. al-Qaeda is certainly a component. But there's larger components. al-Qaeda is a worldwide organization. It recognizes no national boundaries. And it's in areas where we ought to be focused.'"

Joe, here's John Batiste on the Pentagon's efforts to blame all violence in Iraq on "Al Qaeda."

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003537.php

I'm not saying you're doing this, but Gordon is and the Pentagon certainly is.

Batiste may seem like an intellectually dishonest left-wing extremist to you, since he criticizes Bush pretty frequently, but he did command forces in Iraq and is a lifelong Republican, so maybe even you might give him some credence.

If only we would stop our neoimperialisms and leave Iraq and stop supporting Israel and have some respect for the cultures and traditions of the Arab world there would be no more terrorism. It is like Ward Churchill said - it is all our fault and the sooner we leave Iraq and end the occupation for the free Iraqi oil being transported to Houston on black supertankers run by Halliburton and under the personal command of Darth Cheney then there will be no more war and we will have the money to provide social services for all from the cradle to the grave.

Vote Democrat and help it happen.
Please.

pva: was out. I take your point. The Kurds are reluctantly playing a limited role in the surge. Their area in the North is relatively trouble free. In London (the City) you will find Kurds trying to attract investment capital with some success. So Barzani is not really going to be affected.

The Sunni - Shia split can be as you say it is. There is a lot of free lancing. I have some reasonable experience of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States having done business there from 1982 to now. The Sunni - Shia issue is complex with lots of sub-groups, links with Iran etc. The tribal units break this down further.The enmity is real. The sense of grievance deep and unforgiving.

I guess I am saying Iraq is an artificial entity and thus susceptible to being broken up. Iran, otoh, is more unified by language, not Arab, and has divisions that have to do with Islam vs Westernisation. The second point: our troops are simply caught in the middle. Realistically they cannot even trust Maliki or any of the Ministers.

The US provides cover to those in government.

Cheers

sentinel,
I hear you. The only further disagreement I have is wrt Iraq being an artificial creation. I think this gets too much play and has become a sort of catch-all for why our having broken Iraq really couldn't have been helped once we invaded. Iraqis definitely had differences throughout the post-colonial period, including during the Ba'athist regime, but aside from the Kurds, it was a pretty solid nation-state.

I can see Joe Klein's point. But the point seems to rely wholly on the military for its description of the spectrum of insurgent fighters. The question is: can we rely on military intelligence? Is it biased? Is it credible?

This is problematic. The military itself has admitted to having lousy intelligence in Iraq. A story on the BBC , yesterday, shows why the media shouldn't act as a stenographer for the U.S. military:

"On 22 June the US military announced that its attack helicopters, armed with missiles, engaged and killed 17 al-Qaeda gunmen who had been trying to infiltrate the village of al-Khalis, north of Baquba, where operation "Arrowhead Ripper" had been under way for the previous three days.

The item was duly carried by international news agencies and received widespread coverage, including on the BBC News website.

But villagers in largely-Shia al-Khalis say that those who died had nothing to do with al-Qaeda. They say they were local village guards trying to protect the township from exactly the kind of attack by insurgents the US military says it foiled.

They say that of 16 guards, 11 were killed and five others injured - two of them seriously - when US helicopters fired rockets at them and then strafed them with heavy machinegun fire.

Minutes before the attack, they had been co-operating with an Iraqi police unit raiding a suspected insurgent hideout, the villagers said.

They added that the guards, lightly armed with the AK47 assault rifles that are a feature of practically every home in Iraq, were essentially a local neighbourhood watch paid by the village to monitor the dangerous insurgent-ridden area to the immediate south-west at Arab Shawkeh and Hibhib, where the al-Qaeda leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed a year ago."

What's worse are the frequent references to the killing of "suspected insurgents"; a term which on follow up actually seems all too often to be synonymous with "innocent bystanders..."

WTF!! There isn't a g@ddamned thing in your post that explains the usage of 'al-qaeda' to describe who we're fighing in Iraq. Hasn't anyone else noticed this?

"There is, I think, good reason for this usage, but only in the context of the current U.S. offensive. "

There is nothing in the post that explains what the 'good reason' is exactly. So they're 'al-qaeda' because we're fighting them, and we're fighting them because they're 'al-qaeda'? Maybe someone here can point out the part of Joke's post that gives the actual reason for usage of 'al-qaeda'?

