Al Qaeda gloats over Rumsfeld

[Caladan 19]

al-Qaeda was nearly 80% destroyed by the Bush administration's own count. The leadership is probably in Pakistan. It can barely tie its shoes at this point. Are there fighters? Yes. Is Iraq in a civil war? Yes.

Most of the groups in Iraq have been designated as 'al-Qaeda' wannabes, rather like the Madrid and London bombings. It hasn't been substantiated, i.e., no evidence at all, that Hussein and al-Qaeda worked together (Shi'a and Sunni radicals don't often get along). It was a stupid war to start if your goal was to fight terror.

I don't think any Democrat has advocated just dropping everything and leaving. But they do want a timetable which eventually includes withdrawal and a plan of how to fix stuff, not a bunch of this stay-the-course-until-we-lose-the-election-then-woops-fire-Rumsfeld but everything is fine no really nonsense.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Bush Administration Eliminating 19-year-old International Terrorism Report

By Jonathan S. Landay

Knight Ridder Newspapers

Friday 15 April 2005 (This is a bit dated but still relevant)

Washington - The State Department decided to stop publishing an annual report on international terrorism after the government's top terrorism center concluded that there were more terrorist attacks in 2004 than in any year since 1985, the first year the publication covered.

Several US officials defended the abrupt decision, saying the methodology the National Counterterrorism Center used to generate statistics for the report may have been faulty, such as the inclusion of incidents that may not have been terrorism.

Last year, the number of incidents in 2003 was undercounted, forcing a revision of the report, "Patterns of Global Terrorism."

But other current and former officials charged that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's office ordered "Patterns of Global Terrorism" eliminated several weeks ago because the 2004 statistics raised disturbing questions about the Bush's administration's frequent claims of progress in the war against terrorism.

"Instead of dealing with the facts and dealing with them in an intelligent fashion, they try to hide their facts from the American public," charged Larry C. Johnson, a former CIA analyst and State Department terrorism expert who first disclosed the decision to eliminate the report in The Counterterrorism Blog, an online journal.

Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., who was among the leading critics of last year's mix-up, reacted angrily to the decision.

"This is the definitive report on the incidence of terrorism around the world. It should be unthinkable that there would be an effort to withhold it - or any of the key data - from the public. The Bush administration should stop playing politics with this critical report."

A senior State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, confirmed that the publication was being eliminated, but said the allegation that it was being done for political reasons was "categorically untrue."

According to Johnson and US intelligence officials familiar with the issue, statistics that the National Counterterrorism Center provided to the State Department reported 625 "significant" terrorist attacks in 2004.

That compared with 175 such incidents in 2003, the highest number in two decades.

The statistics didn't include attacks on American troops in Iraq, which President Bush as recently as Tuesday called "a central front in the war on terror."

The intelligence officials requested anonymity because the information is classified and because, they said, they feared White House retribution. Johnson declined to say how he obtained the figures.

Another US official, who also requested anonymity, said analysts from the counterterrorism center were especially careful in amassing and reviewing the data because of the political turmoil created by last year's errors.

Last June, the administration was forced to issue a revised version of the report for 2003 that showed a higher number of significant terrorist attacks and more than twice the number of fatalities than had been presented in the original report two months earlier.

The snafu was embarrassing for the White House, which had used the original version to bolster President Bush's election-campaign claim that the war in Iraq had advanced the fight against terrorism.

US officials blamed last year's mix-up on bureaucratic mistakes involving the Terrorist Threat Integration Center, the forerunner of the National Counterterrorism Center.

Created last year on the recommendation of the independent commission that investigated the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the center is the government's primary organization for analyzing and integrating all US government intelligence on terrorism.

The State Department published "Patterns of Global Terrorism" under a law that requires it to submit to the House of Representatives and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee a country-by-country terrorism assessment by April 30 each year.

A declassified version of the report has been made public since 1986 in the form of a glossy booklet, even though there was no legal requirement to produce one.

The senior State Department official said a report on global terrorism would be sent this year to lawmakers and made available to the public in place of "Patterns of Global Terrorism," but that it wouldn't contain statistical data.

He said that decision was taken because the State Department believed that the National Counterterrorism Center "is now the authoritative government agency for the analysis of global terrorism. We believe that the NCTC should compile and publish the relevant data on that subject."

He didn't answer questions about whether the data would be made available to the public, saying, "We will be consulting (with Congress) ... on who should publish and in what form."

Another US official said Rice's office was leery of the methodology the National Counterterrorism Center used to generate the data for 2004, believing that analysts anxious to avoid a repetition of last year's undercount included incidents that may not have been terrorist attacks.

