Early media reports were wrong: Saddam had ties to Al Qaeda
March 14th, 2008 by Republican By DefaultLeave it to the media to report what they want to report, regardless of the facts. Here’s a link to the report (not the errant reports about the report) released by the Pentegon this week.
From the NY Sun (Report Details Saddam’s Terrorist Ties):
The report, released this week by the Institute for Defense Analyses, says it found no “smoking gun” linking Iraq operationally to Al Qaeda. But it does say Saddam collaborated with known Al Qaeda affiliates and a wider constellation of Islamist terror groups.
The Iraqi Intelligence Service in a 1993 memo to Saddam agreed on a plan to train commandos from Egyptian Islamic Jihad, the group that assassinated Anwar Sadat and was founded by Al Qaeda’s second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahiri.
The report also undercuts the claim made by many on the left and many at the CIA that Saddam, as a national socialist, was incapable of supporting or collaborating with the Islamist al Qaeda. The report concludes that instead Iraq’s relationship with Osama bin Laden’s organization was similar to the relationship between the rival Colombian cocaine cartels in the 1990s. Both were rivals in some sense for market share, but also allies when it came to expanding the size of the overall market.
From HotAir.com (Saddam supported at least two al-Qaeda groups: Pentagon):
Saddam Hussein provided funding for EIJ for the same reasons. And when one starts to consider the differences between Afghanistan’s Taliban after 9/11 and Saddam, the gaps narrows considerably. The Taliban gave AQ shelter while probably not realizing the extent to which it made them a target; Saddam funded their main leadership source and at least one of their subsidiaries in order to help them succeed in their mission against the US. That’s at least arguably an act of war, attempting to use terrorists as a proxy to fight it — and it very clearly fell within the post-9/11 Bush doctrine.
This puts a bit of a cramp in the usual anti-war rhetoric about Iraq. But I’m sure the protesters at the mall this weekend won’t notice, and if they do they probably won’t care. Most of this information was discussed before the invasion of Iraq. Back then we were trusting the world’s intelligence sources. Now we have it straight from Saddam’s own files.
I doubt this will matter to people who seem to love to blame George W. Bush for everything from terrorism to a rash. But at least the facts are available for those who care.
March 14th, 2008 at 6:34 pm
So, uh, maybe I’m missing something, but I don’t see what this has to do with Tacoma. Please refrain from tagging your non-Tacoma articles as such, so that I don’t have to sift through unrelated crap when reading FeedTacoma. If I want to read this, I’ll directly visit your blog or add you to my RSS reader.
March 14th, 2008 at 7:13 pm
It has to do with Saturday’s protests IN TACOMA.
So sorry to inconvenience you with facts, but you clicked on it.
March 14th, 2008 at 9:18 pm
Sorry but where exactly does this post have anything to do with the protests in Tacoma? I’m ceasing to see the words “Tacoma,” “protest,” or any variation on those words in the post.
I understand that this argument may back up another argument you believe you may have against the protests, but that still doesn’t make this specific post Tacoma-centric.
You don’t even link to anything having to do with the protests.
I’m in the “nothing to do with Tacoma” camp (and please don’t feel like we’re picking on you - we’ve also told others with non-Tacoma related posts to do the same).
March 14th, 2008 at 10:46 pm
I know what this is about. I’m a Christian minister. I see this all the time. When faced with the truth people will throw out any excuse to reject it.
This has everything to do with Tacoma. Tomorrow there will be a protest that is supposedly about an “unjust war”. This post proves the war is actually just. It shows that Saddam was at war with us and was working with the people who committed an atrocious act of war against innocent American citizens. There may not have been a clear connection between him and 9/11, but it wouldn’t have been long before the next attack where his hand was seen holding the proverbial smoking gun. Overturning his regime protected innocent American citizens.
But don’t worry. I’ve asked Kevin to remove my site from feedtacoma.com. You won’t have to be faced with the facts anymore. Well, at least not from this site. You can go on believing whatever you and your friends want to believe, regardless of whether or not it’s true.
March 15th, 2008 at 1:53 am
I’ve spoken up on other blogs (recently) when I think things shouldn’t be tagged as Tacoma posts, just as I have here. Kevin has asked more than one person to remove a “Tacoma” label when he didn’t feel it was appropriate.
