Re: Iraq Is The Central Theater In The Global War On Islamofascist Jihadist Terrorism

Recte:

I prefer General Marshall's term during World War II -- THEATER...

Which is not to say that other theaters are not also VERY important.

Some attention is currently focused on Afghanistan and Waziristan.
--
DSH
Lux et Veritas et Libertas
Vires et Honor
-------------------------------------------------

Iraq Is the Central Front

The Democrats are in denial about our struggle against al Qaeda.

by Thomas Joscelyn
07/30/2007, Volume 012, Issue 43
The Weekly Standard

The leading Democratic presidential contenders have voiced a new
conventional wisdom in recent weeks: The war in Iraq has little or
nothing to do with defeating al Qaeda. Senators Hillary Clinton and
Barack Obama have embraced this view, as has the New York Times. It is
dangerously wrong. At the very time it is being propounded, al Qaeda
continues to fight fiercely to expel U.S. forces from Iraq in pursuit
of its long-announced objective of establishing a safe haven there. It
is contradicted by U.S. intelligence and by the repeated
pronouncements of al Qaeda's top leaders going back years.

Precisely! -- DSH

Oblivious to these facts, the Democrats insist: "This is not our
fight." So wrote Hillary Clinton and her Senate colleague Robert Byrd
in a July 10 op-ed. "Iraq is at war with itself and American troops
are caught in the middle."

"So we should cut and run."  THAT was their argument and the argument
of the Three Little Pogues -- Gans, Surreyman and Tiglath.  How WRONG
they were! -- DSH

Campaigning recently in Iowa, Barack Obama agreed: "We cannot win a
war against the terrorists if we're on the wrong battlefield."

Pointing to al Qaeda's resurgence along the border of Pakistan and
Afghanistan, Obama called for troops to be redeployed from Iraq. He
promised that when he becomes president, "Nobody will work harder to
go after those terrorists who will do the American people harm. But
that requires a commander in chief who understands our troops need to
be on the right battlefield, not the wrong battlefield."

And in the same spirit, the New York Times public editor Clark Hoyt
scolded the Bush administration under the headline "Seeing Al Qaeda
Around Every Corner."

This narrative is politically convenient for anti-Iraq war Democrats
and like-minded members of the press: Public support for the war and
the president has plummeted; most now believe the United States should
not have gone into Iraq in the first place; and the Democratic base
wants American troops withdrawn as soon as possible. What the new
conventional wisdom isn't is consistent with the actual struggle we
are in.

Just last week, the summary of a new National Intelligence Estimate
(NIE) representing the consensus of the U.S. intelligence community
was released. It states that the organization "Al Qaeda in Iraq" is
the terror network's "most visible and capable affiliate." Al Qaeda's
leadership still desires to strike the U.S. homeland and "will
probably seek to leverage the contacts and capabilities of Al Qaeda in
Iraq (AQI)" to do so. "In addition," the intelligence estimate notes,
al Qaeda relies on Al Qaeda in Iraq to "energize the broader Sunni
extremist community, raise resources, and to recruit and indoctrinate
operatives, including for Homeland attacks."

These judgments are obviously inconsistent with Obama's belief that
America is fighting on the "wrong battlefield." But the judgments of
the intelligence community have been wrong before--witness the October
2002 NIE on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. So we should be wary
of taking this latest pronouncement at face value.

The NIE's conclusions are, however, supported by a source that cannot
be ignored: al Qaeda's two principal leaders. Osama bin Laden and
Ayman al Zawahiri have repeatedly called Iraq the "front line" in
their war against Western civilization. Indeed, a review of their
statements--readily accessible in translation in the anthologies
edited by Bruce Lawrence (Messages to the World: The Statements of
Osama bin Laden) and Laura Mansfield (His Own Words: Translations and
Analysis of the Writings of Dr. Ayman Al Zawahiri) and from other
public sources--confirms that they have made Iraq their fight.

Consider what bin Laden said about the importance of the war in Iraq
in December 2004:
-----------------------------------------

I now address my speech to the whole of the Islamic nation: Listen and
understand. The issue is big and the misfortune is momentous. The most
important and serious issue today for the whole world is this Third
World War, which the Crusader-Zionist coalition began against the
Islamic nation. It is raging in the land of the two rivers. The
world's millstone and pillar is in Baghdad, the capital of the
caliphate.

