by freedom96 7 Replies latest jw friends
It reminds me of when Bush declared after the 9/11 attacks, that "Either you are with us, or against us."
The Bush administration has long thought there are ties between Bin Ladens group and Al Zarqawi. Well, Zarqawi just answered that now, didn't he.
Wow, who would have guessed?
It amazes me that Laden?s people are found everywhere, even in South Florida, but "not in Iraq" according to some.
I think it demonstrates what the Iraq war has done to the war on terrorism.
Was Zarqawi a member of al Queda before? If he was, show me proof. Pledging allegience now does not prove the links go back prior to our attack on Iraq.
Due to the attack, occupation, and poor handling of Iraq, people in the region are sympathizing with al Queda. The world has become a more dangerous place because of George Bush and his rush to war.
I knew it was just a matter of time before someone tried to say that Bush caused the terrorist action in Iraq.
I believe a terrorist is a terrorist. Pure and simple.
Even President Chirac of France does not agree with the war in any way shape or form, but he to this point has refrained from joining Al Queda and Bin Laden.
Again, a terrorist is a terrorist. I don't care if they claim links or association to Al Queda or not. Their actions is what determines them. And they need to be dealt with harshly.
""Was Zarqawi a member of al Queda before?""
There are dozens of Jihadist groups in the Middle East, North Africa, Southeast Asia, and they're spreading to Europe and South America.
Al Qaeda translates as "the base," and needs to be thought of as such. The enemy is a network of Islamic fundamentalist groups and individuals and it matters not whether they attain formal membership in al Qaeda. Their goal of killing the infidels (us) both at home and abroad is all that matters.
Is Zarqawi a member of al Qaeda? I don't know and I don't care. He is part of the global jihad against the West and that's all we should care about.
However, for your benefit here are some points to consider:
* Spanish investigators have uncovered documents seized from Yusuf Galan -- who is charged by a Spanish court with being "directly involved with the preparation and planning" of the Sept. 11 attacks -- that show the terrorist was invited to a party at the Iraqi embassy in Madrid. The invitation used his "al Qaeda nom de guerre," London's Independent reports.
* An Iraqi defector to Turkey, known by his cover name as "Abu Mohammed," told Gwynne Roberts of the Sunday Times of London that he saw bin Laden's fighters in camps in Iraq in 1997. At the time, Mohammed was a colonel in Saddam's Fedayeen. He described an encounter at Salman Pak, the training facility southeast of Baghdad. At that vast compound run by Iraqi intelligence, Muslim militants trained to hijack planes with knives -- on a full-size Boeing 707. Col. Mohammed recalls his first visit to Salman Pak this way: "We were met by Colonel Jamil Kamil, the camp manager, and Major Ali Hawas. I noticed that a lot of people were queuing for food. (The major) said to me: 'You'll have nothing to do with these people. They are Osama bin Laden's group and the PKK and Mojahedin-e Khalq.'"
* In 1998, Abbas al-Janabi, a longtime aide to Saddam's son Uday, defected to the West. At the time, he repeatedly told reporters that there was a direct connection between Iraq and al Qaeda.
*The Sunday Times found a Saddam loyalist in a Kurdish prison who claims to have been Dr. Zawahiri's bodyguard during his 1992 visit with Saddam in Baghdad. Dr. Zawahiri was a close associate of bin Laden at the time and was present at the founding of al Qaeda in 1989.
* Following the defeat of the Taliban, almost two dozen bin Laden associates "converged on Baghdad and established a base of operations there," Mr. Powell told the United Nations in February 2003. From their Baghdad base, the secretary said, they supervised the movement of men, materiel and money for al Qaeda's global network.
* In 2001, an al Qaeda member "bragged that the situation in Iraq was 'good,'" according to intelligence made public by Mr. Powell.
* That same year, Saudi Arabian border guards arrested two al Qaeda members entering the kingdom from Iraq.
* Abu Musaab al-Zarqawi oversaw an al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan. His specialty was poisons. Wounded in fighting with U.S. forces, he sought medical treatment in Baghdad in May 2002. When Zarqawi recovered, he restarted a training camp in northern Iraq. Zarqawi's Iraq cell was later tied to the October 2002 murder of Lawrence Foley, an official of the U.S. Agency for International Development, in Amman, Jordan. The captured assassin confessed that he received orders and funds from Zarqawi's cell in Iraq. His accomplice escaped to Iraq.
*Zarqawi met with military chief of al Qaeda, Mohammed Ibrahim Makwai (aka Saif al-Adel) in Iran in February 2003, according to intelligence sources cited by the Washington Post.
* Mohammad Atef, the head of al Qaeda's military wing until the U.S. killed him in Afghanistan in November 2001, told a senior al Qaeda member now in U.S. custody that the terror network needed labs outside of Afghanistan to manufacture chemical weapons, "Where did they go, where did they look?" said the secretary. "They went to Iraq."
* Abu Abdullah al-Iraqi was sent to Iraq by bin Laden to purchase poison gases several times between 1997 and 2000. He called his relationship with Saddam's regime "successful,"
* Mohamed Mansour Shahab, a smuggler hired by Iraq to transport weapons to bin Laden in Afghanistan, was arrested by anti-Hussein Kurdish forces in May, 2000. He later told his story to American intelligence and a reporter for the New Yorker magazine.
