."The attraction of the "foreigners thesis" for Washington is obvious. It allows the Bush administration to sidestep the implication that a substantial proportion of the Iraqi public violently rejects the US presence. And it implicitly ties Iraq to al-Qaeda, which accords with a long-term black psy-ops operation of the administration aimed at making a connection between Iraq and September 11 in the minds of Americans (actually, there is none).""none", I cant agree with that. None would imply that there were no connections, and there are connections. The US was patrolling the SNFZ from a base in the KSA. One of OBL's justifications for 9/11 was the presents of US Troops on the Holy land of KSA. Removing those troops would have meant the dismantling of, or a major modification to our ability to patrol the SNFZ of Iraq.
Juan Cole
Now this might not in and of itself be a justification for war, but it is a direct connection between 9/11, OBL, and Iraq.
posted by madtom at 11:55 AM
5 Comments:
"One of OBL's justifications for 9/11 was the presents of US Troops on the Holy land of KSA. Removing those troops would have meant the dismantling of, or a major modification to our ability to patrol the SNFZ of Iraq."
Very flimsy. You know what Cole meant.
On May 1 2003 Bush said "Nineteen months ago I pledged that the terrorists would not escape the patient justice of the United States...The liberation of Iraq is a crucial advance in the campaign against terror. We have removed an ally of Al Qaida and cut off a source of terrorist funding. (To Palestinian families of suicide bombers. That's Israel's chestnuts he wants to pull out of the fire?)
And this much is certain: No terrorist network will gain weapons of mass destruction from the Iraqi regime, because the regime is no more." (He didn't have them and he never would have given OBL the time of day if he did.)
Dubya' was clearly linking Saddam to 9-11: not to our threatened ablility to fly in the no fly zone. And since when do we care what OBL's justifications for what he does are?
From the recently leaked secret British govt. memo from July of 2002, it should be clear to all but the most muddled headed bushite, this war was a totally manufactured affair. They said it themselves!
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1593607,00.html
"Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.
It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided. But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran.
We should work up a plan for an ultimatum to Saddam to allow back in the UN weapons inspectors. This would also help with the legal justification for the use of force."
According to the London Times article "Blair is recorded as saying that “it would make a big difference politically and legally if Saddam refused to allow in the UN inspectors”."
What more proof does anyone need?
I never mentioned any of Bushs justifications, nor did I mention anything about timing. I was responding to Coles assertion that (there were none), connections between 9/11 OBL and Iraq. When there surly are such connections. And if you look at what Iraq was doing, trying to get the UN sanctions lifted, the attacks of 9/11 follow in the same pattern. They were designed to distract the US from Iraq, hoping to either make it harder for the US to maintain the NFZ which were part of the UN sanction scheme, or that we would pull all our a assets out of Iraq and use them in Afghanistan. Something many people forget is that we were involved in Iraq for over 10 years patrolling the NFZ. At the time of 9/11 there was a choice to be made, either abandon the NFZ of take out saddam. What would you have done?
What specifically are you talking about when you say "connections?" What connections? Both of them trying to get us to stop patroling the NFZs? I'm still not getting it. I brought up Bush's justifications to highlight the fact that the only connections between Saddam and OBL were manufactured. There actually were none beyond those imagined by the Office of Special Plans and Ahmad Chalabi's born liar squads.
Iraq had nothing to do with 9-11. OBL had nothing to do with our policies in Iraq. He may not have liked the sanctions on Iraq, but then again he didn't like Saddam, either. He called him a "heretic. Saddam may have not liked them, but that is beside the point. There was no involvment in 9-11 from Iraq.
You may see patterns, but there was no design, no plot cooked up by both of them to lift the NFZ, there is not a shred of evidence to support this assertion.
"At the time of 9/11 there was a choice to be made, either abandon the NFZ of take out saddam. What would you have done?"
Why does it follow that if the NFZs were lifted we'd have to take out Saddam? The were put in place to stop him from using fixed wing aircraft to bomb Shiites in the south and Kurds in the north. Not to prevent him from attacking the U.S. If we had lifted them, which we never did, because we had the capablility to do both, the threat to our national defense would have been nil.
How would Saddam have known before 9-11 we would stop patroling the NFZ and go to Aghanistan? We didn't even know we'd be going to Afghanistan before 9-11. There were no contingency plans for such an attack. Rummy's first inclination was to attack Iraq because he said there was more to bomb.
I understand Saddam was trying to get the sanctions lifted; ironically he desposed of his WMD in an effort to further that policy, but that fact has about as much to do with 9-11 as monkeys in Cuba has to do with philly chese steak hogies.
If we would have lifted the NFZ saddam would have been free to massacre the Sha'i at will and he would have had access to the KSA and Kuwaiti border where he could threaten US interest. OBL wanted us out of KSA so he could also have access to threaten the KSA. They had common objectives even if they did not like each other. saddam was working hard to get the sanctions lifted, paying out millions in oil to anyone that could help him achieve that end. Why not pay OBL just like everyone else did to leave him alone and to spread terrorism elsewhere. Add to that the common interest that they both had in getting the US out of KSA and you have a plan.
The fact still remains that OBL wanted the troops out of KSA and those very troops were manning the air base from where the US maintained the NFZ. How do you separate these two facts to come to the conclusion that there were no connections between 9/11 and Iraq?
"Why does it follow that if the NFZs were lifted we'd have to take out Saddam?"
What a waste of life and treasure ten years of the bloody NFZ to just walk away. Do you know how many Iraqis died from those NFZ. Do you remember the cat and mouse game that saddam played, ho he placed antiaircraft batteries near populated Shi'a cities and population centers so that the resulting US retaliation would result in Shi'a death. What a deal if after all that, we walked away and left the Shi'a and the Kurds to fend for themselves. This act of betrayal on the part of the US would have endeared pure hate on us by the only people in the ME that liked us a little, the Kurds and the Shi'a.
Not to mention looking for a way to get into the ME and fix it a bit. In my opinion taking out saddam was the right thing to do, and Iraq is the doorway to the greater ME.
"your analysis ignores the fact that Saudi Arabia under bin Laden would be a MUCH bigger threat to Saddam than the US NFZ."
Here you are stating facts not in evidence. This is a prediction on your part and not a fact. Maybe it would have turned out to be true, maybe not. But I can assure you that OBL would have had no problem with saddam's genocide against the Shi'a or Kurds, which the removal of the NFZ would have allowed. more common cause
"you will have to do much better than your half-baked theories and lay some facts on the table."
But Bruno my half-baked theories are based in fact and history, I did not say anything that could not be looked up and verified, or at a minimum inferred from the behavior of the other ME states.
"*,(strictly speaking, I suppose that these could be termed ‘connections’, "
Thank you for agreeing here as this was the only thing that I was trying to establish.
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