Our actions, as in operations against the Iraqis. We are quelling the locals who are using terrorist techniques against Americans. Americans cannot indentify with this alone because there is no justification. We are there and they are attacking us in response, etc. The Bush administration knows this. The CIA hires a figure to play the role of the head of Al Qaeda IRAQ and no one knows any better. We messed up with Abu Gharib and the only route from there was to create a distraction.
Are you sure its not the aliens from outerspace? I've been thinking it might be the bigfoots/abominable snowmen/yeti alliance.
Have you even watched the video that flung Zarqawi into the spotlight? Have you read the analysis about each frame? By putting a face to the carnage we have created, we shift the focus from our failings to a new super-secret super-Muslim organization.
Well, its not a new organization. They've been around awhile...or maybe not! Maybe it was the US government neocon rightwing zionist leftist hollywood go gooder alliance that actually blew up the embassies in Africa, the Cole, the WTC, the trains in Spain, the bars in Bali, the hotels in Jordan, and a bunch of other stuff. Azarde, claiming there is a motive to 'create' such a person is not enough. Zarqawi and other radicals have a motive to do what they're doing, no? And its a lot more plausible that he is what he purports to be, than that he is a CIA agent. The Chinese could have hired him to make us look bad in Iraq. The Russians or French could have. He could BE an alien. But by far the most likely scenario is that he is what he's always been, a radical terrorist. Get a grip.
If he is a radical terrorist, how did he a) get the jumpsuit for the Berg beheading when he is supposed to be covert, b) recruit the terrorists for his bombings if he is Jordanian, c) dress up as if he was in al-Sadr's militia when he clearly is against the Shi'a, d) go from relative obscurity to terrorist all-star? What happens in Iraq is not a result at all of what Zarqawi plots. The Iraqis doing the most damage are fighting in what can be looked at their attempt at taking control of a revolution. Saddam is gone, that is a fact. The Iraqis know this and different elements are now trying to assume power. A US Democracy is very illegitmate if one thinks about it from the perspective of who gets to choose the leaders and original constitution. Why do you think the government is having so much trouble as is? Zarqawi is paid by America to take the fall for the chaos but he is not personally responsible for any of it. His only crime is selling out.
(a) I'm not sure what having a jumpsuit has to do with being covert. Maybe he ordered it on the internet, lol. (b) why would being Jordanian preclude him from recruiting terrorists? (c) he was, uh, in disguise? (d) being a leader of AQ which subsequently blows up the WTC and Pentagon [yeah yeah, I know that didn't happen either] might do something for your profile. The US isn't picking the leaders. Certainly a large part of the insurgency is not AQ/Zarqawi. That doesn't mean Zarqawi isn't part of the insurgency. Why would we pay Zarqawi to be the 'face' of the insurgency? That makes no sense. It might inspire others outside Iraq to join with AQ. He very likely could expose such a move. The risks of such a plan far outweigh the benefits. There are already vast reports in the ultracensored no reporting western media about the % of Iraqi vs foreign fighters in Iraq. If the administration was actually paying Zarqawi they'd be risking not just their jobs, but more than likely their freedom. The 'gain' from such a move comes nowhere close to justifying that. What you've done is taken the legitimate criticism that every incident gets blamed on Zarqawi when its not him and convoluted that into this 'he's a CIA agent' crap.
Cheney can shot .................. at American Lawyer! It's a good thing that you have a leader who is capable of doing such thing and proved himself by actually doing it.
