Posted on 07/28/2005 3:29:20 PM PDT by bitt
June 29 - Just in case anyone was reaching for the remote, President George W. Bush hit his keynote as early as he could while still being polite. After thanking the troops at Fort Bragg, N.C., on Tuesday night, the first two lines of his speech were blindingly simple. “The troops here and across the world are fighting a global war on terror,” he said. “The war reached our shores on September the 11th, 2001.”
In other words: forget about the Downing Street memos and Colin Powell’s now discredited speech at the United Nations. This is one war, against one enemy, making Iraq simply a continuation of the hunt for Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan. Or, as Bush put it, “Iraq is the latest battlefield in this war.” He might as well have stood in front of a picture of the Twin Towers.
It’s easy to see why this approach is so attractive to the White House. The president’s response to 9/11 remains a potent memory in public opinion. So potent that it still drives the only positive numbers in the president’s performance ratings. Bush has disapproval ratings of more than 50 percent on the economy, energy and health care, according to the latest Gallup poll. On Iraq, 58 percent disapprove of his handling of the war. But on terrorism, the president has maintained the support of the people: 55 percent approve of his performance.
There are only three major problems with Bush’s latest attempt to tie Iraq to 9/11. One is political, another personal, yet another is practical.
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
Shameful and nearly unlawful.
ping-able
Not gonna bother. It doesn't look like anyone is reading Newsweak anyhow.
These idiots put a great many people in danger with their foolish "Koran in the toilet" story, which was irresponsible and wrong. They are not qualified to comment any further.
Regards, Ivan
Newsweak morons continue to work like termites to undermine the USA. Everything in this article is 'spun' to create a negative impression upon the reader. These scumbags are not Americans, no matter how much they may protest otherwise - they are allies of the Islamo-fascists.
Connect the dots Saddam and Bin Laden.....
http://www.archive-news.net/Articles/SH040923.html
http://www.archive-news.net/Articles/SH040923.pdf
God I luv internet archives...........
http://tinyurl.com/ctl8s
Iraq Tempts Bin Laden To Attack West
The Herald
By Ian Bruce
December 28, 1999
The world's most wanted man, Osama bin Laden, has been offered sanctuary in
Iraq if his worldwide terrorist network succeeds in carrying out a campaign of
high-profile attacks on the West over the next few weeks.
Intelligence sources say the Saudi dissident believed responsible for the
bombings of American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania and a US military
barracks in Saudi Arabia in 1998, is running out of options for a safe haven.
He is now thought to have overcome his initial rejection of Saddam Hussein,
whom he regarded as an exploiter of the Islamic cause rather than a true
believer, and is considering the offer of a bolt-hole from which he can
continue to mastermind terrorism on a global scale.
A US counter-terrorist source said yesterday: "Our State Department issued a
worldwide warning on December 11. We have solid information that many of the
groups operating under bin Laden's patronage are planning 'spectaculars' to
coincide with the period leading up to and through the millennium
celebrations.
"They want to inflict maximum loss of life in return for publicity. Now we are
also facing the prospect of an unholy alliance between bin Laden and Saddam.
The implications are terrifying.
"We might be looking at the most wanted man on the FBI's target list gaining
access to chemical, biological or even nuclear weapons courtesy of Iraq's
clandestine research programmes."
The US intelligence community has been squeezing bin Laden's finances steadily
for several years. His personal fortune of anything up to £500m has been
whittled down to single figures, although funds continue to flow into the
coffers of his Al Qaeda - Arabic for "The Base" - organisation from wealthy
individuals in the Middle East.
These include members of the Saudi royal family opposed to American
involvement in the region and rich businessmen in the Gulf States hoping to
buy themselves immunity if bin Laden's Islamic revolution ever manages to
overthrow their governments.
But the bulk of his income comes from acting as middleman and fixer for the
Afghan opium producers. According to the United Nations, Afghanistan supplies
75% of the world's opium and its heroin derivatives in a narcotics' trade
worth an estimated £4bn to £6bn a year.
The Taleban religious fanatics who control 85% of Afghanistan need the cash to
fund their never-ending civil wars. They gave bin Laden refuge because he had
connections with the Chechen and Russian mafias and their access to
money-laundering in the West.
According to Middle Eastern intelligence sources, bin Laden rakes off anything
up to £500m a year from his pivotal role in the drugs' trade. It is more than
enough to underwrite the cost of mujahideen training camps in Afghanistan,
Pakistan and Sudan and the provision of weapons for bin Laden's personal war
against the US and its allies.