The whole world is watching this war and the two adversaries; the
Islamic nation, on the one hand, and the United States and its allies
on the other. It is either victory and glory or misery and
humiliation. The nation today has a very rare opportunity to come out
of the subservience and enslavement to the West and to smash the
chains with which the Crusaders have fettered it.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Likewise, here is how Ayman al Zawahiri described the war in Iraq in a
letter to Abu Musab al Zarqawi, then al Qaeda's chief terrorist in
Iraq, in 2005:
--------------------------------------------------

I want to be the first to congratulate you for what God has blessed
you with in terms of fighting battle in the heart of the Islamic
world, which was formerly the field for major battles in Islam's
history, and what is now the place for the greatest battle of Islam in
this era.
------------------------------------------------------

According to Clinton and Obama, "this is not our fight." According to
bin Laden and Zawahiri, the war in Iraq is the "most important and
serious issue today for the whole world" and "the place for the
greatest battle of Islam in this era."

Plainly, there is a disconnect. The comments by al Qaeda's leaders
quoted here are typical. Al Qaeda has repeatedly told us that it has
drawn a line in the sands of Iraq. Some in America simply choose not
to listen.

CORRECT! -- DSH

Indeed, nearly six years after the September 11 attacks, the fog of
war has descended. Our view of the enemy has become clouded by
partisan politics. But our blindness hasn't stopped al Qaeda's
leadership from reconstituting itself along the border of Pakistan and
Afghanistan and in Iran. The organization still desires to strike the
American homeland and continues to execute attacks in Europe. (The
recent attacks in Glasgow and London, for example, had numerous ties
to foreign plotters.) And hotspots around the world continue to flare
up.

Let us be clear, then: Iraq is the central front in this global war.
******

Al Qaeda has made it so. For that reason it is worth revisiting why
Osama bin Laden and Ayman al Zawahiri have invested so heavily in
Iraq.  ******

As al Qaeda's leaders see it, the U.S. intervention in Iraq was not
intended merely to overthrow Saddam's regime and replace it with an
elected government. It was further proof that the "Crusaders and
Zionists" were conspiring against the Muslim people. In February 2003,
bin Laden viewed the "war on terror" and the coming invasion of Iraq
through this conspiratorial lens:
--------------------------------------------------

The Bush-Blair axis claims that it wants to annihilate terrorism, but
it is no longer a secret--even to the masses--that it really wants to
annihilate Islam. . . . Nor can there be any doubt that the current
preparation for an attack on Iraq is anything other than the latest in
a continuous series of aggressions on the countries of the region.
-----------------------------------------------------
Bin Laden warned that the conspirators intended to dominate the region
and establish a "Greater Israel":

One of the most important objectives of this new Crusader campaign,
after dividing up the region, is to prepare it for the establishment
of what is called the state of Greater Israel, which would incorporate
large parts of Iraq and Egypt within its borders, as well as Syria,
Lebanon, and Jordan, the whole of Palestine, and a large part of Saudi
Arabia. Do you know what harm and suffering Greater Israel will bring
down upon the region?
------------------------------------------------------------
Few sober-minded observers would agree with bin Laden's
characterization. Nonetheless, bin Laden attacked Middle Eastern
regimes for not resisting the conspiracy: "And what have the
governments of the region done to resist this hostile strategic goal?"
he asked. "Nothing."

Criticism of the region's rulers, notably Saudi Arabia and the Gulf
States, is an integral part of al Qaeda's recruitment propaganda. Bin
Laden and Zawahiri continually tell Muslims that their rulers have
been feckless in the face of the "Crusader-Zionist" conspiracy.

Therefore, their only alternative is to join al Qaeda's jihad, which
is the vanguard of the new Muslim resistance. The U.S. invasion of
Iraq was simply the latest proof that the regimes of the Middle East
refuse to defend Muslim soil.

Bin Laden explained that turning a blind eye to the American-led
removal of Saddam was simply unacceptable:
-----------------------------------------------------

It is true that Saddam is a thief and an apostate, but the solution is
not to be found in moving the government of Iraq from a local thief to
a foreign one. Helping the infidel to take the land of Muslims and
control them is one of the ten acts contradictory to Islam.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

As this statement shows, bin Laden considered Saddam Hussein an
"apostate" and an "infidel." He said so many times. It is widely
believed in the West that this ideological difference precluded any
form of cooperation between al Qaeda and Saddam. As THE WEEKLY
STANDARD has documented repeatedly, however, that judgment is flawed.
******

In fact, as the war approached in February 2003, bin Laden explained
the necessity of joining forces with Saddam. However distasteful,
Saddam was still preferable to the "Crusaders":  ******
--------------------------------------------------------------

