Posted on 10/13/2005 12:38:22 AM PDT by Jim Robinson
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RUSH: Here's some highlights from the Zarqawi letter, just to give you a little upside in a word-for-word idea of this letter that we have seized. This is "a letter to his top deputy in Iraq, al-Qaida's No. 2 leader said the United States 'ran and left their agents' in Vietnam and the jihadists must have a plan ready to fill the void if the Americans suddenly leave Iraq." Now, you know, as you read the letter you find so many references to the same criticisms that the left makes about this war here in this country. Says Ayman al-Zawahiri in a letter to Abu Mussab Zarqawi, "Things may develop faster than we imagine. The aftermath of the collapse of American power in Vietnam -- and how they ran and left their agents -- is noteworthy. ... We must be ready starting now. It has always been my belief that the victory of Islam will never take place until a Muslim state is established ... in the heart of the Islamic world," said al-Zawahri.
"The letter laid out his long-term plan: expel the Americans from Iraq, establish an Islamic authority and take the war to Iraq's secular neighbors, including Lebanon, Jordan and Syria. The final stage, al-Zawahri wrote, would be a clash with Israel, which he said was established to challenge 'any new Islamic entity.' The letter is dated July 9, and was acquired during U.S. operations in Iraq. It was written in Arabic and translated by the U.S. government. The Pentagon briefed reporters last week on portions of the document, but the full text was not available until," yesterday. "In his letter, al-Zawahri, a Sunni, devoted significant attention to al-Zarqawi's attempts to start a civil war with the rival Muslim Shiite sect, the majority that now dominates the new Iraqi government. Ultimately, al-Zawahri concluded that violence, particularly against Shiite mosques, only raises questions among Muslims. 'This matter won't be acceptable to the Muslim populace however much you have tried to explain it, and aversion to this will continue.'" Stop blowing up Muslims! Stop blowing up the Shi'ites and the mosques. It ain't going to happen. We're not going to persuade them to join us if you do that. "Al-Zawahri was also critical of the Taliban, which was toppled in ... Afghanistan, because, he said, they did not have the representation of the Afghan people. He said students of the Taliban retreated to their tribes. 'Even the devout ones took the stance of spectator,' al-Zawahri wrote," and, see, folks, this is key. This is one of the reasons why I believe that this letter is genuine. They haven't had a state. They've tried in two -- well, maybe three -- separate places to establish an Islamic state, not just a nation of Muslims, but a state in their image. They tried it first in Somalia, and then they went to Sudan, and what Afghanistan was all about was taking over that country.
If you look at bin Laden's movements, he always ended up in stateless countries where there really wasn't much of a government at all to try to establish this mythical militant Islamic state. But the Taliban never went along with it and he's also saying the Taliban didn't have the representation of the Afghan people. That's what they're trying to do in Iraq, through intimidation and blowing them up and blowing up the mosques and causing all kinds of havoc and hell. They're trying to get the people of Iraq to surrender and peacefully accept a militant Islamic state. This whole letter makes the case exactly as Bush has laid it out. As Bush has laid it out, this letter practically word-for-word illustrates that what we're being told about it is true.
"At times, the letter got personal. Al-Zawahri said he tasted the bitterness of America's brutality, noting that his 'favorite wife's chest was crushed by a concrete ceiling' during an apparent U.S. attack. His daughter died of a cerebral hemorrhage." That would be his "favorite wife's chest," but he at least had other wives and other chests to visit and explore. "The letter then switches to the court of public opinion. 'More than half of this battle is taking place in the battlefield of the media,' he wrote. 'We are in a media battle in a race for the hearts and minds of our umma,'" the people. "The line is an apparent reference to a phrase -- 'hearts and minds' -- often used by President Bush." We're in a battle, media battle? Well, it's obvious they know that. It's obvious they know how to play the American media. I mean, it's classic. Vietnam. I know, Vietnam references and all, it is classic. It's literally just classic.
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RUSH: Here's Bob in San Ramon, California. Welcome, sir.
VOICE: Hey, Rush, thank you so much for taking my call. I've been listening to you since '88 in Sacramento, and you've changed my life.
RUSH: Well, thank you, sir, very much.
CALLER: I just want to say hello to my dad who is right there in Mount Prospect and he listens to you every day, he's like 84 years old and loves you. I just wanted to comment on this thing going on in Iraq with Zarqawi. This memo is just incredible. I mean, he states what he's going to do, which is kill everybody first, then kill the Shi'ites, then let's go establish a caliphate, and then go out and take Syria and Lebanon -- and I want to ask you what information you might have on how we disseminate this to the population in Iraq. I mean, as a democracy it seems to me that they're voting very well. I mean, this guy actually shows his befuddlement. In fact, Zarqawi sort of reminds me of that famous lost Indian tribe. But I was looking for your comments on how we're doing in disseminating this kind of information to the population in Iraq.
RUSH: I couldn't tell you. I have no idea if we're doing it. I don't know that we're going to do it, and if we do it, I don't know how, unless we overrun and overtake al-Jazeera. I'm sure that there are going to be some efforts made, but that's a good question, because it is a golden opportunity. It's obviously been disseminated in the US media, and it's getting its fair amount of coverage here on the cable networks today, but the pamphlet drop? There are local newspapers that are publishing over there, and everybody has cell phones -- not everybody, 3-1/2 million cell phone subscribers. There's any number of ways to spread the word. Another interesting thing about this: Here you've got Syria, Lebanon and Jordan who have just been placed in the crosshairs by Zawahiri. "Hey look, Abu, when you finish wiping everybody out, you wipe out Iraq and you set up our militant Islamic government, next we're going to take out Syria, then we're going to take out Jordan, and we're going to take out Lebanon, and that's what we've got to do." Okay, so what's old Bashar Assad think about this when he finds out he's going to be in the crosshairs? King Abdullah? And, by the way, there's been another execution-suicide in Lebanon (story).