But the US intelligence officials said Rice's office decided to eliminate "Patterns of Global Terrorism" when the counterterrorism center declined to use alternative methodology that would have reported fewer significant attacks.

The officials said they interpreted Rice's action as an attempt to avoid releasing statistics that would contradict the administration's claims that it's winning the war against terrorism.

[GaryC 7]

It looks like the dems have some supporters. They earned the praise from this guy. Congrats guys!!!

'Iraq al-Qaeda' welcomes US poll

Abu Hamza was identified in June as the late Zarqawi's successor

A statement purportedly from the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq hails the defeat of Republicans in the US mid-term polls.

The audio message, whose authenticity has not been verified, was published on Islamist websites and was said to be the voice of Abu Hamza al-Muhajir.

The Democrats' victory in Tuesday's Congressional elections was a move in the right direction, the speaker said.

Outgoing US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had stepped down to flee the Iraqi battlefield, he added.

He told US President George W Bush to "stay on the battleground".

"I tell the lame duck (US administration) do not rush to escape as did your defence minister.

"The American people have taken a step in the right path to come out of their predicament... they voted for a level of reason," the voice said. Muhajir, also known as Ayyub al-Masri, has been identified by US forces as the successor to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, killed in a raid in June 2006.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6137082.stm

[peezey 0]

Here's the source.

They allude to the fact that the defeat of the Repulicans and the fact that the Democrats have taken the house and senate is a victory for them and it's just a matter of time before they claim victory in IRAQ.

So they are terrorists but now you care their opinion on a mid-term election? This recording means what, exactly, in the scheme - yes, scheme - of things?

[kaydee457 13]

Here's the source.

They allude to the fact that the defeat of the Repulicans and the fact that the Democrats have taken the house and senate is a victory for them and it's just a matter of time before they claim victory in IRAQ.

So they are terrorists but now you care their opinion on a mid-term election? This recording means what, exactly, in the scheme - yes, scheme - of things?

You miss the point here peezey. They, the terrorists, have been on a long pre-election killing spree to turn the outcome of our elections in their favor; they see the democrats as the likely people to pull out of IRAQ and hand them victory.

It appears that their strategy is successful as there's already a movement begun by ex-presidential wannabe George McGovern that has proposed to the democrats a plan to pull all troops out of IRAQ by June 2007. He apparently has many democratic followers that agree.

Here's a congatulations to Al-Q. as they clearly know our citizens better than we do. We don't have the stamina to win a war anymore.

[tigretigre 0]

All this tells me is that nobody really liked Rumsfeld that much. Not even mean terrorists.

[Carol&Marc 0]

Here's the source.

They allude to the fact that the defeat of the Repulicans and the fact that the Democrats have taken the house and senate is a victory for them and it's just a matter of time before they claim victory in IRAQ.

So they are terrorists but now you care their opinion on a mid-term election? This recording means what, exactly, in the scheme - yes, scheme - of things?

You miss the point here peezey. They, the terrorists, have been on a long pre-election killing spree to turn the outcome of our elections in their favor; they see the democrats as the likely people to pull out of IRAQ and hand them victory.

It appears that their strategy is successful as there's already a movement begun by ex-presidential wannabe George McGovern that has proposed to the democrats a plan to pull all troops out of IRAQ by June 2007. He apparently has many democratic followers that agree.

Here's a congatulations to Al-Q. as they clearly know our citizens better than we do. We don't have the stamina to win a war anymore.

coming to a neighborhood near you!

[AnaAndDaniel 0]

Here's the source.

They allude to the fact that the defeat of the Repulicans and the fact that the Democrats have taken the house and senate is a victory for them and it's just a matter of time before they claim victory in IRAQ.

So they are terrorists but now you care their opinion on a mid-term election? This recording means what, exactly, in the scheme - yes, scheme - of things?

You miss the point here peezey. They, the terrorists, have been on a long pre-election killing spree to turn the outcome of our elections in their favor; they see the democrats as the likely people to pull out of IRAQ and hand them victory.

It appears that their strategy is successful as there's already a movement begun by ex-presidential wannabe George McGovern that has proposed to the democrats a plan to pull all troops out of IRAQ by June 2007. He apparently has many democratic followers that agree.

Here's a congatulations to Al-Q. as they clearly know our citizens better than we do. We don't have the stamina to win a war anymore.

you sit tight there little buddy. the rest of the nation will come out and do what it needs to do and come out just fine. the men and women of our miitary can and will kick terrist booty wherever they be. all that has changed was the civilian control. what was there was not working to our sastification.

so go ahead and fear the gloomy scenario that you believe in. The rest of America will march on.

Daniel

:energetic:

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Here's the source.