It is well known that fighting under pagan banners is not allowed, and
that the Muslim's belief and banner must be clear when fighting for
God. As the Prophet said: "Only he whose aim in fighting is to keep
God's word supreme fights in God's cause." There is no harm in such
circumstances if the Muslims' interests coincide with those of the
socialists in fighting the Crusaders, despite our firm conviction that
they are infidels. The time of these socialist rulers is long past.
The socialists are infidels, wherever they may be, whether in Baghdad
or Aden. The current fighting and the fighting that will take place in
the coming days can be very much compared to the Muslims' previous
battles. There is nothing wrong with a convergence of interests here.
---------------------------------------------------------------
There was a clear convergence of interests in the Iraqi insurgency
against the coalition. Neither Saddam nor bin Laden planned the Iraqi
insurgency in every detail. However, extensive evidence found in Iraqi
intelligence documents recovered by the coalition and the testimony of
al Qaeda operatives confirms that Saddam welcomed al Qaeda terrorists
and other jihadists to Iraqi soil in the weeks and months prior to the
war. ******

BINGO! -- DSH

For example, Paul Bremer, the former head of the Coalition Provisional
Authority, explains in My Year in Iraq that a Mukhabarat (Iraqi
intelligence) document he had seen "showed that Saddam had made plans
for an insurgency." Bremer elaborates: "And the insurgency had forces
to draw on from among several thousand hardened Baathists in two
northern Republican Guard divisions that had joined forces with
foreign jihadis." Iraqi intelligence documents similar to the one
Bremer describes were released online by the U.S. government last
year. One, from the top military command, contains the order to
"utilize Arab suicide bombers" against the Americans. It also orders
Saddam's agents to provide these terrorists with munitions, religious
instruction, shelter, and training at the outset of the war. Instead
of fighting a purely conventional war, Saddam clearly intended to
confront American forces with an insurgency made up of foreign and
homegrown terrorists, notably suicide bombers.  ******

In February 2003, bin Laden predicted that such an insurgency would
arise in Iraq:
-----------------------------------------

We also underline the importance of dragging the enemy forces into a
protracted, exhausting, close combat, making the most of camouflaged
defense positions in plains, farms, hills, and cities. What the enemy
fears most is urban and street warfare, in which heavy and costly
human losses can be expected. Further, we emphasize the importance of
martyrdom operations, which have inflicted unprecedented harm on
America and Israel, thanks to God Almighty.
----------------------------------------------
Some now try to downplay al Qaeda's role in the Iraqi insurgency. But
it is clear that al Qaeda--sometimes with the aid of Saddam's former
Baathists--has executed the most spectacular and devastating attacks
in Iraq. Al Qaeda's attack on the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad on
August 19, 2003, and its destruction of the golden dome of the
al-Askari Mosque on February 22, 2006, rocked Iraqi society. The
latter attack plunged Iraq into horrific sectarian violence, which led
many commentators to claim that Iraq was in the midst of a civil war.

From al Qaeda's perspective, these attacks are not intended only to
sow chaos and wreak havoc. Al Qaeda has long-term territorial
aspirations in Iraq. The forced retreat of American and Western forces
is just the first stage in its plan for the post-Saddam era.

Since the last caliph was dethroned by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in Turkey
in 1924, Islamist ideologues have repeatedly lamented the loss of the
Muslim empire. The caliphate--whose seat was Baghdad for 500
years--had little real political power by the time the Ottoman Empire
fell. But influential Islamists like Sayyid Qutb--whose brother may
have taught Osama bin Laden and whose work is cited throughout al
Qaeda's various proclamations--made the reestablishment of a common
Islamic government and the imposition of their strict version of
sharia law, rooted in the Koran and the Prophet Muhammad's sayings, a
central tenet of their radical vision. Al Qaeda's leaders often hark
back to a time when all Muslim peoples were united in a single empire
centered in the Middle East, stretching as far as Spain in the west
and Afghanistan in the east.

Ayman al Zawahiri explained the importance of rebuilding the caliphate
in his 2001 screed A Knight Under the Prophet's Banner:
------------------------------------------------------------

Armies achieve victory only when the infantry takes hold of land.
Likewise, the mujahid Islamic movement will not triumph against the
world coalition unless it possesses a fundamentalist base in the heart
of the Islamic world. All the means and plans that we have reviewed
for mobilizing the nation will remain up in the air without a tangible
gain or benefit unless they lead to the establishment of the state of
caliphate in the heart of the Islamic world.
----------------------------------------------------------

At the time, Zawahiri noted that "the establishment of a Muslim state
in the heart of the Islamic world is not an easy goal or an objective
that is close at hand." Nonetheless, "it constitutes the hope of the
Muslim nation to reinstate its fallen caliphate and regain its lost
glory." That hope now lives in Iraq.

