You know things are bad with the media when Osama bin Laden is releasing a new video in which he rails against how Al-Jazeera “misrepresented” what he had said in a earlier tape:
An Islamist website said it would carry a new recording from al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden about “foiling plots” in Iraq.
The website said the 56-minute recording would also be about the Islamic State in Iraq, an al-Qaeda linked group in the country.
It did not say when the video or audio recording, produced by al-Qaeda’s media arm As-Sahab and entitled “The Path to Foiling Plots in Iraq”, would be posted.
Al-Qaeda messages have been often released within three days of their announcement on websites.
“May God expose the cover-up by Al Jazeera, the channel of the infidels,” said the website, which is often used to issue messages from al-Qaeda.
It was not clear whether this meant bin Laden would speak about a controversy in which his supporters have accused the popular news channel of misrepresenting his comments on Iraq.
Some Islamists have said Al Jazeera misrepresented bin Laden’s views by airing excerpts of comments he made in October that insurgents had made mistakes in Iraq because of fanaticism.
Kinda curious timing to release it on the day his group assassinated Bhutto don’t ya think?
On the assassination itself Bruce Riedal states the obvious:
It was almost certainly the work of al-Qaeda or al-Qaeda’s Pakistani
allies. Al-Qaeda has been trying to kill Ms. Bhutto for decades. She
has been the target of assassination attempts by al-Qaeda before. They
were most likely responsible for the attack on her when she first
returned to Pakistan. Their objective is to destabilize the Pakistani
state, to break up the secular political parties, to break up the army
so that Pakistan becomes a politically failing state in which the
Islamists in time can come to power, much as they have in other failing
states where al-Qaeda knows its chances for success are higher.
And Mark Steyn reminds us of some facts that should of been obvious, but wasn’t:
Benazir Bhutto’s return to Pakistan had a mad
recklessness about it which give today’s events a horrible
inevitability.Since
her last spell in power, Pakistan has changed, profoundly. Its
sovereignty is meaningless in increasingly significant chunks of its
territory, and, within the portions Musharraf is just about holding
together, to an ever more radicalized generation of young Muslim men
Miss Bhutto was entirely unacceptable as the leader of their nation.
“Everyone’s an expert on Pakistan, a faraway country of which we know
everything,” I wrote last month. “It
seems to me a certain humility is appropriate.” The State Department
geniuses thought they had it all figured out. They’d arranged a shotgun
marriage between the Bhutto and Sharif factions as a “united”
“democratic” “movement” and were pushing Musharraf to reach a deal with
them. That’s what diplomats do: They find guys in suits and get
’em round a table. But none of those representatives represents the
rapidly evolving reality of Pakistan. Miss Bhutto could never have been
a viable leader of a post-Musharraf settlement, and the delusion that
she could have been sent her to her death. Earlier this year, I had an
argument with an old (infidel) boyfriend of Benazir’s, who swatted my
concerns aside with the sweeping claim that “the whole of the western
world” was behind her. On the streets of Islamabad, that and a dime’ll
get you a cup of coffee.
And lastly is the news that Ron Paul blames the US for the assassination (big shocker there!) and also said that al-Qaeda has reason enough to be annoyed with us.
And here is he is blaming us again one more time along with his usual schtick that we funded and armed OBL. Complete and utter nonsense.
But in Ron Paul’s world, all problems are the result of the US taking
action. Any action. Anywhere. Against anyone, doing anything. In the
case of Pakistan, he says we should cut off aid to our “puppet” in
Pakistan and make sure not to march in there with troops. There is, of
course, at most a neglible possibility that we’ll send troops into
Pakistan to do anything beyond taking on al Qaeda or securing the
nukes. India might, but even that’s highly unlikely. And never mind
that Pakistan’s history with democracy is sketchy, to say the least.
Should we not have attempted to work with Musharraf against al Qaeda,
Patriot Paul? Paul also tosses out the canard that we supported Osama
bin Laden. Someone really needs to disabuse him of that notion one of
these days. Someone should bone him up on the history of al Qaeda as
well. It didn’t form because we support Musharraf, as Paul seems to
think.
Disabuse him of that notion? Hell, it’s hard enough getting to him through his wall of twoofers and neo-nazi’s.
See author page
Va elected a governor a few years back and 12 months later no one would admit voting for him. I wonder if the people of Az will admit voting for the mental midget Paul.
“I wonder if the people of Az will admit voting for the mental midget Paul.”
You call Paul a mental midget when you can’t even get the fucking state he is from correct. You people are absolutely fucking retarded in your ignorance.
It would almost be laughable, except I think it is terrible to laugh at the handicapped.
True nuff but the bait worked
Richardson has done a complete 180 from his formerly very centrist rational foreign policy self, which I knew personally—we did a fund-raiser for him in DC & he put my articles in the Congressional Record on several occasions.
But Bill has been co-opted by the ultra-lefties & Kossack Corps whose views on illegal immigration & foreign policy he parrots nowadays.
The danger of being a Dem candidate is losing your soul.
On the other side, Ron Paul is evidently losing his mind, and Huckabye Baby never had a mind on foreign policy to begin with.
So much to respond to! To begin with, America the country and its government are two separate things. I don’t ‘blame America’ for creating a welfare state that shattered the moral fiber of the poorest segments of society; I blame the government and the misguided liberals who promoted the policies. Similarly, it’s possible to blame the government for poor foreign policy without ‘blaming America’. And Paul does draw the distinction.
Now as for Bryan:
…all problems are the result of the US taking action. Any action. Anywhere. Against anyone, doing anything.
