| | Ed, Max, Robert & Jason,
Thanks for your feedback on the Stratfor briefing. I'd like to address each of your comments:
1. Ed,
I'm glad this article gave you something to chew on. Despite the fact that controlling Iraq gives certain leverage to the United States in its dealings with Saudis, methinks it's still fair to question the Bush family ties to the Saudi monarchy and how it's lead us to where we're at today.
2. Max, let me address each of your questions:
1. The United States has not been attacked in four years.
Yes, but this might be due to a strategy change. They attacked US satellite states and allies like Great Britain and Spain, also the terror against Israel didn't stop. Also, you could say they changed the approach and constantly attacked US troops in Iraq. It is significant that the al Quaeda has not carried out a major operation inside the United States. There is tremendous pressure on them to do so if they want to show the fence-sitters in the Islamic world that they can challenge American power. I personally don't know what the reasons are behind the lack of attacks inside the United States
2. No Muslim government has fallen to supporters of al Qaeda.
What is Al Quaeda support? The question is what defines as a success for the Al-Quaeda. If the imposition of Sharia is a criteria, if the freedom in Iran is a criteria, then we still haven't made much progress. Al Qaeda has explicit goals of dethroning the monarchies of the Middle East that it views as American/Western collaborators. Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Jordan rank highest on such a list, and those regimes have been able to maintain power.
3. The United States won in neither Iraq or Afghanistan.
Only time will tell, whether these wars were of any result and especially a success.
I agree.
4. Bin Laden is still free and ready to go extra rounds.
Yes, and I am alerted that the Bush administration doesn't mention him any more, instead we have Zaqawi and other Iraq located terrorists.. It seems to me that the Bush administration has all but given up in the hunt for bin Laden. In order to remove the Taliban without taking on a massive occupation afterwards, America had to make backroom deals with Afghani warlords who control most of the country outside of Kabul. Between these thugs and the Pakistani government (who has helped us at least somewhat - enough to keep them off our "shit list"), bin Laden has plenty of area to wander freely in. Every report I've ever read speculates that he's hiding somewhere between those two countries, but who really knows - there are a lot of Muslim countries out there...
3. Robert asks:
Does it make any difference that Zarkawi was welcomed by Saddam with open arms fresh from the battlefields in Afganistan and provided with the financial support to recreate his training camps there? This is just one of the facts this version of the story finds inconvenient to mention. You are stating that it's a 'fact' that Saddam welcomed Zarqawi with open arms. Based on the evidence available to me, I think that suggestion is questionable at best. It appears to be the case that Zarqawi was indeed in Iraq proper prior to the US invasion, however --- according even to the Bush administration --- he was situated in Kurdistan holed up with ansar al Islam (AAI), a Kurdish Islamist group. Kurdistan was for the most part out of Saddam's control, and was ironically protected by the US under the no-fly-zone. How Saddam could give someone a warm welcome to an area he has little to no control over is a little beyond me. What the adminstration will say in response to this is that Saddam had a high level operative in AAI whom he used to collaborate and coordinate with AAI (and by association Zarqawi and al Qaeda) - a claim that to my knowledge has not been independently verified, even in the several years since the fall of Saddam.
There is also the claim that Zarqawi was treated in Bagdhad for wounds sustained in battle, with Saddam's presumed knowledge and consent. No evidence has yet come forward to support this claim, and in fact a leaked CIA report indicates that the claim (along with any other Saddam-bin Laden claim) is likely to be completely false.
There is even the question of whether or not Zarqawi was linked to bin Laden to begin with, at least while the Bush adminstration was saying so to make a case for regime change. If this Fox News report is to be believed, it wasn't until October of 2004 that Zarqawi publicly declared his loyalty to bin Laden and al Qaeda.
The most thorough and extensive case put forward by the Bush adminstration for the war was made by Colin Powell in his UN address - the Zarqawi claims were a prominent part of this speech. In a recent ABC interview, however, Powell regrets being a conduit for the misinformation he propagated in that speech, saying he feels "terrible" about it, and that it will always be a "blot" on his record. "It was painful. It's painful now," as he's quoted.
So, it is for the above reasons that I feel George Friedman was in fact prudent for omitting the Zarqawi-Hussein connection in the Stratfor briefing I posted. However, if you can provide solid evidence to the contrary, I am willing to revise my stance - likewise if there any other facts that you feel Friedman 'conveniently' omitted in his article.
Pete
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