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

... The 3-day long circle-jerk that was the Fox news coverage of the Dan Rather story illustrates my case completely.

Well, how about if we stay and fight and treat it as a fundamental cultural conflict? Can we win then? <--- Icann

You're talking about a whole 'nother taco here. I don't think it's a matter of us being able to win or not; but a matter of the US citizens not desiring, or being willing to support, such a war.

What? Are you watching a different Fox news than I am?

That could easily be our own government, Icann; we have supported a HUGE amount of terrorists in our time, as long as they are fighting against our enemies. Need I remind you who trained OBL?

The terrorist vermin culture, as you put it, is not synonymous with Islaam. It isn't. I'm sorry. Therefore, you can't go to culture war based upon that as a reason.

But Terrorists aren't a culture. You are misusing the word 'culture' here, or at least straining the definitions.

Main Entry: 1cul·ture
Pronunciation: 'k&l-ch&r
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Middle French, from Latin cultura, from cultus, past participle
1 : CULTIVATION, TILLAGE
2 : the act of developing the intellectual and moral faculties especially by education
3 : expert care and training <beauty culture>
4 a : enlightenment and excellence of taste acquired by intellectual and aesthetic training b : acquaintance with and taste in fine arts, humanities, and broad aspects of science as distinguished from vocational and technical skills
5 a : the integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behavior that depends upon man's capacity for learning and transmitting knowledge to succeeding generations b : the customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of a racial, religious, or social group c : the set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes a company or corporation[emphasis added]
6 : cultivation of living material in prepared nutrient media; also : a product of such cultivation

Terrorism is an ideology more than a culture. Going to war with an Idea is hard.

In his speech yesterday he moved quickly on from the reasons for invading Iraq to talk about the need for defeating Islamic terrorism. Again he tried to link the two in the mind of the listener. SADDAM WAS AN ENEMY OF AL QAIDA TONY. In that respect Saddam was on our side.

... some people just can't get their head around this. they don't understand that saddam was to osama what larry flynt is to falwell.

Third, if the Americans' aims behind these wars are religious and economic, the aim is also to serve the Jews' petty state and divert attention from its occupation of Jerusalem and murder of Muslims there. The best proof of this is their eagerness to destroy Iraq, the strongest neighboring Arab state, and their endeavor to fragment all the states of the region such as Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Sudan into paper statelets and through their disunion and weakness to guarantee Israel's survival and the continuation of the brutal crusade occupation of the Peninsula.

however, i don't believe that saddam was ever on anyone's "side" but saddam's.

Just because OBL saw that America wanted to crack up Iraq (he was right about that one, BTW) doesn't make him and Saddam in cahoots.

It doesn't even make them friends. It just realizes that America wants to attack another Islaamic state, one that may or may not agree with OBL but is still infinately preferrable to America.

Yes, but ...perhaps, albeit unintentionally, some new OBL types are being trained in the US at this moment. If so they are part of the terrorist vermin culture.

Zarqawi and company are now known to have been sheltered in Iraq both before and after 9/11/2001 with Saddam's full knowledge.

Steve, I have thought about your bullet points and I keep coming back to the second choice. I believe that our administration was bent on war early in Bush's tenure, with the (almost) sole dissenting voice of Colin Powell being rolled over by the Pentagon war machine. If Tony Blair had opted out and could not be persuaded otherwise, then Bush would have had a very difficult decision but I think he would have done it alone.

Their mutual involvement is a pale shadow of what anyone would consider 'collabaration.'

If they really HAD wanted to work together, you don't think AQ would have had a much, much larger role in Iraq?

Very sad really, I think Blair thought he had no option.