"Others may be painting with a broader, and inaccurate, brush, but when I refer to Al Qaeda in this context, it only means the enemy in the current phase of battle, one particular sliver of the Sunni insurgency."

Translation: Everyone else is wrong, I'm right. Someone in the military told me they were al-qaeda, that someone knows they're 'al-qaeda' because their superior told them so, that superior knows they're 'al-qaeda' because the pentagon told them so, the pentagon knows they're 'al-qaeda' because the White House told them so, and the White House knows they're 'al-qaeda' because we were attacked on 9/11 by the evil-doers, and every one knows evil-doers are 'al-qaeda'...and 'al-qaeda' sounds scarier anyway.

Hey aren't you the guy who buttressed administration talking points and their use of fear as political tool, by lending credence to the idea that six guys dressed as pizza delivery guys are a credible threat to a US military compound? Your post makes more sense in that context.

'careful draw down'. Do we draw lots to see who is the last man in battle rattle trying to protect the folks under the tables in the Green Zone?

What do we gain, but more pain with a 'careful draw down'? I just don't see that as a plan. It seems more like Hospice Care for Halliburton.

Mr. Klein --

This sounds pretty reasonable, but I'm less credulous than you of the notion that our military is capable of calibrating its response to the "five percent" of the insurgency it's calling "Al Qaeda in Iraq". It's all a little convenient, and, of course, such finer points vanish in the din of television. The average viewer, without the luxury I and others have of being able to read the press all day, will be hearing that we're "fighting Al Quaeda in Iraq" for eighteen months before the election.

Is it credulity, or complicity, Mr. Klein?

There is no al Qaeda.
It is from the CIA on orders of Cheney.
We need a Democratic President to show us the truth about al Qaeda and WTC 7.

pva: I totally agree with you about Iraq as an artificial construct being used as an excuse today. I studiedd and wrote (during my university years in the UK) about the partition of Africa post 1870 and saw the documentation in the Colonial Office, the French Department of Overseas Affair plus the Belgian, German and Portuguese archival stuff. They show a disinclination to take local facts on the ground into account. France and Britain divided up West Africa such that families were literally living across the boundary (and artificial construct). Much like present day Israel and Palestine.

My point: the Sunnis and Shias were herded together when logic would have pushed the Sunnis toward present day Jordan (another artificial state) and Saudi Arabia, and the Shia south towards Iran : the Persians and Arabs being bound by Shia bonds and Karbala.

pva thank you for this exchange. I found going back into my past interesting and appreciate you keeping me up on my toes. All the best to you.

While the U.S. government and media keep focusing on defense policies and the war in Iraq, 1.2 billion people in the world continue surviving on less than $1 a day. We should not forget the commitment made towards the U.N. Millennium Goals (a pact of ending extreme world hunger by the year 2025) in 2000. According to The Borgen Project, an annual $19 billion dollars is needed to eliminate half of the extreme poverty affecting the world by the year 2015. To my sense, it is almost unacceptable to have spent so far more than $340 billion in Iraq only, when we have more than war immunities to change the world and eliminate poverty.

The Israeli – Palestinian Conflict

What is the basis for the modern day establishment of the state of Israel? The British were occupiers. The U.N. had only one Arab member and no one even considered how the inhabitants of the land would react – and they reacted violently. They have never accepted this.

My research indicates that there was only an 11% Jewish population in the territory at the time of the U.N. mandate. The Jews did not buy the land. Moreover, their attempts at immigration were stymied by the British – “not least out of a desire to defend British interests in Arab oil.”

The Bible is an ancient religious book, an ancient deed to property. The Jews were the “chosen people” and God, himself, instructed them to kill numerous indigenous tribes, in the entirety, to take the land - the “Promised Land.”

Thousands of years later, the Romans came and tore down the Jewish tabernacle in Jerusalem and they called this place Palestine. That was in the 1st century. A couple of thousand years later Western civilization takes back the land and establishes the state of Israel as according to the Bible.

I am not really talking about ancient history except to point out what I know to be true – that the Bible is the basis for Western civilization's establishment and support of Israel. That is something that occurred in my parent's lifetime, not thousands of years ago. Also, I believe that the Holy War in the Koran is a reaction to the Holy War in the Bible.

