al Qaeda playing us for chumps

[LuckyTheDog]

Why are we fighting on their terms? They call Iraq important to make it politically hard for us to leave. and we fall for it.
The best thing that could happen to al Qaeda would be for the U.S. to continue draining its resources in Iraq for as long as possible. That's why they got involved after we gave them an opening with the invasion.

al Qaeda knows that, if they they can remove $1 trillion from our economy every 5-7 years, we'll become weaker and weaker over time. Death by 1,000 cuts.

They are thinking long-term and playing us for chumps. We need to stop the quagmire in Iraq and concentrate on the REAL security issues -- such as building up the U.S. economy and bringing back military preparedness.

Don't get me wrong. I think it could take years to untangle ourselves from the mess in Iraq. But we should get started ASAP. McCain won't do that. That's reason enough to elect a Democrat in the fall.

I know that Hillary was initially all wrong about the war. I also know that Obama has not committed to a withdrawal that is fast enough for many people here. But either of them would be far better than John "100 Years in Iraq" McCain.

[conservdem]

1. Interesting view I had not seen before.

How would we address al Qaeda under your plan? I think maybe we need to focus more on them in Afghanistan.

[LuckyTheDog]

6. Afghanistan, for sure

It is shameful that we did not finish them off in Afghanistan when we had the chance. But even now, we could -- and should -- do a lot of good by re-focusing our efforts there. Plus, we need to do all the other things -- such as going after al Qaeda's money sources -- that the CIA probbaly is doing now. But it is criminal to allow the Iraq mess to suck up hundreds of millions of dollars per year.

[OKthatsIT]

26. Are you kidding? CIA will never leave Afganistan. Opium = $50Billion

Don't you guys get it, yet? You're all so incredibly brainwashed.

AL QAEDA IS NEOCON INTELLIGENCE and COINTELPRO OPS.
Do we have to wait another 4 years before you wake up? Hillar will change NOTHING, except to 'throw you a few domestic crumbs'...to make you go back to sleep.

Shit, it's taken 8 ys fr you to see the vote doesnt count...and yet, you still think the election is legit.

Unbelievable.

[madokie]

2. is al qaeda a cia front???

seems more likely than not. I mean these guys like to torture knowing full well that torture is illegal and through it no good info is obtained, so that gives one some insight into the kind of people who the cia are. I think we must look inward for the root of the carnage in the arab world today not to a quite possibly cia front. I've read of lots of ties with OBL and our cia back through the years, in fact on that info was what gave me reason to believe long before the official word, that 911 was an al qaeda operation. In fact the first words out of my mouth upon learning of the first tower being hit was Osama Bin Laden, the guys I was working with looked at me like wtf. imo

[conservdem]

4. No, it's not a cia front.

[RC]

8. al Qeada may or may not be a CIA front, but the most important thing to keep

in mind is most of what is attributed to al Qeada are Iraqis fighting against the invaders (read United States) and their supporters. Helps cover up our war crimes.

[JohnyCanuck]

16. Al Quaeda and the the war on Terrorism

Al Quaeda and the the war on Terrorism

Introduction

One of the main objectives of war propaganda is to "fabricate an enemy". The "outside enemy" personified by Osama bin Laden is "threatening America".

Pre-emptive war directed against "Islamic terrorists" is required to defend the Homeland. Realities are turned upside down. America is under attack.

In the wake of 9/11, the creation of this "outside enemy" has served to obfuscate the real economic and strategic objectives behind the war in the Middle East and Central Asia. Waged on the grounds of self-defense, the pre-emptive war is upheld as a "just war" with a humanitarian mandate.

As anti-war sentiment grows and the political legitimacy the Bush Administration falters, doubts regarding the existence of this illusive "outside enemy" must be dispelled.

Counter-terrorism and war propaganda are intertwined. The propaganda apparatus feeds disinformation into the news chain. The terror warnings must appear to be "genuine". The objective is to present the terror groups as "enemies of America."

Ironically, Al Qaeda --the "outside enemy of America" as well as the alleged architect of the 9/11 attacks-- is a creation of the CIA.

From the outset of the Soviet-Afghan war in the early 1980s, the US intelligence apparatus has supported the formation of the "Islamic brigades". Propaganda purports to erase the history of Al Qaeda, drown the truth and "kill the evidence" on how this "outside enemy" was fabricated and transformed into "Enemy Number One".

The US intelligence apparatus has created it own terrorist organizations. And at the same time, it creates its own terrorist warnings concerning the terrorist organizations which it has itself created. Meanwhile, a cohesive multibillion dollar counterterrorism program "to go after" these terrorist organizations has been put in place.