They allude to the fact that the defeat of the Repulicans and the fact that the Democrats have taken the house and senate is a victory for them and it's just a matter of time before they claim victory in IRAQ.

So they are terrorists but now you care their opinion on a mid-term election? This recording means what, exactly, in the scheme - yes, scheme - of things?

You miss the point here peezey. They, the terrorists, have been on a long pre-election killing spree to turn the outcome of our elections in their favor; they see the democrats as the likely people to pull out of IRAQ and hand them victory.

It appears that their strategy is successful as there's already a movement begun by ex-presidential wannabe George McGovern that has proposed to the democrats a plan to pull all troops out of IRAQ by June 2007. He apparently has many democratic followers that agree.

Here's a congatulations to Al-Q. as they clearly know our citizens better than we do. We don't have the stamina to win a war anymore.

So what? Perhaps GWB should have chosen his targets a bit more carefully, and should have come up with a better long term plan rather than spouting puerile slogans like "stay the course".

Just because Al Qaeda wanted to see Bush politically castrated, it doesn't in any way vindicate or justify his policies.

Its the Bush adminstration's John Wayne, sorry General Custer style approach to the middle-east that is the primary cause for the public backlash against him and the Republican party, not "liberal media" and not the actions Al Qaeda fighters. Bush seems to believe that the war on terror supersedes being politically accountable. The democratic process has proven otherwise - despite the fact that it took the electorate 6 years to figure it out.

[tigretigre 0]

Its the Bush adminstration's John Wayne, sorry General Custer style approach to the middle-east that is the primary cause for the public backlash against him and the Republican party, not "liberal media" and not the actions Al Qaeda fighters. Bush seems to believe that the war on terror supersedes being politically accountable. The democratic process has proven otherwise - despite the fact that it took the electorate 6 years to figure it out.

Very, very well-put. I've been pretty sick of this "don't sass me, I'm fighting the War on Terror" attitude that's come out of the White House whenever anybody's had the temerity to question the President's position, or suggest that another approach should be considered. I guess I wasn't the only one.

[kaydee457 13]

Here's the source.

They allude to the fact that the defeat of the Repulicans and the fact that the Democrats have taken the house and senate is a victory for them and it's just a matter of time before they claim victory in IRAQ.

So they are terrorists but now you care their opinion on a mid-term election? This recording means what, exactly, in the scheme - yes, scheme - of things?

You miss the point here peezey. They, the terrorists, have been on a long pre-election killing spree to turn the outcome of our elections in their favor; they see the democrats as the likely people to pull out of IRAQ and hand them victory.

It appears that their strategy is successful as there's already a movement begun by ex-presidential wannabe George McGovern that has proposed to the democrats a plan to pull all troops out of IRAQ by June 2007. He apparently has many democratic followers that agree.

Here's a congatulations to Al-Q. as they clearly know our citizens better than we do. We don't have the stamina to win a war anymore.

you sit tight there little buddy. the rest of the nation will come out and do what it needs to do and come out just fine. the men and women of our miitary can and will kick terrist booty wherever they be. all that has changed was the civilian control. what was there was not working to our sastification.

so go ahead and fear the gloomy scenario that you believe in. The rest of America will march on.

Daniel

:energetic:

Well, they can't do what they need to do when the democrats will be retreating. There's already talk of doing so. There's a movement afoot to retreat as soon as June of 07.

So my naive, small/ narrow minded person we will relive Vietnam all over again.

I'll finish up with a democrat's definition of fighting and winning a war:

Nancy Pelosi:

Asked whether her preference is to win the war or just end it, Pelosi said those are not the options.

"This isn't a war to win, its a situation to be solved, and you define winning any way you want, but you must solve the problem," she said.

What an A$$hole.....

[AnaAndDaniel 0]

Here's the source.

They allude to the fact that the defeat of the Repulicans and the fact that the Democrats have taken the house and senate is a victory for them and it's just a matter of time before they claim victory in IRAQ.

So they are terrorists but now you care their opinion on a mid-term election? This recording means what, exactly, in the scheme - yes, scheme - of things?

You miss the point here peezey. They, the terrorists, have been on a long pre-election killing spree to turn the outcome of our elections in their favor; they see the democrats as the likely people to pull out of IRAQ and hand them victory.

It appears that their strategy is successful as there's already a movement begun by ex-presidential wannabe George McGovern that has proposed to the democrats a plan to pull all troops out of IRAQ by June 2007. He apparently has many democratic followers that agree.