In 2005, U.S. forces intercepted a letter from Zawahiri to Abu Musab
al Zarqawi, the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, the affiliate of bin
Laden's terror empire also known as "Al Qaeda in the Land of Two
Rivers" and "Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia." (Zarqawi was killed in an
airstrike in 2006.) Zawahiri noted that he had studied the issue
carefully and at one time believed "the center [of the reborn
caliphate] would be in the Levant and Egypt." However, Zarqawi's
"efforts and sacrifices" in Iraq were "a large step directly towards"
the goal of reestablishing the caliphate.

Zawahiri offered a program of action for Zarqawi, with several
"incremental goals" to be achieved in four stages:
-------------------------------------------------------------

The first stage: Expel the Americans from Iraq. The second stage:
Establish an Islamic authority or emirate, then develop it and support
it until it achieves the level of a caliphate--over as much territory
as you can to spread its power in Iraq, i.e., in Sunni areas, is in
order to fill the void stemming from the departure of the Americans,
immediately upon their exit and before un-Islamic forces attempt to
fill this void, whether those whom the Americans will leave behind
them, or those among the un-Islamic forces who will try to jump at
taking power. . . . The third stage: Extend the jihad wave to the
secular countries neighboring Iraq. The fourth stage: It may coincide
with what came before: the clash with Israel, because Israel was
established only to challenge any new Islamic entity.
-------------------------------------------------------------------

Al Qaeda's desire to establish an Islamic state in Iraq, based on
Allah's divine sharia, was an important reason why bin Laden and
Zawahiri denounced the Iraqi elections and the adoption of Iraq's new
constitution: These ensured that, for a time at least, Iraq would
remain free of the sharia legal system that al Qaeda and its allies
implemented in Sudan and Afghanistan when they controlled those lands.

As Iraq's democracy was beginning to take shape in late 2003, bin
Laden scolded anyone who thought that free elections were the answer:
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Voices have been raised in Iraq--as previously in Palestine, Egypt,
Jordan, Yemen and others--calling for a peaceful democratic solution
in cooperation with apostate governments, or with the Jewish and
Crusader invaders, instead of fighting for God. We should therefore
make note, briefly, of the danger of this wrong-headed, errant idea
which contravenes God's law and stands in the way of fighting for Him.
-----------------------------------------------------------

Similarly, Zawahiri has denounced America's attempt to promote the
establishment of freer governments in the Middle East. He scolded
Hamas for entering the "political process" in the
Palestinian-controlled territories. And he warned:
-------------------------------------------------------

My Muslim brothers in Palestine, Iraq and everywhere: We must be
cautious of the American game called the "political process." This
game is based on 4 deceiving things: The first one is giving up Sharia
as a rule of law.
--------------------------------------------------------

Instead of joining the "political process," al Qaeda has proceeded to
set up an "Islamic State of Iraq." In so doing, it has sown discord
within the insurgency in places like Anbar, where some of al Qaeda's
former allies have turned against it. This led Zawahiri, in a message
released earlier this month, to extol the virtues of al Qaeda's new
government, saying that even though it had "shortcomings" or was
"something less than perfection," it was still better than working
with the new Iraqi government.

Al Qaeda believes in jihad to the end. Bin Laden and Zawahiri have
repeatedly implored their fighters in Iraq to be patient. They are
confident of victory. "The mujahedeen fighters in Iraq turned
America's plan upside down," Zawahiri said in September 2004. "The
defeat of America in Iraq and Afghanistan has become just a matter of
time, with God's help."

Al Qaeda's rhetoric is peppered with references to America's
"weakness." Bin Laden and Zawahiri cite past occasions when America
was struck by terrorists and simply retreated--Lebanon in 1983,
Somalia in 1993. Just as al Qaeda claims its mujahedeen alone forced
the Soviet Union to retreat from Afghanistan, so it claims they will
force America to retreat from the Middle East.

