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I also delegated analysing Bush's last speech in detail

Submitted by Prometheus 6 on October 8, 2005 - 8:17pm.
on War

Juan Cole on Bush's latest reptition of The Big Lie:

'Third, the militants believe that controlling one country will rally the Muslim masses, enabling them to overthrow all moderate governments in the region, and establish a radical Islamic empire that spans from Spain to Indonesia. With greater economic and military and political power, the terrorists would be able to advance their stated agenda: to develop weapons of mass destruction, to destroy Israel, to intimidate Europe, to assault the American people, and to blackmail our government into isolation.'
Yes, al-Qaeda does want these things. But then the Christian Identity Movement in the United States wants to establish a massive fortified refuge for persecuted white people to escape oppression at the hands of what they in their looney tunes way consider the evil, minority-dominated Federal Government. That crackpot fringe groups have big plans and ideas is not surprising, and we only have to worry about them if it looks like they might actually succeed.

But who thinks this particular crackpot plan is in any way feasible? Look at America's friends in the Middle East-- Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan, the Palestinian Authority, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE, Yemen, Oman, Pakistan, etc., etc. Which one of them is on the verge of being taken over by al-Qaeda? Why, al-Qaeda had to plan out 9/11 from Europe because it could not operate in the Middle East! An al-Qaeda meeting in Cairo would have had more Egyptian government spies in attendance than radical fundamentalists!

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Submitted by DarkStar on October 8, 2005 - 9:28pm.

Saudi Arabia is fighting an interesting internal war against al Qaeda or their supporters.

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Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on October 9, 2005 - 2:44pm.

I read Cole daily and admittedly have learned a fair amount regarding the ME and the Arab world from doing so but he also can write things that simply wander away from reality, particularly when he is dealing with Bush or neocons in the same post.

Broaden ' al qaida" in Egypt to Egyptian Islamic Jihad ( a major faction of which, Zawahiri's, helped form al qaida) and Cole's statement is preposterous. EIJ helped assassinate Sadat, nearly killed Mubarak and required extraordinairy efforts by the Egyptian security forces to push back to the margins. Not to mention that the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt is enormous and contains many people sympathetic to al Qaida. Al qaida plotters would simply go meet in a backwater village instead of Cairo.

Moreover al Qaida has tentacles in KSA and financial networks in the Gulf emirates. 9/11 plotters met in Europe because these folks were more westernized, spoke Western languages and would have greater ease blending into American society. It was good tradecraft on bin Laden's part.

Thirdly, Cole's longstanding affection for the Soviet puppet regime in Afghanistan and his attempts to conflate the 99.9 % Afghan mujahedin fighters with the ISI created, post-Soviet era Taliban movement and the predominantly Egyptian, Yemeni, Saudi and North African al Qaida never cease to amuse me. Cole knows better on this point but spins anyway.

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Submitted by Prometheus 6 on October 9, 2005 - 4:30pm.

I grant things are more...fluid in the Middle East. I just have no doubt the US would help its allies technologically in any kind of CoIntelPro-type operation they may choose to run. And I know how effective they can be.

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