Oval Office Scams Vol 2: Ignoring intelligence, promoting the Caliphate

This part of Bush and His Dangerous Delusions is so incredible, that conspiracy seems likely.

When Bush is not taking gullible people on a tour of his imaginary history, he is testing how well sophistry works as logic...

"What I say to the American people when I'm out there is all you got to do is listen to what Osama bin Laden says"...

Yet, while Bush argues that bin Laden's public ravings should seal the deal - and thus lock U.S. troops into Iraq for the indefinite future - Bush never considers the well-documented possibility that al-Qaeda is playing a double game, baiting the U.S. about leaving Iraq to ensure troops will stay.

In a rational world... you would look at unguarded, internal communications...

[like] The "Zawahiri letter," dated July 9, 2005, [saying] a rapid American military withdrawal could cause the foreign jihadists, who had flocked to Iraq to battle the Americans, to simply give up the fight and go home.

"The mujahaddin must not have their mission end with the expulsion of the Americans from Iraq, and then lay down their weapons, and silence the fighting zeal," said the "Zawahiri letter," according to a text released by the office of the U.S. Director of National Intelligence.

Zawahiri was so concerned about the possibility of mass desertions after a U.S. withdrawal that he suggested that al-Qaeda leaders in Iraq talk up the "idea" of a "caliphate" along the eastern Mediterranean to avert a disintegration of the force.

[...]
In a Sept. 5, 2006, speech, Bush declared, "This caliphate would be a totalitarian Islamic empire encompassing all current and former Muslim lands, stretching from Europe to North Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia," Bush said. "We know this because al-Qaeda has told us."

Bush returned to this theme in his Oct. 11 news conference. His administration's "strategic goal is to help this young democracy succeed in a world in which extremists are trying to intimidate rational people in order to topple moderate governments and to extend the caliphate," Bush said. "They want to extend an ideological caliphate that has no concept of liberty inherent in their beliefs."

But - like much of Bush's world - al-Qaeda's "caliphate" doesn't really exist. Indeed, before the Bush administration took power in 2001, Islamic extremists had been routed across the Arab world, from Algeria to Egypt to Jordan to Saudi Arabia - explaining why so many al-Qaeda leaders were exiles holed up in caves in Afghanistan.

They KNEW al-Qaeda wanted them to take the bait. And they DID -??- How to explain? They ignored it or just plain overlooked it?

It's smelly business. Somebody's pulling the strings, selecting the intelligence he got to see, so GWB himself might be acting in good faith.

But you can't have a lunatic as president. Not saying he is, but the logic in argues like the following is not that of a mental sound person.

So, as he rationalizes the horrendous death toll in Iraq - estimated at about 655,000 dead by researchers at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health - Bush doesn't see a disaster of historic proportions. In his world, the bloodshed is simply another reaffirmation of his decision to invade.

"I applaud the Iraqis for their courage in the face of violence," Bush said. "I am amazed that this is a society which so wants to be free that they're willing to - that there's a level of violence that they tolerate."

It's difficult to envision any rational person making such a statement. If anything, the level of killing in Iraq is a combination of sectarian violence and the determination of many Iraqis to drive out what they see as the American invaders. But in Bush world, such realities never intrude.

To me it resembles the reasoning of a psychopath.

Here's the link to Vol 1 of the Oval Office Scams.

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it actually sounds like Dr. Henry Kissinger has helped 'The Decider'
to push this caliphate=evil empire stereotype.

on the other hand, i've noticed at the same time as this Demonize Any Caliphate tactic,
that theres the first low keyed mumblings by some in the administration
about encouraging 'moderate' muslim countries...and the first hints of
embracing the progressive Islamic & Muslim aligned political-religious systems
that are found in Turkey or Indonesia or Maylasia (TIM)

perhaps, if a more positive spin on a caliphate modeled on this other kind of "Axis"
were promoted, then the militant Jihad side of Bush's "evil caliphate" would eventually disintegrate...(but it will take years of un-doing the American-Imperalism reality created in PNAC and prosecuted since post-9/11...)

If bin ladin's plan for world caliphate is to have the US fight him, then thats a pretty damned stupid plan.

The mujahidden got the soviets out of afghanistan by putting up a resistance. Bin Ladin's plan, then, in this line of reasoning, would be to 'trick' the US into invading and occupying as much of the middle east as possible, fighting an afghan-style insurgency against them, thus creating a vietnam-era like feeling in the US, which would ultimately lead to the US abandoning the occupied middle east. This creates a power vaccum, and this permits the jihadis to topple the weak collaborator governments and establish a pan-islamist state.

So, if anything, thats an arguement for not leaving the middle east, and arguement for permanent occupation.

The afghan mujahideen couldn't resist the soviets on their own, they had support with high tech weapons and money from the US. Thats why the Soviets ultimately had to give up. Its the same reason why the US evenetually left Vietnam. There aren't giant gun manufacturing factories in vietnam, or artillery production factories, etc etc. They were supplied from the outside.

Who's going to be supplying the jihadis if the entire middle east is occupied? Even know, the iraqis only have the iranians and syrians to depend on. What happens to 'the resistance' when there is no iran to support it?

What happens to the jihadi plan if the US, rather than creating weak dictators that require US equipping and support (like saddam's regime or the saudis), creates stable representative governments?

The jihadi plan hinges on the non-radicals being small in numbers and weak, such that the people have to chose between secular dictators like hussein or the islamist movement of the jihadis.

Thats only going to happen if the US does a really crappy job in the occupied territories (which, for all intents and purposes, it is, at least in Iraq), or if the US abandons the middle east (which, for all intents and purposes, the internal opposition is suggesting).

A futher problem for the jihadis is, what happens when the US only invades iraq, and merely pressures places like iran to make it more difficult for them to support, equip, and fund the jihadi resistance? Then they've gotten no where either.

www.truthout.org...
But - like much of Bush's world - al-Qaeda's "caliphate" doesn't really exist. Indeed, before the Bush administration took power in 2001, Islamic extremists had been routed across the Arab world, from Algeria to Egypt to Jordan to Saudi Arabia - explaining why so many al-Qaeda leaders were exiles holed up in caves in Afghanistan.

the caliphate isn't necessarily going to be a government seated in baghdad collecting taxes from everywhere between madras and morrocoo. It can just as simply be a collection of islamist republics, taliban style. Indeed, the existance of the taliban, and their stunning success against the old mujahideeners, not to mention the successes of the Iranian Revolution, refutes the idea that the islamists are 'on the run'.