Al Qaeda Wants Iraq War
Posted By John Moore on February 15, 2003
Al Qaeda and other Islamist radicals want the US to attack Iraq. The latest “Bin Laden” tape is calculated to support the US assertion of Iraqi ties to terrorism, increasing the odds of an attack. Sermons given in Pakistani madrassas indicate a desire for that war.
The Islamists recognize the true nature of the struggle: radical Islam is engaged in total war with us. They seek to destroy western civilizations and replace them with Islamic governments. They are willing to use any methods, including mass slaughter of civilians, to achieve their ends. This is a war of cultures, a true World War III. As President Bush (who also knows the true nature) notes, this will be a long war.
The Islamists see the current squabble over Iraq as a sideshow in the larger war, an event to be used to their advantage. They calculate that this battle will inflame Muslims against the west, increasing support for their cause.
They are probably right in this. The battle for Iraq will temporarily increase the ranks of the Islamist terrorists. It will provide gruesome propaganda for the Islamist organizers. It will result in an increase in acts of terror.
All of this will bring to a boil the simmering war of civilizations (or more accurately, the war between western civilization and Islamist barbarism). World War III will begin in earnest.
So far, only the first skirmishes have been fought. Iraq will be but one battle. The post 9-11 period resembles the “Phony War” after the Nazi invasion of Poland. A much larger war is coming, with the battle for Iraq only the first action.
When the real war has been completed, radical Islam will have been eradicated. Arab and certain other Muslim countries will have been civilized, by force or persuasion. The map of the Middle East will have been redrawn. Saudi Arabia will no longer export their virulent religious ideology. Iran will be a democracy. Pakistan will have civilized its northeastern provinces. Iraq will be pacified.
But the west will have paid the price. Economic costs will be large. Many civilians will have been terrorized and killed in their home cities. Civil rights, especially privacy will have been necessarily reduced.
A large war is coming. Al Qaeda know this. Bush knows this. Be Prepared.
Really? I would compare the current period to the one just prior to Hitler’s invasion of Poland – the last time a world power ignored the international community and invaded a nation incapable of defending itself.
Oh, and John, have you heard about the vast oil reserves sitting under Iraq? Did you know that Bush and Rumsfeld will have those rigs pumping faster than they’ve ever been pumped before (Powell’s admitted this)?
This was never about Islamic Fundamentalism and was always about Christian Fundamentalism. The people of the Middle East have had to deal with it since the 5th Century.
All the terrorism stuff is quite scary but without substance – it’s called propaganda, John, see it for what it is, that way we can all move on to see a peaceful world.
Errr.. it seems to me that the last significant invasion of a nation incapable of defending itself was when Saddam invaded Kuwait. I’ll be you forgot that one.
As far as the oil issue, it would be a lot cheaper for us to just let Iraq sell us the oil. The whole idea that this war is about oil is a product of fevered imaginations.
Christian Fundamentalism? How silly.
And terrorism… do you call 9-11 propaganda? Or do you imagine Bush caused it? How about the attack on the USS Cole? Propaganda? How about the bombing of the US embassies? Propaganda?
Whether its sold or bought it’s gonna be a nice price! I know you don’t, but I still find it very strange that 20% of the world’s oil lies under a state that
a)is about to be invaded by oil barons (Bush and Runsfeld) and
b)has no links to terrorism
When the oil price has struck rock bottom and the ozone layer has all burnt away we can put that down to fevered imagination can we?
President Bush and his dad are Fundamentalist Christians, that’s a fact (I also find it silly!)
If you studied US foriegn policy around the time of Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait you would find that Iraq discussed such an invasion with the US a week prior and Saddam was given the nod – it was only when the rest of the world reacted with horror that Bush started saying “this will not stand” – read the history books to gain a better footing on forums, facts can be so handy!
The fear in the West after 9-11 was just the kind of environment where a government could take advantage to carry out any tasks. The terrorists got the reaction they wanted – fear. It is currently being stretched so thin that it’s going to snap – Saddam is not guilty of terrorism, fact; The propaganda kicked in – no? oh, he’s got WMDs – Iraq has no WMDs; no? well what about the Iraqis? he treats them very badly! It’s a case of clutching at straws for an excuse to cause a huge catastrophe all over a few oilfields whose new owners will control the region militarily, and the world financially.
I find war, causing fear and misery instigated by an elected government totally abhorrent. Thank God I’m not the only one.
The reason that Iraq is a problem is indeed oil: oil riches that allowed Saddam Hussein the money to build what was once the fourth largest army in the world, to build vast quantities of chemical and biological weapons that have yet to be accounted for, and to come close to building nuclear weapons.
The fact that we are not attacking Iraq for its oil is obvious by our support for the oil embargo, without which there would be significantly more oil on the market at a lower price. This embargo, which exists to force Saddam to give up his weapons of mass destruction, has cost Saddam $350 billion, which indicates the length Saddam is willing to go to keep his illegal weapons.
Neither Bush nor Rumsfield are “oil barons.” Bush had an unsuccessful oil company at one time. Rumsfield was once an executive in the oil industry. Neither at this time is by any means an “oil baron.”