Here's a congatulations to Al-Q. as they clearly know our citizens better than we do. We don't have the stamina to win a war anymore.

you sit tight there little buddy. the rest of the nation will come out and do what it needs to do and come out just fine. the men and women of our miitary can and will kick terrist booty wherever they be. all that has changed was the civilian control. what was there was not working to our sastification.

so go ahead and fear the gloomy scenario that you believe in. The rest of America will march on.

Daniel

:energetic:

Well, they can't do what they need to do when the democrats will be retreating. There's already talk of doing so. There's a movement afoot to retreat as soon as June of 07.

So my naive, small/ narrow minded person we will relive Vietnam all over again.

I'll finish up with a democrat's definition of fighting and winning a war:

Nancy Pelosi:

Asked whether her preference is to win the war or just end it, Pelosi said those are not the options.

"This isn't a war to win, its a situation to be solved, and you define winning any way you want, but you must solve the problem," she said.

What an A$$hole.....

it is ok to sit there and quiver. there is plenty of balls left in this country to handle this. you go on with your life now.

thank God not all Republicans think the way you do. cracks me up how all these dittoheads are running around like chickens with their heads cut off and crying that the sky is falling. bunch of wuzzes. bleh, like i said, plenty of balls left around here.

Daniel

:energetic:

[Mirorgate 0]

it is ok to sit there and quiver. there is plenty of balls left in this country to handle this. you go on with your life now.

thank God not all Republicans think the way you do. cracks me up how all these dittoheads are running around like chickens with their heads cut off and crying that the sky is falling. bunch of wuzzes. bleh, like i said, plenty of balls left around here.

Daniel

:energetic:

Not to sure about the bolded anymore.. after you gone n hung everyone up by the nads.... might be running short of numbers here.

[cmartyn 0]

To me, what went wrong is they had no plan. We sent in 400,000 guys.. They took over the government in a week. Then they sat on their asses. #######.. To fix this, we need to send in big numbers with big guns, we need to put some serious weapons control in there and secure the borders and rout em out. Theres no way we are going to do that for the same reason we wont send 12 million illegals home. It will cost too much. So we can either stay the course and fill up body bags every day. Or we can get the hell out.

[kaydee457 13]

Here's the source.

They allude to the fact that the defeat of the Repulicans and the fact that the Democrats have taken the house and senate is a victory for them and it's just a matter of time before they claim victory in IRAQ.

So they are terrorists but now you care their opinion on a mid-term election? This recording means what, exactly, in the scheme - yes, scheme - of things?

You miss the point here peezey. They, the terrorists, have been on a long pre-election killing spree to turn the outcome of our elections in their favor; they see the democrats as the likely people to pull out of IRAQ and hand them victory.

It appears that their strategy is successful as there's already a movement begun by ex-presidential wannabe George McGovern that has proposed to the democrats a plan to pull all troops out of IRAQ by June 2007. He apparently has many democratic followers that agree.

Here's a congatulations to Al-Q. as they clearly know our citizens better than we do. We don't have the stamina to win a war anymore.

you sit tight there little buddy. the rest of the nation will come out and do what it needs to do and come out just fine. the men and women of our miitary can and will kick terrist booty wherever they be. all that has changed was the civilian control. what was there was not working to our sastification.

so go ahead and fear the gloomy scenario that you believe in. The rest of America will march on.

Daniel

:energetic:

Well, they can't do what they need to do when the democrats will be retreating. There's already talk of doing so. There's a movement afoot to retreat as soon as June of 07.

So my naive, small/ narrow minded person we will relive Vietnam all over again.

I'll finish up with a democrat's definition of fighting and winning a war:

Nancy Pelosi:

Asked whether her preference is to win the war or just end it, Pelosi said those are not the options.

"This isn't a war to win, its a situation to be solved, and you define winning any way you want, but you must solve the problem," she said.

What an A$$hole.....

it is ok to sit there and quiver. there is plenty of balls left in this country to handle this. you go on with your life now.

thank God not all Republicans think the way you do. cracks me up how all these dittoheads are running around like chickens with their heads cut off and crying that the sky is falling. bunch of wuzzes. bleh, like i said, plenty of balls left around here.

Daniel

:energetic:

Let's see here now. I served my country in Vietnam. Did you ever serve? I didn't think so....

I'm approaching 56 years old and I've been an aerospace engineer for nearly 33 years now, some of those years spent deployed as an engineer and consultant to the U.S. Navy, Air Force and Army to various parts of the world, including as of late the middle east.

Before you ever talk to me a condescending tone you liberal dickhead, you'd better have some fukcing practical experience and perspective.…..it’s clear to me that you don’t have any.

How would you know the quality of our forces? Have you served or are you just repeating what the fukc you see on TV, or read in the papers?

Yes, they’re the finest in the world in spite of pompous morons like you.