THE US, THE UN AND THE IRAQIS THEMSELVES, V. 7.0

Well, I wasn't. You responded to my post with a snide remark and then proceeded to talk about something completely different than what I was talking about.

If you want to talk about AQ, that's fine with me; but I was discussing the probability of non-terrorist countries deciding that the US is an imminent threat based upon our disdain of law and aggressive military actions.

Cycloptichorn

Well, it finally happened, Bin Laden and the AQ camp in Iraq are finally collaborating. Boy, we really are good solvers.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=564&ncid=564&e=1&u=/nm/20050228/ts_nm/security_binladen_dc

Bin Laden Asks Zarqawi to Make U.S. a Target -Source

48 minutes ago

By David Morgan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden (news - web sites) recently asked his chief ally in Iraq (news - web sites), Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, to consider the territory of the United States as a target for terrorist attacks, a U.S. counterterrorism official said on Monday.

There has been communication between bin Laden and Zarqawi, with bin Laden suggesting to Zarqawi the U.S. homeland as a target," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.


The official called the bin Laden communication "a fairly recent development" but declined to provide details for fear of compromising U.S. anti-terrorism efforts.


The Department of Homeland Security said it issued a classified intelligence bulletin over the weekend warning state officials that the federal government had received nonspecific information about al Qaeda plans to attack the United States.


Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said the threat was still being analyzed, but was not enough to raise the U.S. terrorism alert level, which is currently set at yellow to signify an elevated threat.


"The interesting thing is the implication here that Zarqawi could pull such a thing off, that he has that reach," said Daniel Benjamin, a terrorism analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.


"It's particularly interesting that bin Laden would think that Zarqawi could do this," he said.


Zarqawi, a Jordanian militant, is a leading figure among Islamic insurgents who are waging a deadly campaign against U.S.-led forces in Iraq.


Bush administration officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney (news - web sites), suggested ties between bin Laden and Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) in the run-up to the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.


The bipartisan commission that investigated the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington later concluded no collaborative relationship existed between Saddam and the bin Laden network blamed for the attacks.


CIA (news - web sites) Director Porter Goss told the Senate intelligence committee this month that the Iraqi insurgency that flared in response to the 2003 invasion has begun to pose an emerging international terrorism threat.


Goss said Zarqawi in particular was trying to establish a safe haven in Iraq from which to operate against Western nations and "apostate" Muslim governments.


"It raises the question: Is bin Laden looking to Zarqawi because he has seen his successes in some areas and he's wondering whether he can leverage additional resources in other areas," the counterterrorism official said.


"One would have to get into bin Laden's head for what his reasoning is," the official added.


(Additional reporting by Deborah Charles and Caroline Drees)

Quote, "CIA (news - web sites) Director Porter Goss told the Senate intelligence committee this month that the Iraqi insurgency that flared in response to the 2003 invasion has begun to pose an emerging international terrorism threat."

Note to Walter, yes, all reputable polling organizations also poll demographics as well as opinions of those polled. So, you would know whether all Democrats or all Republics are polled which could definitely give a skewed result of what a whole population thinks. That doesn't mean all organizations using the polls for political advantage are going to post those demographics however.

Following is a very interesting interview:

The Last Word: Prince Saud al-Faisal
The Saudi foreign minister on women, nukes and the U.S.By Lally Weymouth

Newsweek InternationalMarch 7 issue - If anyone can speak with authority on relations between the United States and Saudi Arabia, it's Prince Saud al-Faisal. A Princeton graduate, Prince Saud has been his country's foreign minister for 30 years. (He took up the role when his father, the late King Faisal bin Abdul Aziz, was assas-sinated in 1975.) Last week in London, Prince Saud spoke with NEWSWEEK's Lally Weymouth. Excerpts:

WEYMOUTH: Should Saudi women be allowed to vote in the next municipal elections?

PRINCE SAUD: Even the commissioner of elections has said that he is going to propose that they vote. So I am assuming that they will vote in the next election, and that is going to be good for the election, because I think women are more sensible voters than men.

Do you agree that women should take a more active part in your society?
I agree wholeheartedly. Things must happen in a gradual way. But I am proud that the Foreign Ministry is doing its part. For the first time, we are going to have women in the Foreign Ministry this year.

How will the recent assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri affect the region?

In the Arab world, people are sick and tired of tragedies like this. And they are expressing their ire and anger. I think that the Syrians and the Lebanese would be wise to finish their investigation. And I heard that they told the secretary-general of the Arab League that they would accept an investigator from the United Nations. That would be a good first step.