Bin Laden explained this long before the Iraq war:
----------------------------------------------------------

We believe that America is much weaker than Russia, and we have
learned from our brothers who fought in the jihad in Somalia of the
incredible weakness and cowardice of the American soldier. Not even
eighty of them had been killed and they fled in total darkness in the
middle of the night, unable to see a thing.
---------------------------------------------------------

In addition to slandering America's bravest, al Qaeda spokesmen have
repeatedly questioned the resolve of America's leaders. They mock the
idea of timetables for withdrawal and the belief that U.S.-trained
Iraqi forces will be able to fight off the mujahedeen once America
leaves. According to al Qaeda, America should withdraw from Iraq
immediately in order to save lives. According to Zawahiri, Iraq is the
new Vietnam:
------------------------------------------------------

The truth that Bush, Rice and Rumsfeld hide from you is that there is
no way to escape Iraq, except by withdrawing immediately, and that any
delay in making this decision means nothing but more dead and more
wounded.

But if you don't leave [Iraq] today, you will most certainly leave
tomorrow, but you will leave after tens of thousands die, and many
more are crippled and wounded.

And all of the same lies they said about Vietnam, they repeat today
about Iraq. Did they not say that they would train the Vietnamese to
manage their own affairs, and that they were there defending freedom
in Vietnam?
--------------------------------------------------------

The THREE LITTLE POGUES certainly believe the SAME THINGS -- they are
lined up, in lockstep, knees jerking, with ZAWAHIRI. -- DSH

Al Qaeda's leaders are eager to claim victory in Iraq. And should
American forces withdraw, leaving Al Qaeda in Iraq a viable entity, we
most certainly will hear victory speeches like the one Zawahiri
prematurely delivered in early January 2006. Just over a month before,
in a speech at the U.S. Naval Academy on November 30, President Bush
had trumpeted the progress made in training Iraqi forces. He had
explained the U.S. strategy for Iraq by saying, "And as the Iraqi
security forces stand up, coalition forces can stand down." The very
hint that American forces would leave Iraq any time soon led Zawahiri
to taunt:
-------------------------------------------------------

I congratulate everyone for the victory in Iraq. You remember, my dear
Muslim brethren, what I told you more than a year ago, that the U.S.
troops will pull out of Iraq. It was only a matter of time.

Here they are now and in the blessing of God begging to pull out,
seeking negotiations with the mujahedeen. And here is Bush who was
forced to announce at the end of last November that he will be pulling
his troops out of Iraq.

He uses the pretext that the Iraqi forces reached a high level of
preparedness. But he doesn't have a timetable for the pullout.

If all of his troops--air force, army--are begging for a way to get
out of Iraq, will the liars, traitors and infidels succeed in what the
world superpower failed to achieve in Iraq?

You have set the timetable for the withdrawal a long time ago and
Bush, you have to admit that you were defeated in Iraq, you are being
defeated in Afghanistan, and you will be defeated in Palestine, God
willing.
--------------------------------------------------------

It may already be too late to save Iraq. It is possible that the
current surge strategy will fail. And the war raging in Iraq--let us
be clear--is certainly not "all al Qaeda, all the time," as some
critics now accuse the Bush administration of believing. But the idea
that the Iraq war has nothing to do with al Qaeda is demonstrably
false.

Bin Laden and Zawahiri's own words tell us that the American project
in Iraq jeopardizes everything their group stands for: These two top
leaders of al Qaeda have promised the people of the Middle East that
al Qaeda will protect Muslim soil from the "Crusader-Zionist"
invaders, even if the region's rulers will not, and even if doing so
meant cooperating with the "apostate" Saddam.

Zawahiri believes that Iraq is al Qaeda's best opportunity for
establishing a true Islamist state in the heart of the Middle East.

Democracy does not belong in the region, the two men say, and only an
Islamic government based on sharia law is acceptable in Iraq. The
mujahedeen will drive the Americans out of Iraq using the same tactics
they used to drive the Soviets out of Afghanistan. America's leaders
and soldiers are weak, al Qaeda says. They are looking for a way to
run from the fight in Iraq, and they will do so, bin Laden exults,
while the "whole world is watching."

THE THREE LITTLE POGUES WERE/ARE CERTAINLY LOOKING FOR A WAY TO CUT &
RUN FROM THE FIGHT IN IRAQ. -- DSH

The whole world, that is, except the leading Democratic candidates for
president.

Thomas Joscelyn is a terrorism researcher and economist living in New
York.
--
DSH
Lux et Veritas et Libertas
Vires et Honor
Veni, Vidi, Calcitravi Asinum
[ Auf dieses Posting antworten ]
Antworten

Brightlight (06.09.2008 05:21)
Tiglath (06.09.2008 16:48)