An interesting read from Deroy Murdock.
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Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
You cannot love your country only when you win.
So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.
You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.
It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.
Jack Smith: “Why did you start campaigning in the middle of my investigation?!”
Do we throw up our hands or do we roll up our sleeves? (hint, it’s door #2)
Alternative history is always a weak argument. Always.
Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.
Dead end MAGA boomers crying about Talyor Swift being a Dem is my kind of music. Turn it up.
Boeing: repeatedly making the case for high speed rail.
Polls are now a reliable indicator of what corporate Republicans want us to think.
… pundit janitors mopping up after the gop
The low info voters probably won’t even notice or remember by their next lap around the goldfish bowl.
Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.
Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.
New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.
fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)
Second rate reporter says what?
Oppose, oppose, oppose. Do not congratulate. This is not business as usual.
Hey hey, RFK, how many kids did you kill today?
We won’t go back.
If you are still in the gop, you are either an extremist yourself, or in bed with those who are.
If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!
My right to basic bodily autonomy is not on the table. that’s the new deal.
You are here: Home / Politics / War on Terror / War on Terror aka GSAVE® / Oh- Those Terrorist Connections
Andrew Lazarus
The stuff about Iraqi support for Palestinian terrorists is spot on. (Our friends in Riyadh also pay families of suicide bombers—”homicide” bomber is a ridiculous shibboleth.) I’m skeptical if that was worth a war.
The stuff about Iraq and Osama is speculative or positively refuted. All of the info we got from INC defectors is junk. (New link on this here.)
John Cole
I am not asserting, nor never have, that there isa direct connection between Saddam and Osama. However, terrorist networks are loose connections of affiliates, and it would not surprise me at all if somehow there is a loose connection. Regardless, I really don;t make a qualitative judgment regarding terorists. They all need to be stomped out, whethere they be Hamas, the Earth Liberation front, Al Qaeda, the Black Hand, or Ansr Al-Islam.
Andrew Lazarus
I’d expect the Ulster Volunteers are not unpopular in your part of the country…
In some sense I’m sure there’s a loose association, but only in the sense that intelligence agencies have loose associations. (I have little doubt our CIA station chief in X knows who his Russian and Chinese counterpart is and vice versa.) But planning or materiel transfer between Osama and Saddam? No evidence, and most unlikely, on their different views of the ideal Arab state.
Dean
Andrew,
What were the major issues in the Middle East region prior to the recent Gulf War?
1. Sanctions on Iraq. For better or worse, the Iraqi sanctions were a great piece of propaganda for not just Saddam, but anyone who disliked our presence. Why the sanctions? B/c, like it or not, everyone EVERYONE believed Hussein had WMD.
2. Our troops in Saudi. Again, whether we chose to act on this directly or not, our presence in the land of Mecca and Medina was inflammatory (yes, partly b/c of the Saudis’ own attitudes). And they were there b/c of Saddam Hussein (notice there were no US troops in Saudi prior to August ’90).
3. The Arab-Israeli conflict. Which wasn’t helped by $25K per suicider. From Saddam.
At this point, all three of those thorns are blunted—no more sanctions, no more troops (soon) in Saudi, and a lot less financial remuneration for suiciders.
None of which presumes that Osama and Hussein were in cahoots. But notice that those three items I listed above? They were all listed in Osama’s justification tapes for 9-11.
Kimmitt
We replaced three problems on low simmer with one problem on a rolling boil. We didn’t jump out of the frying pan and into the fire; we mortgaged our children to leap into a fusion bomb.
Dean
Kimmitt:
Osama’s points about 9-11 should appeal to you. After all, isn’t it important to understand “WHY THEY HATE US?”
I actually take what he said at some value. The American presence in Saudi was not simmering, unless you consider a pot’s contents all over the stove as “simmering.” And iirc, it was the Left that was shrieking about how it was necessary to end the sanctions, b/c mill-ee-yuns and mill-ee-yuns of Iraqi children were dying every day/week/month and this was poisoning the region against us.
Neither of those were going to happen if Saddam were in power.
But maybe you think of 9-11, as a reaction to the wrong American policies, as the results of a “low simmer”?
BTW, if the press is correct, and Saudi and Pakistan really DO exchange nuke tech for oil, what will be your response? This was Dubya’s fault? It’s only a low simmer?
David Perron
“…we mortgaged our children to leap into a fusion bomb.”
Wrong on both counts, Kimmitt. And it’s convenient where you pick to draw the line across which it’s “mortgaging our children”. BTW, do you actually HAVE any children, or are you once again speaking on behalf of a mythical someone else?