Portrayed in stylized fashion by the Western media, Osama bin Laden, supported by his various henchmen, constitutes America’s post-Cold war bogeyman, who "threatens Western democracy". The alleged threat of "Islamic terrorists", permeates the entire US national security doctrine. Its purpose is to justify wars of aggression in the Middle East, while establishing within America, the contours of the Homeland Security State.

Continued here:
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/01/389809.html

[dantyrant]

22. al Qaeda = the matador's cape

And we're the bull. This is by design.

Notice how al Qaeda is popping up in areas like Somalia, North Africa, Kosovo, Iraq... how are they all getting there? Who's funding them? These aren't just random angry people -- these are paid mercenaries going to fight in foreign lands. That doesn't spontaneously happen.

A Russian General wrote an Op-Ed called International Terrorism Does Not Exist':

Terrorism is the weapon used in a new type of war. At the same time, international terrorism, in complicity with the media, becomes the manager of global processes. It is precisely the symbiosis between media and terror, which allows modifying international politics and the exiting reality.

In this context, if we analyze what happened on September 11, 2001, in the United States, we can arrive at the following conclusions: 1. The organizers of those attacks were the political and business circles interested in destabilizing the world order and who had the means necessary to finance the operation. The political conception of this action matured there where tensions emerged in the administration of financial and other types of resources. We have to look for the reasons of the attacks in the coincidence of interests of the big capital at global and transnational levels, in the circles that were not satisfied with the rhythm of the globalization process or its direction.

Unlike traditional wars, whose conception is determined by generals and politicians, the oligarchs and politicians submitted to the former were the ones who did it this time.

2. Only secret services and their current chiefs ­ or those retired but still having influence inside the state organizations ­ have the ability to plan, organize and conduct an operation of such magnitude. Generally, secret services create, finance and control extremist organizations. Without the support of secret services, these organizations cannot exist ­ let alone carry out operations of such magnitude inside countries so well protected. Planning and carrying out an operation on this scale is extremely complex.

3. Osama bin Laden and "Al Qaeda" cannot be the organizers nor the performers of the September 11 attacks. They do not have the necessary organization, resources or leaders. Thus, a team of professionals had to be created and the Arab kamikazes are just extras to mask the operation.
The September 11 operation modified the course of events in the world in the direction chosen by transnational mafias and international oligarchs; that is, those who hope to control the planet's natural resources, the world information network and the financial flows. This operation also favored the US economic and political elite that also seeks world dominance.

The use of the term "international terrorism" has the following goals:

Hiding the real objectives of the forces deployed all over the world in the struggle for dominance and control;

Turning the people's demands to a struggle of undefined goals against an invisible enemy;

Destroying basic international norms and changing concepts such as: aggression, state terror, dictatorship or movement of national liberation;

Depriving peoples of their legitimate right to fight against aggressions and to reject the work of foreign intelligence services;

Establishing the principle of renunciation to national interests, transforming objectives in the military field by giving priority to the war on terror, violating the logic of military alliances to the detriment of a joint defense and to favor the anti-terrorist coalition;

Solving economic problems through a tough military rule using the war on terror as a pretext. In order to fight in an efficient way against international terrorism it is necessary to take the following steps:

To confirm before the UN General Assembly the principles of the UN Charter and international law as principles that all states are obliged to respect;

To create a geo-strategic organization (perhaps inspired in the Cooperation Organization of Shanghai comprised of Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan) with a set of values different to that of the Atlantists; to design a strategy of development of states, a system of international security, another financial and economic model (which would mean that the world would again rest on two pillars);

To associate (under the United Nations) the scientific elites in the design and promotion of the philosophical concepts of the Human Being of the 21st Century.

To organize the interaction of all religious denominations in the world, on behalf of the stability of humanity's development, security and mutual support.

[JohnyCanuck]

17. Deleted (duplicate post) /jc

[AntiFascist]

34. It's not such a black and white issue...

we pretty well know that there is overlap between Saudi intelligence and al Qaeda, and for certain that there are Pakistan ISI al Qaeda operatives. Turkey is also an important intermediary where heroin and nuclear technology meet cash. The US aids these sovereign nations through various intermediaries, so of course there is speculation that corruption in our own government is extending the threat of terror. The simple fact to keep in mind is that the threat of terror is keeping oil prices high, and the Saudies and big oil companies are profitting greatly from this, not to mention the war profiteers.

[Booster]

3. Well, they've got the biggest chump in the world to play with.

Wouldn't you want to play with Bush's brain?