Simple, if you are a covert op for any organization, you cannot go out and buy a US orange jumpsuit. You will be noticed by purchasing, word of mouth will be spread. Iraqis can differentiate between a Jordanian and an Iraqi. An Iraqi would not work for Zarqawi because he is Jordanian, they would fall in with an Iraqi. See al-Sadr for a group. Wrong, by dressing in the garb of al-Sadr's militia, he would have no longer been covert. The intelligence force of any nation would notice a group of men weilding submachine guns while wearing ski masks. As a covert op, Zarqawi would not dress his men in Militia attire. AQ... He is not AQ and he will never be AQ because Al Qaeda does not exist. I am not saying Osama bin Laden did not plan out 9/11, but a super-secret Muslim terrorist organization does not exist. There is a reason why Osama is not important to Bush anymore It also does not mean he is apart of it because the Military says it. It makes perfect sense. Without a face to the insurgency, we become the bad guys as opposed to Zarqawi. After the Abu Gharib incident, we needed to shift the focus from American stupidity to Muslim terror. The number one recruter in the region is the American bombing campaigns, not a mythical leader of terror. By getting the reputation of a murderer of Iraqis, Zarqawi would effectively quell the inspirations of wanne be mujahedeen against the Americans because Zarqawi would be killing more Muslims than America. Historically, the risks always outway the benefits. This case, it does not. Zarqawi receives protection and America loses the focus of the world in messing up Iraq. "Zarqawi strikes again..." instead of "Americans kill 32 in Fullujah campaign. The media's ultra censorship is caused by two things: the danger of reporting on the field (the liabilities prevent them from doing it with corporate money) and the fact reporting the negatives of Iraq will not make as much money as terrorism in Iraq You could say the same for a lot of their actions: wiretapping, library record requests, Guantanamu Bay, Abu Gharib, leaking CIA agents as revenge, etc The evidence exists that proves Zarqawi is a creation of the CIA.
In the same spirit, it can also tell a potential recruit that we are immensely incompetant. We, being the more powerful nation in the world, are being played for fools by this incompetent and silly character. We still can't find him, he is still reeking his havoc, and we have one poster here who thinks he works for the "man." I think if nothing else, this video makes us look weak and encourages potential recruits.
Alrighty then. Azadre you're a loon. If him looking like a boob makes us also looks bad, it still stands to reason that no one is going to want to go join a boob, or blow themselves up on a boob's order.
1. I highly doubt any arab/iraqi/anyone in that region reads Fox. 2. If they are stupid enough to think of fighting for the guy, i highly doubt this article will sway them away from that.
texxx I know you don't read the NYTs, but I thought I'd post this article for other people who might have an open mind. Not All See Video Mockery of Zarqawi as Good Strategy An effort by the American military to discredit the terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi by showing video outtakes of him fumbling with a machine gun — suggesting that he lacks real fighting skill — was questioned yesterday by retired and active American military officers. --------------- The weapon in question is complicated to master, and American soldiers and marines undergo many days of training to achieve the most basic competence with it. Moreover, the weapon in Mr. Zarqawi's hands was an older variant, which makes its malfunctioning unsurprising. The veterans said Mr. Zarqawi, who had spent his years as a terrorist surrounded by simpler weapons of Soviet design, could hardly have been expected to know how to handle it. "They are making a big deal out of nothing," said Mario Costagliola, who retired as an Army colonel last month after serving as the operations officer for the 42nd Infantry Division in Tikrit, Iraq. An active-duty Special Forces colonel who served in Iraq also said that what the video showed actually had little relationship to Mr. Zarqawi's level of terrorist skill. "Looking at the video, I enjoy it; I like that he looks kind of goofy," said the Special Forces officer, who was granted anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly on military matters. "But as a military guy, I shrug my shoulders and say: 'Of course he doesn't know how to use it. It's our gun.' He doesn't look as stupid as they said he looks." http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/06/w...57d0d160d843a9&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
