Don't miss this Weekly Standard piece, The Mother of All Connections. A lot of the meat is at the bottom of the second page. For instance, we should remember this statement from the fatwa announced at the formation of Al Qaeda:
That same day, Osama bin Laden and Ayman al Zawahiri, joined by
leaders of four additional Islamic terrorist groups, announced the
formation of the World Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders, soon
to become better known as al Qaeda. The grievances in the fatwa focused
on Iraq. The terrorist leaders decried the presence of U.S. troops on
the Arabian Peninsula. They protested the "great devastation inflicted
on the Iraqi people by the crusader-Zionist alliance." They cited
American support for Israel and surmised that the United States sought
to distract world attention from the killing of Muslims in Jerusalem.
To support this claim, the fatwa turned once again to Iraq: "The best
proof of this is their eagerness to destroy Iraq, the strongest
neighboring Arab state."The fatwa declared: "The ruling to kill the Americans and their
allies--civilians and military--is an individual duty for every Muslim
who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it."
That's right. At the formation of Al Qaeda, bin Laden is voicing support for the secularist Saddam. Or do you remember Ansar as Islam in northern Iraq?
TEN DAYS BEFORE September 11, 2001, a small group of Islamic radicals
came together in the northern, Kurdish-controlled area of Iraq. They
would quickly come to be known as Ansar al Islam. Their ranks swelled
as hundreds of al Qaeda terrorists fled the U.S. assault on the Taliban
in Afghanistan. It quickly became clear to many policymakers and
intelligence analysts that the Ansar camps were fallback zones for al
Qaeda.
I know. I know. What about the idea that Saddam didn't have control over this part of Iraq? Then why were Iraqi intelligence officials providing support?
A May 2002 signals intelligence report, included in the Feith memo,
stated that "an Iraqi intelligence official, praising Ansar al Islam,
provided it with $100,000 and agreed to continue to give assistance."
Another report from the National Security Agency in October 2002 said
that "al Qaeda and Iraq reached a secret agreement whereby Iraq would
provide safe haven to al Qaeda members and provide them with money and
weapons." It was this agreement that "reportedly prompted a large
number of al Qaeda members to head to Iraq."
Tell me again why the war in Iraq is not part of the War on Terror? Oh, that's right. We don't have any links between Iraq and 09/11. Unless you count the Iraqis that helped the hijackers during the planning stages:
TWO FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE SERVICES believe that Ahmed Hikmat Shakir, an
Iraqi national who escorted a September 11 hijacker to the key planning
meeting for those attacks in Kuala Lumpur, was working for Iraqi
Intelligence: the Malaysians, who monitored Shakir's activities as he
facilitated the travel for 9/11 hijacker Khalid al Mihdhar in January
2000, and the Jordanians, who detained Shakir for three months after
the September 11 attacks.
By this same logic the spouse caught naked with another person in a bedroom could protest, "Oh, but honey, we weren't in bed with each other.....", and be cleared of charges of infidelity.
Via The Corner (Read their take on the detainee story too.)