I have absolutely no desire to have your site removed from Feed Tacoma. I may not agree with your views, but that doesn’t mean that I think that your blog shouldn’t be part of a larger voice of Tacoma. Trust me, I’m dealing with people who certainly don’t agree with me on my own blog right now.
As to this specific post content and how it backs up your earlier arguments regarding the Tacoma protests (and therefore should be tagged “Tacoma”); I can only suggest that you link to those posts in order to show the connections. It was too subtle for me to make the connection, and apparently was for Kevin and Jaimie as well.
I understand if you still decide to leave Feed Tacoma, but I hope you’ll decide to stay. We could use someone with a different perspective around here.
March 15th, 2008 at 10:11 am
Another connection that I didn’t mention is that Tacoma is a military town. There are thousands of active duty, reserve and retired military people living here, not a few of whom have served in Iraq. There’s also their families to think about. I think they deserve to know that the intelligence that brought us into this war was confirmed at the source. There’s a good chance they won’t get it through the liberal media (TNT included).
As for feedtacoma.com, this site is just a bad fit. Since connecting at the first of the year I have seen less than a handful of posts that I would consider to be of a serious nature (other than my own). I didn’t have a good feeling about it then and it just got worse the 2 1/2 months since then.
This is an election year. There are millions, maybe hundreds of millions of tax dollars on the table (Russell, Murray Morgan bridge, Link Light Rail expansion, roads). To have to repeatedly deal with people whose favorite posts are ’sassy mcbutterpants dating advice’, I’d rather not have too much traffic cluttering up the comments.
There are a few of you who have made some good comments, but there have also been problems. Life is too short. I’d rather spend my time on the issues with people who take them seriously.
Thanks for the suggestion about including the links in a post. I just assumed that the “filed under Military, National Issues, Tacoma Contradictions” links would be used, but they’re in such fine print that they don’t really stand out. But that won’t be an issue any longer since feedtacoma.com is the only site that links here categorically.
March 15th, 2008 at 2:23 pm
I’ll be honest, though I can’t claim to speak for others…while I disagree with much of what you write, I think it is much bolder of you to include your posts, as appropriate, on FeedTacoma, the proverbial “crying out into the wilderness” of what you believe to be the truth. I don’t think any voices should be squelched. Not yours, not Sassy’s, etc. Don’t you think that having your thoughts included will encourage others who are sympathetic to your views to write their thoughts?
But regarding this post specifically, I am still standing by the fact that it is too far from being a distinctly Tacoma post. I guess we can somehow connect anything to Tacoma if we try hard enough, but I just wasn’t feeling it here. I suppose their were probably a few borderline posts that survived on the Feed around caucus time in February, but I think that was one of the only times that national/international politics were discussed in any great detail–and there was a local connection, one might argue. I think your other posts directly related to the mall protests were completely valid as Tacoma issues, I was only speaking to this specific post.
The saddest part is that we’re filling your comments with “should this be on FeedTacoma” instead of choosing to have a dialog about the content you posted…
March 15th, 2008 at 2:38 pm
The beauty of Feed Tacoma is it’s variety. And your voice adds to that!
Blogs are used to discuss all sorts of things that are important to each individual such as restaurant reviews, “going local”, the arts, and our daily lives, not just what you consider to be topics of a serious nature.
I am well aware that it’s an election year. I attended the caucus and am a delegate, both things that I wrote about in my blog. So have others. You have only to search through the Feed Tacoma archives to find the other “serious” topics you mentioned above.
My question to you is - what is the point of the military and the war - what are we fighting for if not to preserve our way of life? The pleasure of interacting with other people? Enjoying what our city has to offer and what other bloggers are writing about? Should everyone blog on exactly the same issues you are writing about - how interesting would that be?
There are always problem commenters, trolls, and SPAMMERS that show up when you’re writing a blog. Check out Erik Hanberg’s guest post on Living and Working Virtually to get both sides of the blog story. He hits the nail on the head. You deal with it, and you move on.
And PS - I hate Sassy McButterpants.
March 17th, 2008 at 11:08 am
After e-mailing Kevin he asked that I hold off on my decision until we can sit down and talk over coffee. So I’ll refrain from further comment about being on feedtacoma.com until then.