Nothing wrong with making fun of Zaqwari who is a terrorist. Who knows if it is effective. However, here is an interesting story suggesting that his role in Iraq has been greatly exaggerated and a psy op, ************* A U.S. 'Propaganda' Program, al-Zarqawi, and 'The New York Times' By Greg Mitchell Published: April 10, 2006 3:00 PM ET NEW YORK Midway through Thomas Ricks’ Washington Post scoop on Monday detailing a U.S. military “propaganda program” aimed at convincing Iraqis that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has a very prominent role in directing violence in that country, there is one specific tip on how the plan may have also targeted American reporters and audiences. Ricks found that one “selective leak”--about a recently discovered letter written by Zarqawi--was handed by the military to Dexter Filkins, the longtime New York Times reporter in Baghdad. Filkins's resulting article, about the Zarqawi letter boasting of foreigners' role in suicide attacks in Iraq, ran on the front page of the Times on Feb. 9, 2004. “Leaks to reporters from U.S. officials in Iraq are common, but official evidence of a propaganda operation using an American reporter is rare,” Ricks observed. He quoted Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the U.S. military's chief spokesman when the propaganda campaign began in 2004: "We trusted Dexter to write an accurate story, and we gave him a good scoop." Filkins, in an e-mail to Ricks, said he assumed the military was releasing the Zarqawi letter "because it had decided it was in its best interest to have it publicized." He told Ricks he was skeptical about the document's authenticity then, and remains so now. But Ricks' article, if anything, underplays the impact of the letter in February 2004--and if Filkins had qualms about its authenticity, it hardly deterred him and his paper from giving it serious, and largely uncritical, attention. In his February 9, 2004 front-pager, Filkins detailed the contents of the letter, and its significance, matter-of-factly for eight paragraphs. Only then did he introduce any doubt, suggesting that possibly it could have been “written by some other insurgent…who exaggerated his involvement.” After that one-sentence brief mention, Filkins went directly to: “Still, a senior United States intelligence official in Washington said, 'I know of no reason to believe the letter is bogus in any way.''’ The story continued for another 1000 words without expressing any other doubts about the letter—which was found on a CD and was unsigned. In his Post story today, Ricks also does not mention what happened next. William Safire, in his Feb. 11, 2004, column for the Times titled “Found: A Smoking Gun,” declared that the letter “demolishes the repeated claim of Bush critics that there was never a '’clear link’ between Saddam and Osama bin Laden.” Safire mocked the Washington Post for burying the story on page 17, while hailing a Reuters account quoting an “amazed” U.S. officials saying, “We couldn’t make this up if we tried.” Three days later, another Times columnist, David Brooks, covered the letter as fact under the heading “The Zarqawi Rules.” The letter was covered in this manner by other media for weeks. So clearly, the leak to Filkins worked. A Web search of New York Times articles in the two months after the scoop failed to turn up any articles casting serious doubts on the letter. Two leading writers for Newsweek on its Web site quickly had a different view, however. Christopher Dickey, the Middle East regional editor, on February 13, 2004, asked: “Given the Bush administration’s record peddling bad intelligence and worse innuendo, you’ve got to wonder if this letter is a total fake. How do we know the text is genuine? How was it obtained? By whom? And when? And how do we know it’s from Zarqawi? We don’t. We’re expected to take the administration’s word for it.” Rod Nordland, the magazine’s Baghdad bureau chief, on March 6 wrote: “The letter so neatly and comprehensively lays out a blueprint for fomenting strife with the Shia, and later the Kurds, that it's a little hard to believe in it unreservedly. It came originally from Kurdish sources who have a long history of disinformation and dissimulation. It was an electronic document on a CD-ROM, so there's no way to authenticate signature or handwriting, aside from the testimony of those captured with it, about which the authorities have not released much information.” Ricks, in any case, observed today that the overall propaganda campaign may have "overemphasized" Zarqawi’s and al-Qaeda’s role in Iraq, according to senior intelligence experts. One of them said that Zarqawi and other foreign militants were "a very small part of the actual numbers" of troublemakers. He also quoted one internal briefing, produced by the U.S. military headquarters in Iraq, which revealed that Kimmitt had concluded that, "The Zarqawi PSYOP program is the most successful information campaign to date." http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002314713
True. I think there was a thread about how each act of terrorism is initially laid at AQ's feet then later it comes out that it was someone else. This is probably true in Iraq as well. Its not that he's NOT there or responsible for some of these acts - but its hard to tell how much is AQ/Zarqawi and how much is the indigenous insurgency. I have thought that a lot more of the civilian/police attacks are AQ/Zarqawi and the attacks on the coalition are the indigenous insurgents - but again its hard to tell.
Well we know that despite the hopes of the pro-war and US government folks that the vast majority that is local resistance. I think when we destroyed Fallujah they found only about 10% dead foreigners. Whether it is 85% or 95% would be difficult to know and of course would be falsely reported to the US press by our military. Even Dubya and Cheney have had to give up on the line that it was all foreign fighters a while back.