[thunder rising]

5. Bin Laden's plan was to bankrupt us. Just like USSR. That was always the goal.

[Fredda Weinberg]

7. We're a young country that's fought since the beginning

History is relevant to your question - when you study international affairs, the US has gone from xenophobic to aggressively imperial in a few generations. 9/11 was yet another attempt to draw us into the conflicts we cannot avoid, but don't deal with. It's not the kind of fight our military is accustomed to and it shows. But we'll adapt ... because the threat is real.

The world is cruel spawner of desperate, angry people who see no innocents. Our prosperity is maintained at their expense and media exposes what they will never have. We don't offer to share any of our privileges. According to the culture in which I was raised, America is a decadent nation that will collapse because it doesn't value social ideals. Word: Britney. 'nuff said?

The horrible truth is that we've turned Iraq into our free fire zone, using our military as an open trap to tamp down their numbers. We're playing, but not on their terms. That would to invade the tribal areas of Pakistan ... the US has taken a strategically strong position.

[LuckyTheDog]

9. So, you think the Iraq war is a good idea?

That seems to be what you are saying here.

But all I see is a horribly expensive and corrupted military adventure that is draining U.S. resources, while providing zero in terms of national security or strategic advantage. We seem to be staying because 1) the right has convinced people that changing our strategy means admitting defeat and 2) some people are making a lot of money off the whole mess.

Every time al Qaeda makes a statement saying that Iraq is an "important battlefield," the right here says "well, if they say it's vital, then it must be vital, let's spend more money and lives." Then, the administration does just that -- with the support of Democrats in Congress.

Well, I, for one, am sick of letting a few guys in Pakistani caves lead us around by the nose and define our foreign policy goals. The U.S. should take back control and do what's smart. And the smart thing to do would be to end the Iraqi quagmire as best we can and use those resources for other purposes.

[Fredda Weinberg]

11. Me? I warned against invading Afghanistan ... but I have a

middle east perspective. None of us want Americans to live like Israelis, whose bags are searched every time they enter a shopping mall.

I wish it were a few guys in caves, but the movement that sustains them in those inhospitable places has been around a long time. Apparently, you still think you can ignore them safely.

[LuckyTheDog]

13. Ignore them?

I argued just the opposite. I merely states that the Iraqi fiasco isn't helping us, but IS helping al Qaeda's goal of making us weaker and strapped for resources.

But what do YOU suggest? That we stay in Iraq 100 years?

[Fredda Weinberg]

15. I support HRC, because there are fundamental principles she's

espoused that even fundamentalist muslims can agree with. 'It takes a village' could be something any prophet would preach.

To extricate ourselves from Iraq, to shore up the tribal authorities in Afghanistan, to reverse generations of lawlessness in a region where mankind has been warring for centuries ... I ran my model program and documented the results. But you can't hope to impose order on chaos overnight. I hope we'll stay in touch with each other as I continue work on my long term plan.

[LuckyTheDog]

38. PM me

I'd like to learn more about the model program.

[RC]

10. No deary, 9/11 was payback for previous atrocities we have done to them.

Blow-back to use the CIA term. We need to learn to stay out of the internal affairs of other countries. Can you imagen what would happen if the rest of the world started treating us, US as we treat them? Do you want a Chinese military base in your town? We act as if we have a right to force most of the rest of the world to do things our way. We do not.

[LuckyTheDog]

12. That was al Qaeda's excuse

But it was in no way a justifiable act. There are far more civilized ways to influence American foreign policy -- ways that don't include killing thousands of innocent people. We need to destroy al Qaeda. But continuing the Iraq fiasco isn't the way to do it.

[RC]

19. You don't understand - We created al Qaeda, funded them even at one time.

Maybe still do. The neo-cons needed an enemy. What better enemy than one you create yourself?

[JohnyCanuck]

30. The Jihad Schoolbook Scandal

The Jihad Schoolbook Scandal...

Why has the US been Shipping Muslim Extremist Schoolbooks into Afghanistan...for 20 Years?

And why is President Bush hiding it?

By Jared Israel


=======================================

Have you heard about the Afghan Jihad schoolbook scandal?

Or perhaps I should say, "Have you heard about the Afghan Jihad schoolbook scandal that's waiting to happen?"

Because it has been almost unreported in the Western media that the US government shipped, and continues to ship, millions of Islamist textbooks into Afghanistan.

Only one English-speaking newspaper we could find has investigated this issue: the Washington Post. The story appeared March 23rd. (1)

Washington Post investigators report that during the past twenty years the US has spent millions of dollars producing fanatical schoolbooks, which were then distributed in Afghanistan.

