A Level Gaze |
|
|
"What effect must it have on a nation if it learns no foreign languages? Probably much the same as that which a total withdrawal from society has upon an individual." --G.C. Lichtenberg LinksNew Email Address! levelgaze@gmail.com Blogs NoWarBlog The Lefty Directory The Agonist aintnobaddude alicublog Alas, a Blog Altercation Ambivalent Imbroglio AmericaBlog American Street Amygdala Anger Management Angry Bear Armed Liberal Bad Attitudes Barney Gumble Bartcop Beyond Corporate Billmon Blah3 Body and Soul Booman Tribune Brad DeLong Busy Busy Busy Buzzflash By Neddie Jingo Calculated Risk CalPundit Chase me ladies Chris Nelson Contested Terrrain Cooped Up Conceptual Guerilla corrente Counterspin Crooked Timber Daily Howler Daily Kos Decembrist Demosthenes Driftglass D-Squared Digest Electrolite Eschaton Ethel Ezra Klein Fafblog! Fanatical Apathy Firedoglake First Draft Fistful of Euros get donkey! Globblog The Hamster Here's What's Left Horowitz Watch Housing Bubble Hullabaloo Intl News Istanblog James Wolcott Jesus' General Juan Cole Junius Lean Left Left Coast Breakdown Letter from Gotham Liberal Oasis MacDiva MadKane Mahablog Majikthise Making Light Marginal Revolution Mark Kleiman Matthew Yglesias MaxSpeak Media Whores Online Michael Finley Michael Froomkin MyDD My Left Wing Nathan Newman Off the Kuff Oliver Willis Orcinus Pandagon Pen-Elayne Pfaffenblog PLA The Poor Man R.B. Ham Raed in the Middle Ragout Raw Story ReachM High Cowboy Rittenhouse Review The Road to Surfdom Roger Ailes Rude Pundit Ruminate This Seeing the Forest Seize the Fish Self Made Pundit Sideshow Sirotablog Sisyphus Shrugged Skippy Slacktivist South Knox Bubba Steve Gilliard Talking Points Memo Talk Left The Talking Dog Tapped TBogg Ted Barlow Testify! Thinking It Through Through the Looking Glass TNR Online Tres Producers TRR Two Tears in a Bucket uggabugga Unknown News Vaara Wampum War Liberal Winning Argument Wonkette WTF Is It Now General Interest BBC News The Economist Metafilter RealPolitik Robot Wisdom 
Archives 
|
Tuesday, February 10, 2004
Al Qaeda Letter Fails the Sniff Test The 17-page document found at a supposed "al Qaeda safe house" seems mighty fishy to me. The upshot, that attacks should be staged against Shia targets in order to bring them into open conflict with the "sleepy Sunnis, who are fearful of destruction and death," in order to "prolong the duration of the fight between the infidels and [Al Qaeda]" seems like an unnecessary strategem. Attempts to pull together a government by the June 30 deadline are already highlighting differences between ethnic groups. Just about all of the local military and police (and paramilitary, etc.) have partisan affiliations, and therefore cannot be counted upon to neutrally uphold the law. No matter how a government is formed, there are bound to be a lot of armed people who will be unhappy with it. Given the 800 lb. gorilla status of the Shiites at the moment, it's a very good bet that it will be the Sunnis, and, to a lesser extent, the Kurds, who will be motivated to disrupt things. If we've pulled out by then, a civil war is highly likely, the Bush administration is going to look awful, and muslims around the world are going to be awfully pissed off--advantage Al Qaeda. If we still have lots of soldiers on the ground then, we'll be putting them in harm's way between would-be combatants, and de facto undermining the legitimacy of the Iraqi government--advantage Al Qaeda. They win either way. Al Qaeda doesn't need to foment conflict in Iraq--it exists already, and is likely to continue for the foreseeable future. It just doesn't make sense for them to expend resources and risk exposure doing something that is patently unnecessary. Therefore, I conclude the letter is almost certainly a fabrication. For an interesting hypothesis concerning why such a fabrication might have been made, Hesiod's got the goods. 
|