The Israeli – Palestinian conflict is clearly at the heart of much of the trouble in the Middle East. But, there has also been a shameful period in America’s history, driven by ambition for superiority and the fear of a “communist threat”…

…“Instead of fulfilling its intended and proper mission, the CIA spent its time organizing and maintaining full-scale armies fighting wars in various parts of Africa, Asia, and Latin America; promoting economic havoc here and there in all three regions; attempting to bring down the foreign governments (those of Guatemala, Nicaragua, Chile, Zaire, Zambia, South and North Vietnam, Iran, Afghanistan, Albania, Cambodia, Laos, Brazil, Guyana, the Dominican Republic, Angola, Cuba, Lebanon, Indonesia, and China, to name a few publicly documented cases) and often succeeding…”[i]

Additionally, “…both for assuring access to Middle East oil and for other geostrategic reasons, the United States must support Arab strongman regimes (including Sadaam Hussein) and that to do otherwise ‘including to encourage democratization’ could lead either to chaos or the rise to power of hostile forces and, in either case, a severe compromising of American interests.”[ii]

The U.S. went so far as to stage a coup in Iran in 1953, which resulted in “the establishment of the first American-hating Islamic republic, when the Shiite Muslim clerics duped by the CIA overthrow of Mossadegh master-minded their own takeover in 1979, installing the Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeni.”[iii]

Once again, the CIA, the oil, the terrorism, the meddling in Iraq and Iran, and the establishment of the state of Israel all happened in my parent's lifetimes. This is not ancient history and Americans should be saddened and ashamed for their country – to deny the truth means this country is a fraud.



-karennkc

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[i] From the Crimes of Patriots, by Jonathan Kwitny
[ii] The Oslo Syndrome Delusions Of A People Under Siege, Kenneth Levin, 2005 Smith and Kraus, Inc.
[iii] “…British Petroleum returned to the Iranian oil fields. Some newcomers tagged along. They included five American companies, the ancestors of today’s ExxonMobil and Chevron-Texaco. Meanwhile, the U.S. government opened the foreign-aid spigot. Over the next 25 years, more than $20 billion in U.S. taxpayers’ money would pour into a decidedly undemocratic Iran, most of it military aid and subsidized weapons sales for the Shah’s armed forces and SAVAK, his secret police. As for American oil companies, they would extract 2 billion bbl. of oil from their Iranian fields. But the access came with a stiff price tag in U.S. government dollars and Iranian lives. And the Shah’s oppression led to the establishment of the first American-hating Islamic republic, when the Shiite Muslim clerics duped by the CIA overthrow of Mossadegh master-minded their own takeover in 1979, installing the Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeni.” – By Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele, TIME, May 19, 2003

We've spent about 7 trillion on poverty in the US since the 1960s and still have it so why would the Borgen Project meet with any more success?

Many poor nations are poor because of the ineptness or the corruption of their leaders and throwing money at them doesn't fix the problem.

Joe, did you catch up on the 'reinstatement' of Baker-Hamilton Study Group. Remember 'ALL troops out by next spring'. That the stated goal of the US Military should be this.

Or the Congressional Report that training up the Iraqi Military is a major FU with no accounting for actual troops or weapons/equipment.

Please explain the logic of:

1. Spending another mil for another ISG report
2. Spending more billions to pay for a fiasco
3. Continuing to arm every 'faction' in view that nobody can keep track of to fight every 'insurgent' to be henceforth referred to as AQ
4. Waiting until Spring
5. CONTINUING TO WASTE AMERICAN BLOOD POSTPONING THE INEVITABLE WORST CASE SCENARIO

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/06/28/iraq.main/index.html

Crocker's crock, "...hydrocarbon law...' LOL LOL LOL so Rovian. Hydrocarbon Law, al Qaeda, what happened to islamofascists?

'...law to divide the profits amongst the ethnic and religious groups...' A little too much of a simplification this law, don't you thing. To borrow from Elizabeth Edwards, attempting to deceive is the same as a lie.

Besides the 'oil thingy', this was a good piece. Thanks for showing that the 'Army guys' actually get it. Thanks for showing that Iraqis don't really have a concept of 'one Nation', that they just don't get it. "It": the great creationist Decider's concept of Nation Building.

The 'broken Army clock'-----:) :) :)