Shifting to Iraq, how do you feel about the election, and how will a Shiite-dominated government in Iraq affect your country?

I don't think there is any reason to prefer a majority of one sect or another, as long as the Constitution assures the territorial integrity and unity of Iraq. Democracy is not the right of the majority alone. It is also the protection of the rights of the minority.

Is there is a reasonable chance for [Shiite-Sunni reconciliation], or do you feel the situation is likely to descend into civil war?
People said before that elections couldn't happen, and they happened. People think a national consensus cannot be formed, but they may be proved wrong.

What would you like to see the Americans do?-set a timeline to leave?
I would like to see Iraq united territorially and its people united. Whatever help they need?-whether from the United States or elsewhere?-is up to the Iraqis.

Some argue that Al Qaeda has more members today than it did after 9/11.

I don't know. Al Qaeda is trying to do everything it can to survive the assault that is being waged on it and to disrupt any movement toward peace in the Middle East?-whether in Iraq or in Palestine. They use existing suffering to expand their recruitment and backing.

How do you see the Palestinian-Israeli situation?
We see the contact that has been made between the Israelis and the Palestinians, and we are hopeful.

Will Saudi Arabia ever consider having relations with Israel?

If there is total peace [in accordance with Saudi Arabia's proposal] and every Arab country signs the peace treaty, we will be with everyone else.

How do you assess the U.S.-Saudi relationship, and what is your opinion of President Bush's emphasis on the need for reform in your country?

The relationship is going well. The president also indicated that reform has to come from inside the countries of the region. He expressed the wish that this would happen quickly in the Middle East, and we express the wish that the Palestinian question be quickly solved. So I hope both our wishes will come through.

But there have been strains since September 11th, isn't that so?

Magazines, newspapers and television stations have described the relations as those of enmity. This is not true. The relationship with the government of the United States is healthy. It has become more healthy recently. Compared to the warmth that existed before September 11th... we are reaching gradually the level of comfort and warmth we enjoyed before.

Is the government of Saudi Arabia winning the battle against Al Qaeda in the kingdom?

I think we are winning the battle for the safety of our people. But the battle is not in Saudi Arabia alone. It is like a virus which spreads, and unless it is faced globally, it will continue to threaten us.

Do you share the concern of the Bush administration about a nuclear Iran?

We want our region to be free of nuclear threat. Iran is always mentioned, but no one mentions Israel, which has [nuclear] weapons already. We wish the international community would enforce the movement to make the Middle East a nuclear-free zone.

If Iran goes nuclear, would Saudi Arabia build its own nuclear weapons?
No, we will not. We do not believe that it gives any country security to build nuclear weapons.

Did [Pakistani nuclear scientist] AQ Khan visit Saudi Arabia?
For a pilgrimage only, but not to talk to Saudi Arabians about building nuclear weapons.
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/7037323/site/newsweek/

And this one for those who appreciate good news and positive perspective:
(I found it on Bill Bennett's website but note that it is a US World & News Report piece)

February 28, 2005
Minds Are Changing
By Michael Barone

Nearly two years ago, I wrote that the liberation of Iraq was changing minds in the Middle East. Before March 2003, the authoritarian regimes and media elites of the Middle East focused the discontents of their people on the United States and Israel. I thought the downfall of Saddam Hussein's regime was directing their minds to a different question -- how to build a decent government and a decent society.

I think I overestimated how much progress was being made at the time. But the spectacle of 8 million Iraqis braving terrorists to vote on Jan. 30 seems to have moved things up to be changing minds now at breakneck speed.

Evidence abounds. Consider what is happening in Lebanon, long under Syrian control, in response to the assassination, almost certainly by Syrian agents, of former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri. Protesters have taken to the streets day after day, demanding Syrian withdrawal.

The Washington Post's David Ignatius, who covered Lebanon in the 1980s and has kept in touch since, has been skeptical that the Bush administration's policy would change things for the better. But reporting from Beirut last week, he wrote movingly of "the movement for political change that has suddenly coalesced in Lebanon and is slowly gathering force elsewhere in the Arab world."

Ignatius interviewed Walid Jumblatt, the Druze leader long a critic of the United States. Jumblatt's words are striking: "It's is strange for me to say it, but this process of change has started because of the American invasion of Iraq. I was cynical about Iraq. But when I saw the Iraqi people voting three weeks ago, 8 million of them, it was the start of a new Arab world. The Syrian people, the Egyptian people, all say that something is changing. The Berlin Wall has fallen. We can see it."