"The primers, which were filled with talk of jihad and featured drawings of guns, bullets, soldiers and mines, have served since then as the Afghan school system's core curriculum. Even the Taliban used the American-produced books..." -- Washington Post, 23 March 2002 (1)

According to the Post the U.S. is now "...wrestling with the unintended consequences of its successful strategy of stirring Islamic fervor to fight communism."

So the books made up the core curriculum in Afghan schools. And what were the unintended consequences? The Post reports that according to unnamed officials the schoolbooks "steeped a generation in violence."

How could this result have been unintended? Did they expect that giving fundamentalist schoolbooks to schoolchildren would make them moderate Muslims?

http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/jared/jihad.htm

[Fredda Weinberg]

14. Funny that you should mention Chinese ... they never scared me.

Somehow, feeding all those people, keeping a lid on their population ... every Chinese I've met goes back and forth happily and with optimism for the future.

Force? Yes, America has been blundering ... but the blow back wasn't for atrocities we committed on the USSR soldiers who fell into the hands of the mujahadin ... it's our continuing presence on holy soil.

So let's examine history, but start with facts. We don't need to re-learn isolationism ... it failed us in the last century and won't work now.

We cannot share our level of affluence but certainly should and will offer more. It may take generations, but our numbers are dwindling and that, by itself, will reduce the footprint.

I learned long ago not to focus on international law or rights ... they're less than they sound and can never be defined absolutely. We studied models for stability ... whether three super powers were necessary to maintain world peace or would two suffice. So I don't have to imagine your scenarios - it was on the curriculum.

[niceypoo]

18. Bin Laden said flat out a 911 was to be expected for US bases in Saudi Arabia

Bush http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/04/30/wsaud230.xml">met Bin Ladens main demand just as he attacked Iraq, coincidence?

Of course it is http://www.pbs.org/newshour/terrorism/international/fatwa_1996.html">all laid out in his 1996 fatwa which demands the US leave Saudi soil or face consequences.

[CJCRANE]

21. And after 9/11 Bush promptly removed

most of the US troops stationed in Saudi Arabia.

[CJCRANE]

20. The elites on both sides

are playing you all for chumps.

Some of the al-Qaeda foot-soldiers are genuine fundamentlaists but if you look at the financiers of al-Qaeda you'll see that they're Bush-Cheney allies who are all invested in the same companies as Bush-Cheney themselves.

The imams in allied ME countries are allowed to preach anti-American diatribes and RW pastors preach islamophobia in America...but where do America and the "jihadis" fight it out..?

...In Iraq which was a SECULAR (that means NON-religious) country which had no ties to 9/11 or islamic fundamentalism. American soldiers and the jihadis are just "cannon fodder units" to feed into the war machine in order to extract profits for this unholy neocon alliance of multinational corporate interests.

[Fredda Weinberg]

24. It may be hard to admit, but we are the

elites, as soon by the people who resent us ... not for our liberties, but our affluence. So the anger you direct is against us, not just corporate USA.

[CJCRANE]

28. The elites

are Bush's buddies who don't get out of bed for less than a billion dollars.

I don't buy the "poor muslims are jealous of American affluence" meme.

Before 9/11 and shock-and-awe I knew plenty of muslims who listened to Eminem and other rappers and bought into American culture. That was in the Clinton Era. Now after Gitmo and Abu Ghraib, not so much.

[Fredda Weinberg]

29. I can't follow your reasoning ... 9/11 happened, Eminem notwithstanding

And the problems we face today in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Egypt were brewing.

[CJCRANE]

32. My hunch is

that you're looking at this through the lens of Israel/Palestine and extrapolating this to America vs Al-Qaeda but I don't think the analogy holds.

Let's take 9/11 first. The hijackers were middle-class educated arabs who in their final months lived a decadent almost James Bond like lifestyle. The funding for their training and lifestyle allegedly came indirectly from foreign officials close to the Bush administration and family.

Recently it's come out that Philip Zelikow pressured the 9/11 Commission to mention a link between 9/11 and Iraq in their report. They refused but the media promoted that meme anyway. Then along comes "shock and awe" on Iraq, a country which had nothing to with 9/11.

Meanwhile with oil output from Iraq reduced and saber-rattling against Iran, the price of oil triples and Big Oil makes records profits. Halliburton, Blackwater etc score multibillion dollar no-bid military contracts in Iraq.

My second hunch is that you think the "war on terror" is somehow helping to protect Israel. But I believe you've been played for a chump as well. If you look at the facts: look at who's benefitted, look at how terrorism has actually increased massively in the Bush Era you will realise that Bush-Cheney's policies haven't made anyone safer.

[Fredda Weinberg]

42. Foreign officials? They are Wahabi Islamists ... that's not my

"perspective" ... it's the way things are.