Up to 20 Islamic extremist groups operate under the loose control of Al Qaeda.
They include Algeria's GSPC, responsible for the casual murder of civilians in
the country's Kabylie region, and a network for recruiting Muslim volunteers
to fight in the Balkans and Chechnya.
Al Qaeda's tentacles spread across Europe and the Middle East, including the
United Kingdom. Up to 2000 young Muslims a year were enlisted in Britain
between 1995 and 1998 to fight militant Islam's cause.
They received basic survival and unarmed combat training in Britain, and were
then flown to various camps in Yemen, Pakistan, and Afghanistan to be
instructed in the use of firearms and explosives. A few were involved in
combat in the latter stages of the Bosnian conflict.
The spread of bin Laden's influence has spawned some strange alliances.
Israel's Mossad agency is currently helping the Russians identify known
fundamentalist militants in Chechnya. British, Italian and US agents
reportedly co-operated with Slobodan Milosevic's regime to root out veterans
of the 1979-89 Afghan-Russia war while they were themselves on opposite sides
in Bosnia.
The Americans have also resorted to hi-tech destabilisation. Various agencies
inserted "sniffer" software programmes into the banking systems of Europe and
the Middle East from the mid-1990s onwards.
These were targeted on known or suspected accounts for bin Laden's front men
in Holland, Britain, Switzerland, Italy, the US and the Caribbean.
When large amounts of cash were moved around, the programmes flagged up the
transactions. Computer experts then transferred or deleted the cash
electronically to starve Al Qaeda of funding.
Bin Laden has almost outstayed his welcome in Afghanistan. Despite the
Taleban's public declaration of protection for a "guest", the regime is
suffering from international sanctions as long as it harbours him.
The Americans have a continually updated plan for a special forces' team to
snatch him from his mountain lair in the Hindu Kush.
But they look back to a Soviet raid in the same area in April, 1986, when
three battalions of elite Spetznaz commandos went in after a local Afghan
commander. Few came back.
Bin Laden is understood to have selected Yemen, his father's birthplace, as a
first alternative. But the Yemenis could not protect him from the wrath of the
West or Saudi Arabia. Chechnya was his second choice, but the province is
being ground under Russia's military jackboot.
That leaves Iraq, and the potential for an alliance which would be everyone
else's nightmare.
Well, obviously Clinton was President then...
bump
Good post, bitt. We should watch what is being written out there in LoonyVille.
Char :)
""In other words: forget about the Downing Street memos and Colin Powell’s now discredited speech at the United Nations. ""
How about this: In other words: forget about nick berg, 3000 human beings slaughtered on 11 Sept, decades of terrorist attacks against Americans, hundreds of thousands of muslims slaughtered at the hands of the dictators hussein, mutant medieval thugs, and on and on and on.........
Newspeak can go to hell - useless rag.......
I had a lefty friend who had a 'taking the center of the board' chess analogy for why he thought we went in Iraq. I didn't get it at first. Upon further reflection, he may be right. What better place to concentrate both our efforts and their efforts in this global confrontation? Analogous to Bush's "Taking the war to them" speach...Didn't Sun Tzu say something about if you know you have to fight the next most important things to decide are when and where to fight?
Newsweak still publishes 51 issues too many each year.
nice work.
Clintoon and his 'advisors' left us open to terrorism, and that's that. Most Americans wish that the leftys and the MSM would just shut up and do something helpful.
I only see these rags (Time, Newsweak) in offices now, and if emplooyees would make a stink about the ludictous costs and bias, maybe the bosses would send back a statement saying "Cancelled due to disinterest in your agendae".
Bunch of losers won't drop the propaganda.
Pathetic.
To prove Willie's involvement (that's the evidence Berger was destroying) is to implicate Hillie. The leftists back Hillie and must block/hide anything that might hurt her chances with the normal voters (the dem voters are too stupid to decide for themselves). Attacking W draws attention from Willie. That is one reason that an honest investigation of UN corruption is so important. If Volker dug deep enough, he'd find Willie (or his pardon buying surrogates) at the same trough as the UN thieves.
Mark Rich, etc?
I agree with you...why the investigation is taking so long, tho, is beyond me..
we all could have completed this in say, 90 days...
Can the two numbnuts who wrote this piece mischaracterize reality and history any more?
I mean really.
Worthless a-holes...I already have one.
FMCDH(BITS)
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