As Middle East expert Daniel Pipes writes, "For the first time in three decades, Lebanon now seems within reach of regaining its independence."

Minds are changing in Europe, too. In the left-wing Guardian, Martin Kettle reassures his readers that the Iraq war was "a reckless, provocative, dangerous, lawless piece of unilateral arrogance" -- the usual stuff. "But," he concedes, "it has nevertheless brought forth a desirable outcome which would not have been achieved at all, or so quickly, by the means that the critics advocated, right though they were in most respects."

Or read Claus Christian Malzahn in Der Spiegel. "Maybe the peoples of Syria, Iraq or Jordan will get the idea in their heads to free themselves from their oppressive regimes just as the East Germans did," he writes. "Just a thought for Old Europe to chew on: Bush might be right, just like Reagan was."

And minds are changing in the United States. On "Nightline," The New York Times' Thomas Friedman and, with caveats, The New Yorker's Malcolm Gladwell agreed that the Iraqi election was a "tipping point" (the title of one of Gladwell's books) and declined Ted Koppel's invitation to say things could easily tip back the other way.

In the most recent issue of Foreign Affairs, Yale's John Lewis Gaddis credited George W. Bush with "the most sweeping of U.S. grand strategy since the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt," criticized Bush's implementation of that strategy in measured tones and called for a "renewed strategic bipartisanship."

One Democrat so inclined is the party's most likely 2008 nominee, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. She voted for the Iraq war and has not wavered in her support -- she avoided voting for the $87 billion before voting against it. She has kept clear of the Michael Moore left and its shrill denunciations of Bush and has kept her criticisms well within the bounds of normal partisan discourse.

"Where we stand right now, there can be no doubt that it is not in America's interests for the Iraqi government, the experiment in freedom and democracy, to fail," she said on "Meet the Press" on Feb. 20. "So I hope that Americans understand that and that we will have as united a front as is possible in our country at this time to keep our troops safe, make sure they have everything they need and try to support this new Iraqi government."

Copyright 2005 US News & World Report
Distributed by Creators Syndicate
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/Commentary/com-2_28_05_MB.html

Hey, Fox, Sounds like good news. Keep em com'n.

Score one for democracy ...

U.S. Court Orders 'Enemy Combatant' Freed
Mon Feb 28, 2005 08:04 PM ET
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Top News
Bin Laden Asks Zarqawi to Make U.S. a Target -Source
Suicide Bomb Kills 125 Near Iraq Marketplace
U.S. Court Orders 'Enemy Combatant' Freed
MORE


MIAMI (Reuters) - A U.S. federal judge ruled on Monday that President Bush has no authority to order an American citizen jailed indefinitely as an enemy combatant, and ordered terrorism suspect Jose Padilla be released within 45 days.

Padilla, who at one time was accused of plotting to detonate a "dirty bomb," was arrested in May 2002 and has been held without charge in a South Carolina Navy prison under sweeping presidential powers enacted after the Sept. 11, 2001, al Qaeda attacks.

A Justice Department official in Washington said the department would appeal the court's decision.

Bush had designated Padilla an "enemy combatant" but U.S. District Judge Henry Floyd ruled that the president had no authority to hold Padilla or to suspend his right to due legal process.

"The court finds that the president has no power, neither express nor implied, neither constitutional nor statutory, to hold Petitioner as an enemy combatant," Floyd ruled in Spartanburg, South Carolina.

Floyd said the case was a law enforcement matter, not a military one, and that unless Padilla is charged with a crime, he should be freed.

"If the law in its current state is found by the president to be insufficient to protect this country from terrorist plots, such as the one alleged here, then the president should prevail upon Congress to remedy the problem," said Floyd, who was appointed to the federal bench by Bush in 2003.

Padilla, a former Chicago gang member and convert to Islam, is a U.S. citizen who was arrested at Chicago's O'Hare airport. U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft said at the time that Padilla was suspected of plotting with al Qaeda to set off a radioactive "dirty bomb" in the United States.

U.S. officials later backed off that claim and said Padilla had plotted with al Qaeda's leaders to blow up apartment buildings by using natural gas. None of the plots was carried out.

Padilla's attorneys argued that Bush overstepped his authority in ordering the detention, and a federal appeals court in New York ordered Padilla's release.

The government appealed and argued that Bush did have authority to detain Padilla.

In June, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the New York court lacked jurisdiction but allowed the case to be filed again in South Carolina.

