Archive for Al Qaeda

The Irrationality of Moderation

Posted by: Jason | July 26th, 2008 · 4:19 AM

If politics is indeed the art of compromise, than we wouldn’t admire names such as Lincoln, Roosevelt, and Reagan. Comparing the latter two of these American presidents, whose names will forever dominate our historical view of twentieth century politics, we would certainly find discrepancies in philosophy, leadership style, and in the challenges they each faced during their presidencies.

But of course, we would also find many commonalities between these men. As much as Roosevelt’s New Deal was considered radical, as was Reagan’s insistence on boldly calling the Soviet Union an evil empire, or the suspension of habeas corpus under the Lincoln administration controversial, these men shared in their ability to refuse compromise of their core principals.

As children, we’re taught to excel in all areas of life, whether it be sports or academics. At the workplace, we value the well being of our associates, but know that our own accomplishments are paramount to the survival of our families. In our own personal lives, to compromise in our faithfulness to our wives or time spent with our children is shunned upon.

Concerning the smaller things in life, like deciding which restaurant to eat at or which movie to see, compromise is certainly appropriate. But who would argue the virtue in tolerating things like one of our children failing in school, a verbally abusive manager at work, or relating to politics, a law that we consider devoid of justice or morality.

Political moderation is arguably the most harmful of these examples, because as politics defines the government that controls us, the lives of entire nations are affected. In recent American politics, there is no greater example of this than in our current government. And if there is one lesson to be learned from the Bush Administration, it is that moderation produces failure.

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Truther Phantoms in Afghanistan

Posted by: Ion | September 18th, 2007 · 5:12 PM

(photo: Patrick)

No one has ever accused 911 deniers of wisdom (excluding themselves of course). Here’s a fine case in point for why:

“Foreign policy? Nothing you’re going to find in a newspaper or anything like that but between 1989 and 1992, we decided to give Osama Bin Laden $20 billion to fight the Russians in Afghanistan….”
(ScrewLooseChange)

I don’t need to say it and you needn’t hear it, but I do say it only because there’s some Truther reading the above and thinking “right on!” The Soviet Union announced its withdrawal from Afghanistan on July 20, 1987 and the last troops departed on February 15, 1989. In 1992 the Soviet Union didn’t even exist, much less was it to be fought in Afghanistan.

Perhaps the only motive for 911 deniers’ habit for inventing history, is that they’ve never bothered to read any. Me say pick betta hobby.

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Oops.

Posted by: Ion | September 11th, 2007 · 6:04 AM

As we’ve occasionally observed here, Fred Thompson has a knack for upsetting all the right people, in all the right ways.

Case in point. Recently, a gaggle of Leftist and Ronpaulist nitwits pounced on him when he mentioned that the Al Qaeda prohibition on smoking, had significantly contributed to their unpopularity in Anbar Province. The usual suspects denounced him in categorical terms as being an insane, uninformed imbecile. In so doing they managed to insult themselves rather comprehensively when it turned out Thompson was right.

Lance takes his time in twisting the knife in them. A deliciously poisonous post:

Full Story at ASHC>>>

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The Most Shockingly Misleading Poll in History

Posted by: Ion | · 1:36 AM

Oh alright, it’s not the most misleading in history, but this is a homage to a dead and lamented post of similar name.

You see, earlier today Right Wing Nuthouse called the new BBC poll of the Iraqi people the “The Most Shockingly Dishonest Poll in the History of the Media,” but later pulled the post (for the first time ever). Now, I missed that original post over there before it disappeared, but apparently RWN had zeroed in on the dates involved in the surge section and disputed them, later killing their post when they found it wasn’t old data. I think they quit too soon personally.

My interest was on this particular chart showing who the Iraqis blamed for the violence in their country. Although revealing the growth in blame for AQ, at a glance, it seems to suggest that blame for the violence in Iraq is about equally split between Al Qaeda and the United States among Iraqis. That’s HIGHLY misleading.

The first thing I notice about this chart, is that they’ve bundled all the US allies into one nice comprehensive number, but have broken out the enemy combatants into individual vessels. I’m not sure that really makes sense. So here’s what the chart looks like when we apply the US rule to the enemy (redrafted from the raw data):

Yeah, nice split opinion there.

Supplemental: You could say of course that the Iraqi government/police/army are our allies and thus should be added to the number. But as we’ve seen and Democrats are fond of reminding us of, that kind of depends upon what part of the country you’re in. Without political reconciliation, I’d only really feel comfortable putting the Iraqi army and executive GOI leadership in our column.

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Protest and Pessimism in the Maghreb

Posted by: Ion | September 10th, 2007 · 7:08 PM

The left-leaning (if allegedly nonpartisan) 501(c)(3) group Americans for Informed Democracy (AID), has taken exception to our reposting from June, of SnappedShot’s enormously amusing Islamic Rage Boy project. AID notes that there seems little interest on our part by contrast, in heartening nationwide demonstrations in Algeria to protest Al Qaeda’s brutal terrorist operations there.