* Documents found among the debris of the Iraqi Intelligence Center show that Baghdad funded the Allied Democratic Forces, a Ugandan terror group led by an Islamist cleric linked to bin Laden. According to a London's Daily Telegraph, the organization offered to recruit "youth to train for the jihad" at a "headquarters for international holy warrior network" to be established in Baghdad.
* Mullah Melan Krekar, ran a terror group (the Ansar al-Islam) linked to both bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. Mr. Krekar admitted to a Kurdish newspaper that he met bin Laden in Afghanistan and other senior al Qaeda officials. His acknowledged meetings with bin Laden go back to 1988. When he organized Ansar al Islam in 2001 to conduct suicide attacks on Americans, "three bin Laden operatives showed up with a gift of $300,000 'to undertake jihad,'" Newsday reported. Mr. Krekar is now in custody in the Netherlands. His group operated in portion of northern Iraq loyal to Saddam Hussein -- and attacked independent Kurdish groups hostile to Saddam. A spokesman for the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan told a United Press International correspondent that Mr. Krekar's group was funded by "Saddam Hussein's regime in Baghdad."
* After October 2001, hundreds of al Qaeda fighters are believed to have holed up in the Ansar al-Islam's strongholds inside northern Iraq.
I knew it was just a matter of time before someone tried to say that Bush caused the terrorist action in Iraq.
Well... If we hadn't invaded Iraq, Iraqi troops would not be attacking US troops. Iraqis were not car-bombing their own country before we invaded it. If it wasn't because of our invasion, you tell me why the attacks are happening in Iraq?
I believe a terrorist is a terrorist. Pure and simple.
Like the people in Boston who threw all that tea overboard and destroyed all that property? Or those that were attacking the occupying British. Were our forefathers terrorists? What is a terrorist to you?
Even President Chirac of France does not agree with the war in any way shape or form, but he to this point has refrained from joining Al Queda and Bin Laden.
We have not attacked his country. If we attacked his country and overthrew his government, I don't think it would be a stretch to say he might be sympathetic to a similar organization operating in Europe who was opposed to the enemy who destroyed his country.
Again, a terrorist is a terrorist. I don't care if they claim links or association to Al Queda or not. Their actions is what determines them. And they need to be dealt with harshly.
We have terrorists operating in our own country. Abortion clinics are bombed and doctors who perform abortions are killed. Some of the money to fund these groups traces back to religious organizations (who may or may not have been aware of who they were funding). I do not see them being dealt with harshly, though I agree bin Laden is a greater threat.
I heard a few weeks ago that something like 75% of republicans think Saddam was involved in 9-11. Vice president Cheney said (after being pressed) that he was aware of no ties. Bush has said the same. Rumsfeld said there was no hard evidence.
We went into Iraq claiming they had weapons of mass destruction. They did not. We accused them of something they were not guilty of. Something inspectors could find no evidence of. We turned their country upside-down. We killed countless civilians.
How would you like it if the government said you had drugs. They get a warrant, search your house, find nothing. But the police cheif doesn't believe them. Instead of leaving you alone, he orders the police to barge in, because he "knows" you have drugs. They shoot a few members of your family, they arrest your father. Then they post guards in your house for several weeks. Do you call this justice? Do you think, if somebody else had been complaining about that police chief, your family might now find a newfound respect for that opposition. Even if that opposition was radical and violent? And what about your neighbors? They knew you and lived next to you. Maybe they don't like this sort of thing happening in their neighborhood. Think they might turn against the police chief too?
These people are Muslims. al Queda is preaching a holy war against us. The more we cause trouble for Muslims in that region, the more sympathetic they will be for al Queda. The best case would have been not attacking Iraq in the first place. Now that it's done, I don't know of an easy way out of the mess. I believe that one way may to win over their hearts. I don't think Bush can ever do that. Not after starting the mess in the first place. Maybe with new leadership (even if it weren't Bush but another republican), Iraq may settle down.
jws
A fine analogy of the Police chief and the drugs!
Absolutely true that al-zarqawi is a terror chief with followers,but its true that there must be 10 times as many terrorists in Iraq now just bursting to take on America!Also those who arent terrorists can with some justification be called Resistance Fighters.Gung-ho and xenophobic Neo cons who stopped to think once in a while,may just realise this....
Maybe even the President!
""Abortion clinics are bombed and doctors who perform abortions are killed. Some of the money to fund these groups traces back to religious organizations ""
Wow, what a rationalization, this is a similar cases fallacy. In fact, RICO laws have address organizations that have been proved to fund terror of this type. Your "mitigating" reasons for opposing Iraq is quite simplistic.
Even if this was not the case, two wrongs does not make a right make.
""We went into Iraq claiming they had weapons of mass destruction. They did not. ""
1. Have you read the latest news that the WMD could have went to Syria?
2. The whole world, including the UN, never disputed the world intelligence on WMD.
3. Before the US went into Iraq, Bush gave a great speach at the UN outlining, not only our concern of WMD, but also doing it for human right issues too. Look it up....
""These people are Muslims. al Queda is preaching a holy war against us. The more we cause trouble for Muslims in that region, the more sympathetic they will be for al Queda.""
This is what the Terrorists are hoping for.....And some, are falling right into their propaganda.
The fact is, Geo-politically, the invasion of Iraq was brilliant. Now, the US can launch operations in this part of the world...
Watch "Team America, World Police" and then call me in the morning.....
