As John mentioned, the U.S. today announced the arrest of a "senior al Qaeda in Iraq leader" in Iraq. It's worth noting the full context of this: The announcement comes just one day after the administration published a National Intelligence Estimate that tried to connect al Qaeda in Iraq -- which is constituted almost exclusively as a jihad effort against an occupying force, a group whose influence is wildly overrated in the general insurgency and U.S. casualties -- with the al Qaeda that attacked us at home, a global group focused against the American homeland. With this short, vague, dubious report circulating, what is the news from Baghdad Bergner? We found *the* guy who coordinates between al Qaeda in Iraq and global al Qaeda!
Regular readers know that I'm not at all inclined towards conspiracy theories. I'll note, however, that this guy was captured on July 4 -- fully two weeks ago -- and we're just today hearing about how important he is, and how he's proof of a connection between the two groups the Bush administration desperately wants to conflate to rally support for the Iraq war. These guys have no decency, no shame, no credibility whatsoever. And there's a real danger of Boy Who Cried Wolf here -- any legitimate news on these issues may be lost among the misdirection and malfeasance of this administration.
The CNN article reports,
The arrest of al-Mashadani was announced amid controversy over President Bush's contention that al Qaeda and al Qaeda in Iraq are one and the same. The evidence has been not been significant about the extent of the relationship.Um, that's just not accurate. The vast dearth of evidence for a claim is generally taken to be a significant *problem* with identifying the claim as true.
But hey, according to Bergner, as I understand it, anybody Bad is either al Qaeda or Iranian (but certainly not Saudi, heavens no). All prisoners are, by mere measure of having been detained, Bad, and a group with Bad people in it that isn't self-described as al Qaeda is still a "front group" for al Qaeda. And even though we created this new Iraqi Bad guy group with our own presence, we now have to continue doing the things that helped create it and allow it to flourish in order to destroy it.
This administration thinks you are very, very stupid.
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