An intercepted letter from al Qaeda's #2 says Iraq is the focal point of a hoped-for Middle Eastern Islamic state, and Israel must perish. Ah, sure. More Murdoch-Bush agitprop. Right? I mean, who'd ever ever suspect something like that? Al Qaeda in Iraq might be killing dozens of Iraqis every week, and funneling "insurgents" in through Syria, but hey, that's what the U.S. gets for trying to lay its colonialist, globalist, capitalist, hegemonic trip on the glorious free state of Iraq, where Saddam had only buried some 300,000 Iraqis in mass graves, and everything woulda been hunky-dory if only we hadn'ta been such imperious buttinskis, right? After all, the absolute moral authority of the aggrieved parents of a handful of the less than 2,000 dead American soldiers in Iraq trumps all.

More here from CNN on "the letter." Seems al Qaeda is on the ropes, but wait, that's not the preferred MSM meme, is it? Meanwhile, AP reports U.S. President George W. Bush says the U.S. foiled 10 planned terrorist attacks in the last four years, including plots involving airplanes directed against an unspecified West Coast city in 2002. Well, that has to be L.A., San Francisco, or Seattle. Portland just doesn't rank. Details, please? Just curious, here in Seattle. (UPDATE: reportedly it was The Library Tower, L.A.'s tallest building). Oh, and there's been "a credible terrorist threat" against the NYC subway system. Yeh, time to turn tail in Iraq, alright. Let 'em know how eager we are to please.

COMMENTS:

Alan Starr, Editor of the Web site News Blaze: Hi Matt. The "we are losing" MSM see defeat in everything and want us to pull out so they can say they were right. They don't care about the bad guys killing Iraqis who want peace and democracy and they have no concept of the bad guys becoming stronger and coming after us again. They also are ignoring the good things that are going on in other parts of Iraq. I just published a photo story of "Operation River Gate."

P. Scott Cummins: Matt, you are spot-on! Proving once again that Rosenblog is the not-too-be-trifled-with source of relief from MSM ennui!

Michael Brandon McClellan: "Fight on amigo (which is what SC Trojans say to each other, but I mean it in the common sense as well)".

Michael links to my post here.

Tom Rekdal (on my original post): Sorry, but I find this analysis too simple. Leaving aside the administration's rationale for the war in Iraq, which seems to change at least quarterly, and the jeremiads of the left, which are beyond stupid, the serious argument about our intervention in Iraq seems to me to revolve around four questions.

The first is whether Robert A. Pape ("Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Terrorism" (2005)) is right in believing that Islamic terrorism is primarily a response to what they perceive as Western intrusion into the Islamic homeland. In other words, whether a restored Caliphate would be the end or the beginning of a broader war. I am inclined to think that Pape is wrong, simply because success would be a powerful stimulus to extend the Caliphate. But, frankly, I see no knock-down evidence either way on this issue, as yet.

The second is whether Richard Clarke is right in believing that our invasion of Iraq has merely stimulated more recruits for Al Qaeda, as well as giving them a new training ground for terrorists who will eventually expand their activities into the West. There are certainly foreign fighters in Iraq, but our own military intelligence keeps insisting that they are a relatively small part of the Iraq insurgency. I find it hard to imagine that such fighters would still be calmly counting prayer-beads at the local mosque if only we had not invaded Iraq. But how can we know for sure? Clarke may ultimately be proven right in warning that terrorists trained in Iraq will eventually return to haunt us locally, but so far that has not happened.

Third, there is the whole question of our military strategy that Andrew F. Krepinevich, Jr., has raised. It is pointless, he claims, to push insurgents out of places we cannot hold, and recommends an "oil stain" strategy instead, which would allow us to use our limited resources to actually protect certain regions in ways that would permit reconstruction to take place, and thus to gradually expand the "oil stain." Not being a military analyst, I am way beyond my depth here, but I find most of his criticisms persuasive.

Finally, there is the political problem. Whose side will we be on if the Sunni Arab population is not reconciled to the constitution? A government constantly at war with one-fifth of its own constituency is no democracy in my view, and the point where our role in Iraq becomes one of simply defending Shiite rule rather than Sunni rule is the point where I get off the boat. Bush loses me there.

TECHNORATI TAGS: BUSH, IRAQ, AL QAEDA, TERRORISM

TO COMMENT: The regular "comment" feature is not in operation. E-mail comments to address under "Contact" on main page masthead, and I'll add them, here.

Posted by Matt Rosenberg at October 6, 2005 11:47 PM