The American Civil Liberties Union called the ruling "yet another setback to the administration's misguided belief that it does not have to follow our constitutional traditions in pursuing terrorists."

"As Judge Floyd recognized in his opinion, President Bush's actions in the Padilla case flout the checks and balances that ensure our democracy and liberty," ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero said.

Thanks, Ge. Lotsa folks think the ACLU is to the left of Michael Moore, but I'd want them on my side if I was being detained without charge or contact or counsel in my country or any other country.

Quote, ""As Judge Floyd recognized in his opinion, President Bush's actions in the Padilla case flout the checks and balances that ensure our democracy and liberty." Now, that's a mouth full.

Seems to me there should be an alternative between denying a U.S. citizen his legal rights and putting a proven terrorist back out on the street. My quarrel with the ACLU is that it generally puts the perpetrators rights ahead of the victims.

How can you possibly say he's a proven terrorist?

If they had proof, then he wouldn't have been let go. He would have been brought to trial. Which is the place where we decide if someone is innocent or guilty, remember?

Cycloptichorn

foxfyre, I agree with you that it is a fine balance. But I want the scales to tip in favor of the accused and incarcerated person who is already in the clutches of the law. I always see myself as that (possible) innocent, accused with no one believing me and no one allowed access to me and no allowed to advocate on my behalf. Isn't the defense of the innocent-until-proven-guilty the story of this country?

If we give up these rights in order to "protect" ourselves, we have given up everything we have to protect.

Hey Kara, CI ..... when I watched the press conference between 'Pooty < grimace >' and 'Boosh' it felt good to hear someone ... anyone call Boosh on anything. When the Russian press posed the freedom of the press question 'how can you question Russia's freedoms when you have supression in America'(I paraphrased a bit)
At first I raised my clinched fist with a 'YEAH' then instantly felt ashamed.... this is not the America I grew up in .... I never had cause to question the man that represented freedom to the world .... even in the Nam years.... now it feels like an act of treason to not.

Ge, I feel so strongly about what you just posted. I, too, chuckled (wryly) when Putin backed away from Bush pushing for Russian reforms. Putin could have responded more pointedly but he is a diplomat.

Now, you have reminded me that I never doubted what our leaders promulgated as "our American way of life" when they went abroad and stalked the foreign corriders of power. I think now that it is I who have changed as the global scene has changed. We were looked up to, all these many past decades, as the arbiters of freedom and justice, as an exemplar of democratic principle, as the mighty peacemaker. When we went to war, it was as a partner of others who fought tyranny. We consulted with Europe, our older and wiser forefathers, to forestall any foolish ambitions that did not suit our more noble purposes.

It all came apart after 9/11 when we exchewed that partnership and went to war (virtually) alone. We may, like Humpty Dumpty, put it back together again but it will take years, and that old trust cannot be wholly recreated. Europe will be strong -- economically and in other ways -- and will have a strength of unusual proportion, with its melding of independent countries and identities.

I noted with interest that one of the inducements that might be offered to Iran, to make them slow down if not abandon their nuclear ambitions, was the possibility of membership in the EU. Isn't that quite marvelous? Let us into the select group of EU nations, with all of the economic advantages therein, and we will look again at our nukes? This is the way the world should be run. And the US is not leading the way. The US is needed -- no doubt about that -- with its strength, armies, weapons (bit of irony there...) -- but the initiative here was European.

Kara .... I can not believe this crap ... I just read where a U.S. representative told Syria they had to withdraw all troops from Lebanon because they could not hold elections that would have any validity under an 'occupation'.
Hellooooo

Surely, you are not shocked, shocked....? Is this any more bizarre than the US planning to update its nuclear weapons to create smaller, more powerful warheads WHILE insisting that other nations abide by the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and WHILE insisting that other nations (whom we have scared into hurrying up their own nuclear programs to protect themselves from the US) drop all enrichment programs?

I will hold my head up again when my country says it is destroying all of its nuclear warheads except for a few purely defensive weapons (offensive nuclear weapons are much larger and more powerful, and we have many, many of them) and that we are leading the way to a world free of such weapons of mass destruction.

Hey, lady, do as I say and not as I do. I'm the toughest kid on the block, and I am a tyrant, so listen to me - or else!

The worlds largest oponnent of war is the worlds largest arms dealer? The logic escapes me

CI, not quite true to life it's more like .... 'hey lady, I don't give a crap what you want or say ... I only take orders from a 'higher' authority .... you got a gripe take it upstairs.