Never forget that all public statements by "jihadists," from Osama bin Laden to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to the shoe bomber to the Times Square Bomber have indicated that their target is the US government, not innocent civilians.
Never forget that today's "jihadists" are Ronald Reagan's "freedom fighters," creatures of the CIA and Charlie Wilson's War, and that Saddam Hussein “gassed the Kurds” with materiel given by the US for the war he waged against Iran.
Never forget that the 150,000 “weapons inspector” Rush Limbaugh couldn’t wait to send into Iraq never found any weapons of mass destruction, and the most expensive and intrusive intelligence apparatus in the history of the world has never found them.
Never forget that the 9/11 attacks were against the US corporate-government alliance, not against Joe Sixpack. The Twin Towers were government entities, as are the Pentagon, the White House, and the Capitol.
Never forget that the innocent who died on 9/11 were the same kind of collateral damage to the jihadists that as that produced by the US in the carpet bombings of Germany and the firebombings and nuclear bombings of Japan, Iraq in the 1990s, and in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, and Libya since 9/11.
Never forget that the toll of innocents killed by the US military after 9/11 has been between ten and a hundred (or more) that on 9/11, and the victims of the internecine fighting made possible by the invasion are an order of magnitude even greater.
Never forget that in the land of the free it is illegal to possess more than $10,000 in cash and in the home of the brave toddlers and ninety-somethings in wheelchairs are frisked for fear they would carry bombs onto airplanes.
Never forget the lies told about Jessica Lynch and Pat Tillman.
Never forget to “follow the money”: the beneficiaries of the post-9/11 regime were those who in the late 1990s were calling for “a new Pearl Harbor” that would enable them to carry out their plans for the new world order.
Never forget that Osama never boasted about 9/11; in fact, he condemned it. Yet he was tried in the media, not a court of law, and executed in an operation that the US government originally lied about.
Never forget that money that could have been used to create jobs and rebuild our crumbling infrastructure has been sent overseas to finance these invasions.
Never forget that a "magician's" most important tactic is to divert his audience's attention from what is really going on to superfluity.
Never forget that Jesus said we are to love our neighbors as ourselves. We are to love our enemies, do good to those who hate us, bless those who curse us, and pray for those who mistreat us. This means ragheads and sand niggers.
And, Mr. Quill Pig, it also means Republicans and Democrats, liberals and even conservatives.
Osama may not have boasted about 9/11, but all of his underlings did. You should read The Black Banners by Ali Soufan. Soufan is a former FBI agent who was able to get information out of many of the early captured al-Qeada agents who supported bin Laden's efforts to hurt the United States.
ReplyDeleteAnd he did it without torturing them. I don't disagree with the rest of your comments, but bin Laden's group did it and bragged about it.
Thanks for checking in, Andy!
ReplyDeleteDo I correctly infer that "his underlings" said they were following Osama's orders? I haven't read everything Osama said between 9/11 and his demise, but the one thing I have read that was supposedly him boasting was so internally inconsistent that I think it was a fake.
That Osama was out to harm the US is no secret. The lie was and is that the US did nothing to engender his hatred.
If Obama were any kind of honorable man, he would have brought Osama literally to justice: face-to-face with his accusers, in public. If, as W said, he hated us for our goodness and freedom, he could have said as much for the world to hear, and it would have been the thousands of Muslim refugees from Islamic tyranny currently living in the US who would have taken him out and stoned him. That he himself never boasted and our president, who has brazenly sold out the anti-war and anti-big business people who elected him, had him permanently silenced rather than honorably put on trial, tells me that the 9/11 mujahideen didn't wait for orders from him. But I could be wrong. Thanks for the tip on the book.
I would have preferred to see him on trial as well. That would remove many of the unanswered questions about him and his organization.
ReplyDeleteHis underlings, according to this book, didn't do anything without the express permission of the sura of al-Qaeda of which bin Laden was the leader. So he may never spoke about it, but everyone surrounding him pointed to him as the one who directed them to take down the tower.
The funny thing is that al-Qaeda directs its members not to practice Islam so that they wouldn't get caught by the CIA and U.S. authorities.
So OK, the book can trace the commands back to Osama. He might be right.
ReplyDeleteGuerrilla war, which al-Qaeda has taken to a new level, is the attempt by the militarily weak to do with stealth and deception (and propaganda) what the militarily strong do. It's all war, and all war is simply "diplomacy [i.e., politics] by other means." If winning the war requires disguising one's religion, that's part of the game. Navy SEALs don't exactly announce their presence with trumpets and strobe lights.
Al-Qaeda is political. Islam is political. Uncle Sam is political. But I think Jesus is to politics what an atheist is to religion, a voice saying, "Your cure is simply another disease. *I* am the way, the truth, and the light," and our job is to point those who adore both Uncle Sam and al-Qaeda to that light.