As NBC News reported, "Long before the war, the Bush administration had several chances to wipe out his terrorist operation and perhaps kill Zarqawi himself - but never pulled the trigger." In June 2002, the Pentagon drafted plans to attack a camp Zarqawi was at with cruise missiles and airstrikes. The plan was killed by the White House. Four months later, as Zarqawi planned to use ricin in terrorist attacks in Europe, the Pentagon drew up a second strike plan, yet "the White House again killed it." In January 2003, the Pentagon drew up still another attack plan, and for the third time, the White House killed it.[3]

According to NBC, "Military officials insist their case for attacking Zarqawi's operation was airtight, but the administration feared destroying the terrorist camp in Iraq could undercut its case for war against Saddam."[4]
{emphasis added}

Zarqawi is thought to be at least indirectly responsible for hundreds of U.S. casualties. Just yesterday, Zarqawi's terrorist group beheaded an American civilian in Baghdad.

But what I want to bring to your attention today is the potentially much more sinister nexus between Iraq and the al-Qaida terrorist network, a nexus that combines classic terrorist organizations and modern methods of murder. Iraq today harbors a deadly terrorist network headed by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi an associate and collaborator of Usama bin Laden and his al-Qaida lieutenants.

Zarqawi, Palestinian born in Jordan, fought in the Afghan war more than a decade ago. Returning to Afghanistan in 2000, he oversaw a terrorist training camp. One of his specialties, and one of the specialties of this camp, is poisons.

When our coalition ousted the Taliban, the Zarqawi network helped establish another poison and explosive training center camp, and this camp is located in northeastern Iraq. You see a picture of this camp.

The network is teaching its operatives how to produce ricin and other poisons. Let me remind you how ricin works. Less than a pinch -- imagine a pinch of salt -- less than a pinch of ricin, eating just this amount in your food, would cause shock, followed by circulatory failure. Death comes within 72 hours and there is no antidote. There is no cure. It is fatal.

Those helping to run this camp are Zarqawi lieutenants operating in northern Kurdish areas outside Saddam Hussein's controlled Iraq. But Baghdad has an agent in the most senior levels of the radical organization Ansar al-Islam that controls this corner of Iraq. In 2000, this agent offered al-Qaida safe haven in the region.
After we swept al-Qaida from Afghanistan, some of those members accepted this safe haven. They remain there today.

Zarqawi's activities are not confined to this small corner of northeast Iraq. He traveled to Baghdad in May of 2002 for medical treatment, staying in the capital of Iraq for two months while he recuperated to fight another day.

During his stay, nearly two dozen extremists converged on Baghdad and established a base of operations there. These al-Qaida affiliates based in Baghdad now coordinate the movement of people, money and supplies into and throughout Iraq for his network, and they have now been operating freely in the capital for more than eight months.
Iraqi officials deny accusations of ties with al-Qaida. These denials are simply not credible. Last year, an al-Qaida associate bragged that the situation in Iraq was "good," that Baghdad could be transited quickly.

We know these affiliates are connected to Zarqawi because they remain, even today, in regular contact with his direct subordinates, include the poison cell plotters. And they are involved in moving more than money and materiel. Last year, two suspected al-Qaida operatives were arrested crossing from Iraq into Saudi Arabia. They were linked to associates of the Baghdad cell and one of them received training in Afghanistan on how to use cyanide.

From his terrorist network in Iraq, Zarqawi can direct his network in the Middle East and beyond. We in the United States, all of us, the State Department and the Agency for International Development, we all lost a dear friend with the cold-blooded murder of Mr. Laurence Foley in Amman, Jordan, last October. A despicable act was committed that day, the assassination of an individual whose sole mission was to assist the people of Jordan. The captured assassin says his cell received money and weapons from Zarqawi for that murder. After the attack, an associate of the assassin left Jordan to go to Iraq to obtain weapons and explosives for further operations. Iraqi officials protest that they are not aware of the whereabouts of Zarqawi or of any of his associates. Again, these protests are not credible. We know of Zarqawi's activities in Baghdad. I described them earlier.

Now let me add one other fact. We asked a friendly security service to approach Baghdad about extraditing Zarqawi and providing information about him and his close associates. This service contacted Iraqi officials twice and we passed details that should have made it easy to find Zarqawi. The network remains in Baghdad. Zarqawi still remains at large, to come and go.