Strawman? Paul doesn’t blame our government for Darfur or Zimbabwe. Whatever, we’ll call it hyperbole…
In the case of Pakistan, he says we should cut off aid to our “puppet†in Pakistan and make sure not to march in there with troops. There is, of course, at most a neglible possibility that we’ll send troops into Pakistan to do anything beyond taking on al Qaeda or securing the nukes.
We already have troops in Pakistan providing training. But aside from that, what’s the objection here? Some people (Obama?) have talked about sending troops into Pakistan; if Paul says it’s a bad idea and Bryan agrees, what were we talking about again?
…Should we not have attempted to work with Musharraf against al Qaeda, Patriot Paul?
Did it work? It would be one thing if our policies were successful; then we would just have to look at the costs. Here you have someone mocking Paul for opposing an unsuccessful policy, as if it were somehow obvious that all our cooperation with and payments to Musharraf had achieved something useful.
Paul also tosses out the canard that we supported Osama bin Laden. Someone really needs to disabuse him of that notion one of these days. Someone should bone him up on the history of al Qaeda as well.
True that. His lack of real interest in the details of foreign affairs sometimes shows. Better that and a willingness to leave well enough alone than zeal and ignorance together (paging Mike Huckabee…).
It didn’t form because we support Musharraf, as Paul seems to think.
Strawman, again. Paul claims our support for Musharraf drives recruits to AQ, but nowhere said that AQ formed because of it.
And then there’s Steyn. I actually liked his obituary (probably because it was lacking in any policy proposals), but when I see someone say
“Everyone’s an expert on Pakistan, a faraway country of which we know everything,” I wrote last month. “It seems to me a certain humility is appropriate.”
…I think: not everyone claims to be an expert. Paul has the ‘certain humility’ that Steyn is advocating, even if Steyn would never admit it.
Well, you obviously haven’t heard that Benazir Bhutto herself recently laid blame for interventionist U.S. foreign policy for Pakistan’s terrorist problems.
Here are the last two paragraphs of an interview which will be published in Parade magazine on January 6:
***
Despite the corrosion of her reputation by corruption and compromise, Bhutto appears to be America’s strongest anchor in the effort to turn back the extremist Islamic tide threatening to engulf Pakistan. What would you like to tell President Bush? I ask this riddle of a woman.
She would tell him, she replies, that propping up Musharraf’s government, which is infested with radical Islamists, is only hastening disaster. “I would say, ‘Your policy of supporting dictatorship is breaking up my country.’ I now think al-Qaeda can be marching on Islamabad in two to four years.â€Â
***
The interview can be found here:
http://www.parade.com/benazir_bhutto_interview.html
Now, one would rightly assume that Benazir Bhutto would obviously be knowledgeable about the situation in Pakistan. So, when she makes a statement like that, does it make her right or wrong? If it makes her right, how then does it make Ron Paul wrong?
It just demonstrates to me that Ron Paul has a deeper understanding of foreign policy than most.
Harvester, I see your point. However, what if she is wrong? And, even if she is right, how does that directly mean Ron Paul is right? Can’t she be right, and Ron Paul wrong simultaneously? I don’t think that it’s impossible for that to happen. Also, how deep is a deep understanding of foreign policy when you’re a politician? You know, when your insight into international politics is obscured and misconstrued by the blood thirsty and malapropos desire to score political one-upsmanship against your opponents and to secure your career’s future?
Holy crap, you mean a politician told the people they were wrong to support her opponent?
Will wonders never cease.
bartblog – “Strawman? Paul doesn’t blame our government for Darfur or Zimbabwe. Whatever, we’ll call it hyperbole…”
He doesn’t? Well maybe your right, but he damn sure doesn’t want to do ANYHING, much less declare what’s going on as genocide:
Move along, nothing to see, no mounds of dead and mutilated bodies to be seen.
At least not by Paul and most probably his PaulBot minions.
Harvester, quoting from Parade:
Yes, we are supporting a dictator who bowed to global pressure and relinquished his leadership hold on the military. Some dictator, huh?
bbartlog wrote:
Musharraf has been as much an ally on the war against Islamic terror as he has been a hindrance. It’s a mixed, complicated bag.
Among the successes, we have the widely-covered capture of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed in Pakistan, along with other militant suspects earlier, who led the Pakistani authority to the capture of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed.
Zayn al-Abidn Muhammed Hasayn Abu Zubaydah, a high ranking al-Qaeda official in charge of training camps, was taken out. Ramzi Binalshibh, financier of al-Qaeda and a roommate of Mohammed Atta in Germany, was arrested in Pakistan.
So it is dishonest to suggest the Musharraf government hasn’t “achieved something useful”. He’s escaped…what? 9 Assassination attempts?
Would we wish he would do more on our behalf? Sure. But caving into all demands that Washington makes of him would all but guarantee him the moniker of being our U.S. “puppet”.
As Ashley Tellis writes, “Making U.S. aid conditional on Pakistan’s performance in the war on terror would only inflame Pakistani public opinion and embarrass moderate Pakistanis who cooperated with the United States”.
If you want your taxes to go to Pakistan, why don’t you just send it directly. Better yet, why don’t you go to Iraq and trade places with my brother. It looks like we’ll be invading there right after Iran. You may hate Ron Paul for his views, but the truth hurts. Don’t take my word for it, compare his record, views on issues, and answers against the other candidates if you dare.
Oh, I’ve dared. On more than one occasion.
Ron Paul won’t be misleading this country from the Oval Office.
Truth hurts, I know. Hope you didn’t throw too much of your money overboard, during the Boston Tea Party ripp-off-enactment.