Linking Al-Qaida and Iraq

townhall.com ^ | 3/17/04 | Jonah Goldberg

[kattracks]

As it becomes increasingly clear that al-Qaida was responsible for the horrific attacks in Madrid, one question keeps popping up: If there's no link between 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq, why did al-Qaida blow up those trains?

Critics of the Iraq war have been saying for more than two years that there was never any al-Qaida-Saddam link. After all, they'd say, Saddam is secular and bin Laden is a religious fanatic. When Howard Dean was trotted out for last Sunday's "Meet the Press" to square off against Condoleezza Rice, the former Vermont governor rehashed the familiar complaint.

[dead]

Iraq is currently the primary battleground in the war on terrorism.

The Bush Adminstration knows it. The terrorists know it.

The only people who seem unable to grasp this obvious fact are 70% of the Spanish electorate, all liberal eurinals, all liberal Americans, and 95% of the press in Europe and the United States.

You can hit some mules upside the head with a 2x4, and they still won't get the message.

[Spruce]

USMC went hand-to-hand with the jihadis for almost 5 miles. No casualties. Enemy destroyed. I don't think the American public, let alone the planet, realizes the massive quantities of sheer ass-kicking our forces enflicted on the best the jihadis, with Iraqi-regular help, put forth. Not the war on Terror, my ass. No AQ. So what. It's all the same. These Assh*les attacked us.

I'd rather be a free patriot than a stupid trog praying to a friggin meteor by force.

[Ramius]

Of course, Saddam's Iraq was a "State Sponsor of Terrorism". To suggest otherwise is hopelessly naive.

The best parallel to the fight against terrorism was the fight a couple of hundred years ago against the Barbary Pirates. Piracy was a then global problem, and it was fought by going after the state sponsors of piracy.

Once the states were either subdued or otherwise convinced to stop supporting piracy at sea, piracy died out as an ongoing global problem. Does that mean that piracy no longer happens? Of course not. Was the "war on piracy" actually won? Yes. It does not happen on the scale or to the effect that it did then. It is relegated to a minor nuisance for most shipping companies.

Someday terrorism will take a similar route. As a tactic, it will not likely ever be done away with. But once the state sponsors are gone or otherwise subdued, then it will fall away to be a mere nuisance and not a national priority anymore.

[Congressman Billybob]

Do not underestimate the scale of the attacks of the Barbary Pirates. I have read that the US was paying one-fifth of its total national budget as "tribute" to the pirates to leave our ships alone. That was just before Congress made the decision to stop paying the blackmail, and attack the pirates militarily.

Another parallel then to now is that the European powers refused to join with the US in attacking the pirates. They preferred to continue paying their ransoms (which were proportionally less than ours), rather than go to war. So, then as now, the US was largely on its own in solving what was a grobal problem.

Congressman Billybob

Click here, then click the blue CFR button, to join the anti-CFR effort (or visit the "Hugh & Series, Critical & Pulled by JimRob" thread). Please do it now.

[Consort]

[Humidston]

"They preferred to continue paying their ransoms."

Ah, but what if they were involved in RECEIVING payoffs? Maybe a more malevolent force is at work here?

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1095579/posts

[dasboot]

Spain Votes in Election After Attacks

Posted by dasboot to Unam Sanctam On News/Activism 03/14/2004 5:32:49 AM EST #10 of 71

*reported al-Qaida claim that it staged the Madrid rail bombings to punish the government for supporting the U.S.-led war in Iraq.*

Hey! Wait: why would Osama give a bin Laden about the war in Iraq......? (Socialist press "oops" . No useful idiot will notice, though.)

Thanks, JG!