I say "execution-suicide" because the #2 guy in the government over there "killed himself" (a-hem) getting too close to the identity of the people that killed that very popular leader some six or seven months ago. I've always looked at the Middle East region since we got into Iraq as something that's undergoing a great metamorphosis and change, and this letter indicates the problem they've got. They don't trust Syria anymore, and they certainly don't trust Lebanon, and they're not going to trust Jordan. These are all so-called secularist countries there, meaning they're not Islamic, and can't have that. So just as the United States is trying to establish a beachhead of freedom in Iraq, the Al-Qaeda crew recognizes how devastating that would be to their cause, and rather than just beat us out of there, kick us out of there, and force us to leave, and to get as many people as possible thinking this is just like Vietnam, they want to set up their own state in Iraq. So it's going to be very tough for a serious Democrat to say, "Yeah, we gotta get out," but, that's exactly what their left-wing base is demanding that they say. So all these problems, folks, that you keep hearing, that the administration has, fear not. The left is clueless. They don't have the slightest idea how to take advantage of this other than in a legal way, and that's not nearly enough to get them back to the power that they so desperately seek.
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That's the first set of questions that came to my mind too after I read the letter. I don't know what either will do, but I do know this, it won't gain any ground for Al-Qaeda if either Assad or King Abdullah decide to do the right thing, and turn against Al-Qaeda.
What? Harriet Miers is a bigger threat to the USofA than Al Qeada. Did you get the memo? /sarcasm
"Zawahiri's Letter to Zarqawi Proves Left Clueless"
I agree.
The silence from the DNC, will be deafening. Although, Hillary & Co will have to dance on this greased pig...publicly.
This letter gives more proof that we are winning in Iraq. The MSM spins, spins & spins, right along with the DU types. They are clueless as the two Z's mentioned in the letter. You can get better information about the situation in Iraq from the Mil blogs than you can get from the likes of the twin Slime newspapers in NY and LA. There is one thing President Bush will not back down on, the WOT. I only wish he would have the same backbone about the SCOTUS. After all Senators don't shoot people, literally at least, but terrorists do.
If you check out the comments for that blog entry someone from CENTCOM posts CENTCOM's commentary on the letter. Again, interesting.
pinging
Well, and say this with great trepidation, my first response is to wonder about the authenticity of the memo. I remember my Mom telling me that when something sounds too good to be true it's probably not true. This is the second time in a year or so that a memo has been 'intercepted' that couldn't be better for our difficult times in the war if it had been written by the President or Carl Rove.
Don't bother sending me tin foil, I have plenty but haven't had the time to fashion it into a hat. Too busy looking for conspiracies!
Just a thought.
During my last meeting with Andropov, he said, wisely, "now all we have to do is to keep the Vietnam-era anti-Americanism alive." Andropov was a shrewd judge of human nature. He understood that in the end our original involvement would be forgotten, and our insinuations would take on a life of their own. He knew well that it was just the way human nature worked.Follow the link and read the whole article! That old KGB boss had the system down, in the Vietnam era already. Ion wrote this article for National Review during the al-Ker'ry's Presidential campaign, early in '04, by the way.
Author Ion Mihai Pacepa was acting chief of Romania's espionage service and national-security adviser to the country's president. He is the highest-ranking intelligence officer ever to have defected from the former Soviet bloc.
Some things never change....
Nineteen bombers with briefcases. Women with baby strollers.
The hoaxers and the gullible pundits are giving media spin a bad name!
You are right, they need only to create a sense of unease to get us all terrorized.
Yes the authorities need to issue alerts but giving specific details such as 19 bombers with briefcases, women with baby strollers is just ridiculous.
And then to see the police officers peering into backpacks looking for bombs?
Can you imagine anything more dangerous to the officer?
The media can praise Blooming-idiot but I don't see it quite that way.
That was my initial thought. This reminds me of the manufactured Bin Laden (?) tape that came out right before the election, that was clearly made in a studio in North America with all of Michael Moore's talking points addressed. Where is Dan Rather when you need him?
Actually, I don't think the left is clueless, I think they knowingly support the terrorists, becaue they have the same goal: destruction of the "imperialist US".
Here we have a letter written on July 9, two days AFTER the London bombings, and there is no reference to London. This guy is in a cave, completely incommunicado, and also reduced to begging for money from a minion.
Another attack on US soil? I don't think so, not from these guys. If you take into account that we were attacked to begin with because of a profound lack of respect, that respect has been restored by the willingness of our soldiers to stand and die in Iraq. In other words, the precondition for the attack has been eliminated. Any future attack on American soil will have to come from a different group, with an entirely different goal in mind. Note that they now hang their hat on the Vietnam model, instead of Mogadishu. Their only hope now lies with the American media.
Wars are fought both on strategic and psychological battlefields, and the psychological battle has been won. The jihad will not dare stick its hand in the same hornet's nest again, as they now know the consequences will be dire. They attacked us in order to draw us into Afghanistan, where they believed they would defeat us as they had the Russians. They never envisioned the consequence that the Great Satan would also eliminate their fall-back plan by taking out Saddam. At precisely the moment that our media was mocking the lack of "shock and awe" on the Iraqi front, shock and awe was what the al-Qaeda command structure was feeling while cowering in their cave.
There is no better justification for the Iraq war than what is revealed by our enemy in this letter.
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