Kimmitt
But Dean, how could Clinton possibly have kept up the sanctions if portions of the Left called for their removal? I thought he was owned by (insert perjorative here) The Chinese/The Socialists/The Feminazis/The America-Hating Left/Saddam Hussein/bin Laden .
Dean
Kimmitt:
Nice non-answer.
Point still stands, the sanctions were a source of regional discontent w/ us. Whether they could have been kept in place much longer was certainly open to question (as was how much longer).
And since that was probably supported by YOUR political allies, YOU can answer how the Left would’ve removed Saddam, since they were going to back the removal of sanctions as well.
Andrew Lazarus
Dean, the Iraqi sanctions question was pretty complicated, and I haven’t had time to sort out my opinions, which changed over time. The other two points you bring up don’t seem to me to work in your favor.
1. Yeah, we are pulling troops out of Saudi Arabia. It sure looks to me that we are quietly ACCEDING to one of Osama’s demands. If Clinton were doing this, you know (don’t you?) that we would be hearing about how giving in to Osama would only encourage him? Not calm things down, as you suggest? Now, sometimes you have to do what’s right anyway, for example I wish the Israeli Government would institute an immediate settlement freeze, but one reason they don’t is not wanting the Palestinian terrorists to think this is an accomplishment of their terror campaign. Which brings me to
2. The $25,000 (I don’t think all received such large amounts) is, I am sad to say, really NOT the motivation for the suicide bombers. And its removal (assuming it is not made up by the Saudis, who also pay these dishonoraria) will not stop the suicide bombings. Obscene as the idea is, Saddam’s principal motivation for giving his money was probably to share in the reflected honor (!) that the “shaheeds” have in most of the Arab world, in the way that the MacArthur Foundation draws honor from the recipients of its awards. Saddam wasn’t giving the money on the theory that without it the bombings would wane (they might, but only for unrelated security developments IN ISRAEL), any more than the Macarthur Foundation thinks art and ballet would stop without their awards.
Dean
Gee, Andrew, we’re pulling our troops out of Europe and have been since 1991. Guess that just proves we’re conceding to the USSR, huh?
Please, if you’re going to spin, have a little rationality to it?
What were we doing in Saudi? Protecting the Saudi family from al-Qaeda? If so, then yes, we’re acceding to Osama’s wishes. But we were there to forestall an Iraqi invasion (you remember, 1990-1991?). Mission accomplished, time to go.
Withdrawing in ’96, Khobar Towers, that WOULD’VE been acceding to Osama’s wishes, and would’ve drawn condemnation. But if we withdrew after toppling Saddam in ’98 (Operation Desert Fox w/ teeth), then no, you WOULDN’T be hearing that this was caving to Saddam.
As for the $25K, no one is arguing that the only reason these people are suiciding is because of that sum of money. But Palestinian families w/ only one child are able to withhold them from the suicide campaign, on the ground that they have no means of support. Those w/ more than one kid, OTOH, seem to view this as partial compensation. Is it the SOLE factor? Only if YOU say so, I guess.
Is it A factor in their calculus? Absolutely.
As for your comparison of Saddam and MacArthur awards, keep in mind, it works both ways. MacArthur benefits, but it’s not like it’s a pittance or an irrelevancy to the winners. Ditto for the Palestinian families, for whom $25K is several years’ income.
Andrew Lazarus
AFAIK, Saddam didn’t demand our troops out of Saudi Arabia (at least, not loundly). Oaama did. And we’re withdrawing our troops from Saudi Arabia not after the Khobar Towers but after the WTC. Iraq is in no way a counterweight. Eliminating Saddam was not a defeat for Osama; they didn’t get along; Osama got no tactical assistance from the Iraqis; indeed the Iraq situation is GOOD for Osama as a recruiting tool and as a staging grounds for anti-American attacks. We’ve had troops protecting the Saudi oil fields as far back as the second Roosevelt Administration. It wasn’t for Gulf War I, although the numbers and visibility increased. And Osama was especially incensed by our women soldiers (especially Jewish women, as I recall), and that, too, would be a more recent phenomenon. In any event, I don’t see how you are refuting Osama’s claim that he our withdrawal from SA, which he demanded, does not reflect a success for him. To use your analogy, it would be like pulling US troops out of Europe in 1957.
I’m not going to argue that absolutely no suicide bomber has been influenced by the $25,000, but I think we have already seen that it wasn’t a significant enough factor to have a real impact on the Israeli security situation. There were suicide bombers BEFORE Saddam paid them, and there will be more now that he has been stopped. And, I might add, most of the suicide bombers are going off without the permission of their parents.