I know it would be easy to dismiss me as wanting thing better for Israel, but I live here ... 9/11 happened while I was living in this city.

I see your agenda - but the threat is real and your explanations ring hollow.

[CJCRANE]

43. Hear me out

and you'll see I'm going towards a different conclusion than the one you're expecting.

Two people who are linked to the 9/11 money trail are the former Pakistani ISI chief and a Saudi princess who's husband is Poppy Bush's best buddy and taught Bush Junior about foreign policy.

Bush is the Petrodollar Candidate and Cheney is the MIC stooge. If you think they are looking out for American interests you are being swayed by their "appeal to emotion" and not the facts.

[Fredda Weinberg]

44. You're not telling me anything I didn't already know. But I'm a

first generation American who was raised cosmopolitan. I see global interests, not just our own. And you can't ignore the resentment factor ... I also happened to grow up in an urban slum and violence breeds there too.

[AntiFascist]

35. I have a feeling that the real 'elites' are people like the superdelegates...

the ones who make our decisions for us and will try to convince us over and over through the media that Hillary should be the candidate of choice. We blindly go along with it under the assumption that everything the media tells us must be true.

[leftofthedial]

23. the neocon corporatists are using "al Qaeda"

to play us for chumps.

It's the most lucrative congame in history.

Coming as this did from the people who brought us the first Gulf "war," the Savings and Loan theft, the BCCI Scandal, Iran Contra, Viet Nam, the Cold "War," and a l-o-n-g list of multi-billion or even -trillion-dollar cons, that's saying something.

[Fredda Weinberg]

25. And 9/11 was what, exactly? n/t

[leftofthedial]

27. mass murder

political carte blanche

with no real investigation and the crime scene destroyed I don't think anyone knows what it was, exactly.

[lutefisk]

31. What is the Chump in Chief's role in this con game?

I go back and forth between (1) believing that he understands exactly what's going on and has been knowingly (and clumsily) playing his part for the past 7 years and (2) believing that he is the greatest fool in modern history and that he too is being played by the real architects of the con.

[CJCRANE]

33. IMO

he has a vague idea of what's going on but is so intellectually lazy that he's happy just to say what he's told to say, receive the adulation from the born-agains and play with the big toys (Air Force One etc).

If you notice on 9/11, Cheney was in the bunker directing things but Bush was left out in the open in a potentially dangerous situation. This suggests to me that he was just a useful idiot needed to gain the WH but after that fairly dispensable. However the side benefit of Shrub is that he seems to be such an idiot that most people think the administration is incompetent (and not aware of Cheney's scheming behind the scenes).

[AntiFascist]

36. I agree totally...

people like Lou Dobbs only feed this idea, railing on and on about the incompetence of the administration without suggesting that there may be genuine corruption behind it all.

[leftofthedial]

41. useful idiot

I call him the hood ornament on the hummer of neoconservatism.

[leftofthedial]

40. he knows. it's his family business and has been for generations.

he's inept and bumbling and, like poppy, drugged into maleability and kept out of the way.

[Junkdrawer]

37. "Creating Terror": The History of al Qaeda....

One of the most important aspects of the War on Terror(tm) is often missed by our (ahem) impartial corporate media. DU's very own Reprehensor has done a great job gathering together a good deal of the work of Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed.

Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed was born in London, England in November 1978. He is of Bangladeshi origin. He is a political analyst and human rights activist, specialising in Western foreign policy and its impact on human rights. He is Executive Director of the Institute for Policy Research & Development (IPRD), an independent, interdisciplinary, non-profit think tank based in Brighton, UK. The IPRD conducts research and analysis of local and global society for the promotion of human rights, justice and peace. IPRD briefings and reports are distributed to political representatives, NGOs, various media, research libraries and members of the general public in the United Kingdom, the United States, Europe and Canada.
http://nafeez.mediamonitors.net/background.html

Nafeez recently did an hour long presentation titled "Creating Terror" where he examined the history of 'al Qaeda'. Here's a link to the MP3 of that speech:
ftp://www.radio4all.net/pub/files/[email protected]/2704-1-20070720-creating_terror_part1edited.mp3

I also recommend Reprehensor's great thread “Deconstructing ‘al Qaeda’":
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=1415451

[Orsino]

39. No, they're not playing us for chumps.

It's precisely because we're chumps, who elect and retain in power the worst sort of corrupt capitalist pigs, that they're playing at all. Our own laziness, ignorance and apathy prevent our ever mustering the will to fight al-Qaeda. We have people to do that for us, we think, so we blithely ignore the conflict.