The weekend protests staged mostly by Muslim women, had some of the better chants you’ll read this year:

The crowd, which was made up mainly of women, chanted slogans such as “Terrorists are not Muslims” and “the Algerian people reject terrorism and support President Abdelaziz Bouteflika
(BBC via Americans for Informed Democracy)

This peaceful popular revolt is coming on the heels of the revelation that Al Qaeda is in acute crisis in North Africa, following the surrender of Benmessaoud Abdelkader, a key zonal emir of Al Qaeda (formerly of the notorious GSPC). Under debriefing by Algerian authorities, Abdelkader portrayed an encouragingly chaotic situation within the organization, perhaps conditioned by the July death of Sid Ali Rachid, the mastermind of AQ’s more spectacular attacks on the Bouteflika government.

In this context, AID was using us in a general and cynical rebuke of conservative (or at least anti-salafi) blogs and their zeal for pillorying the fanaticism of Rage Boy, at the expense of a more sympathetic Muslim majority (the extraneous component of the Rage boy’s unfair argument). But since I first read about the demonstration on Gateway Pundit and it’s thereby making the rounds on the rightblogs (and as customarily is being largely ignored by the Left, in its obsession with domestic politics), the point is more than a little unfair.

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Osama 2.0

Posted by: Ion | September 8th, 2007 · 6:45 AM

Sporting his new Just For Men Haircolor look, Osama bin Laden is back in black…and now rhetorically indistinguishable from your average DailyKos post.

In his recent videotape, not only has Osama added global warming to his seemingly endless checklist of complaints against the West, he’s evidently become an assiduous reader of leftwing theorist Noam Chomsky:

“This war was entirely unnecessary, as testified to by your own reports. And among the most capable of those from your own side who speak to you on this topic and on the manufacturing of public opinion is Noam Chomsky, who spoke sober words of advice prior to the war, but the leader of Texas doesn’t like those who give advice.
(ABC)

Jeez. As if it weren’t sinister enough when Chomsky’s political philosophy attracted the praise of the despotic Hugo Chavez at the United Nations.

Anyone who has ever read or heard Chomsky’s ferociously antagonistic views on almost every aspect of American history and culture, or is remotely familiar with his long history of apologetics for murderously barbaric regimes (so long as they have ‘’anti-imperialist'’ propaganda, a blind eye can be found at MIT), could hardly be surprised by Osama finding consonance with his own violently anti-American ideology.

Among the unshocked is the Progressive Democrats of America who were in fact moved by the news and regretted that the Bush administration had not the foresight to heed the call of Osama for Chomsky:

…Osama has been reading Noam Chomsky. Wouldn’t we be in better shape if John Ashcroft, Karl Rove, and Dick Cheney had read Chomsky first!
(PDA)

Here’s a tip for a more rational politics PDA: When you read that Osama bin Laden is in agreement with a certain author’s political arguments which you endorse, you should not regret Osama’s wisdom, but instead seriously question your own. It’s a fair bet that nothing I’ve written could possibly find much consent from Osama (”manufactured” or otherwise). One would hope that the Left will some day recognize how serious a problem it is, that so many of them cannot honestly say the same. An admiration for Noam Chomsky is the least of it too.

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Pessimism in the Establishment

Posted by: Ion | August 22nd, 2007 · 7:27 AM

One of the remarkable things about Barack Obama’s controversial antagonism toward Pakistan under Musharraf, is how unremarkable it was from the perspective of the Democratic foreign policy establishment. Indeed, the sense that broader Pakistan is turning into an Al Qaeda stronghold (not merely in the tribal Pak-Afghan border towns), is now fairly common currency at a certain level of American strategic thinking.

For effect, Foreign Policy’s recently released 2007 Terrorism Index, reveals a large collective failure of confidence from the American foreign policy establishment in the Pakistani government’s ability (or willingness) to confront and resist Al Qaeda infiltration of their country. A fear that is propelling an even graver suspicion –that Pakistan is ripe to become a nuclear terrorism enabler– to a consensus majority:

(Foreign Policy via Future Atlas)

There’s trouble with this though. And I don’t mean to suggest that the identification of Pakistan as the next Al Qaeda enclave is an unfounded fear. The escalation of internal violence and radicalism in the lawless north and th erosion of domestic support for Musharraf has been considerable and is unavoidably disconcerting, given the limitations of US pressure.

It’s also hard to disagree with Bhutto’s assessment that the persistence of terrorism implicitly serves Musharraf’s political purposes:

“As long as we have a cabinet … that needs the threat of terrorism to sustain a military dictatorship in Pakistan we’re never going to get rid of terrorism.”
(OpEdNews)

That’s certainly been a fatal concord so far. But the trouble is that Iraq seems a better candidate for an Al Qaeda vessel state, if you believe the last-chance surge is ineffective and failing as the survey participants do (see below).

The second part of the question –which identifies Pakistan as the prime nuclear proliferation threat– reveals a possible locus of this otherwise peculiar contradiction. For its nuclear dimension, a collapsed Pakistan as Al Qaeda stronghold is by far the most pessimistic option among those available.

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