Burning oil has no effect on the ozone layer. The fact that you don’t know this gives a hint as to the quality of your overall accuracy!
President Bush I is not a fundamentalist Christian. Bush II is. Your point? In your fevered imagination, does this make him hungry to conquer oil rich countries?
I don’t need to read the history books about 1991, since I was paying attention at the time. The incident you are describing is when Ambassador April Glaspie met with Sadddam on Aug 2, 1990. Iraq (not the US) claimed that Glaspie said the US had no interest in inter-Arab fights. And yet ni 1992, Iraq’s deputy prime minister Tarik Aziz (to this day) said: “She just listened and made general comments,” he told USA Today. “We knew the United States would have a strong reaction.”
So much for your assertion.
Perhaps you should brush up on facts, especially when you are arguing with someone who not only reads history but keeps up on current events, and has a memory of the past. I suspect from the poor quality of your writing that you are too young to remember the event.
Moving on…. of course Saddam has WMD’s. Why else would he accept the $350 billion cost of keeping out and not fully cooperating with the weapons inspectors. What makes you think he doesn’t have them? HIS pronouncements? Perhaps you should dive back into your history books. The inspectors were in Iraq for four years by 1995 and had found NO evidence of biological weapons (although they had found lots of evidence of other horrible weapons). Then Saddam’s son in law defected, and all of a sudden the Iraqi’s “found” a biological weapons program that was more horrible than anything the world had ever seen (until the Russian program was later revealed, by two other defectors). You are simply ignoring all the evidence of the past in order to justify your absurd hypothesis that Bush and Rumsfield want to somehow get personally rich from Iraqi oil.
War is bad. War is also sometimes necessary, if it is needed to avoid something worse.
Do you approve of what the elected governments of the world did in World War II? Or was that also some evil plot by FDR to get rich by plundering Germany and Japan?
I know you think that terrorism is just a propaganda campaign, but I watched the World Trade Center towers fall, and that was no joke. That was horrible.
Mankind has entered a new era. For the first time in the history of man, it is possible for a small group or single individual to kill many thousands of others, without acting as part of any organized military. Furthermore they can do that anonymously, and finally there exists groups like AL Qaeda with the willingness to do so.
In the worst case, a release of a biologically engineered infections agent could wipe out most of the population of earth.
This is a shattering change in the state of man. The implications of this have not sunk in for many people, and you obviously have spent zero time thinking about the subject!
The US has a need to protect itself from terrorists armed with WMD’s. One *critical* part of that is to eliminate those governments which have WMD programs and which might give those weapons to terrorists.
Iraq is the second battle in that war (Afghanistan was the first). There will be others – although after the example of Iraq it may not require invasion to stop other countries from trading in WMD’s.
The next challenge will be North Korea (Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea – DPRK). They also have WMD’s, including nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. They must be prevented from providing those to terrorists or to countries which might provide them to terrorists.
I’m sure that if it comes to a need to go to war with Korea (and let us hope it does not – it would be vastly worse than Iraq), you will find some way to blame it on the planned enrichment of Bush or some Fundamentalist Christian cause. Go for it – just remember the name of this blog – it applies to you and people like you.
I get it now. I thought this was an open forum for ideas but it has become clear that this is your site and all ideas expressed are yours. I did live through the Gulf War and, being European, I read the papers and watched the TV without too much pressure on the ‘right kind of news’ being reported. American citizens have a lot of trouble believing that they’re lied to on a daily basis – believe it!
I’ll tell you what a ‘useful fool’ is, John, someone who is intelligent and articulate taking time out to report the ‘monkey boy’ version of US foreign policy. Just knowing that the US is full to the brim with John Moores makes the place very unpopular with the rest of the world. You have a society that has been pulling itself apart for the last 250 years and, instead of addressing your internal issues, your leaders look for a buck or ‘lebensraum’ (as your friend Adolf used to call it) in every corner of the globe.
If ignorance is bliss you must have a 24/7 hard-on!
Sorry to have troubled you.
Pablo
Pablo,
If it was a closed forum, I would have removed your comments. I didn’t. I am glad to see debate… I just reserve the right to respond in kind.
I have lived in Europe myself (France, actually) and the people were much more friendly than you. I have a fondness for them (and especially their food) but not for their policies, which is why this blog has an anti-French theme at the moment. I have spend a lot of time in Great Britain (which seems to be where you are posting from), and while the food there is pathetic, the people are nice.
I have traveled extensively in Europe, Central America and Asia. I have seen a bit of war (Vietnam), I have seen unfree governments, and I have seen free ones.
You lecture us about our internal problems! What would you know? You live in an area where folks have been killing each other in large numbers for many centuries.
Our society is strong and has long been so – not pulling itself apart. You must be reading too many biased European newspapers. Sure, we have about a 50% divide between the left and right, but that doesn’t pull society apart.
Oh, and it should please you to know that most European countries now have higher violent crime rates than the US… and you say we are pulling ourselves apart? It is twice as dangerous to walk the streets of London as the streets of New York City.
Oh, and I do read European papers (and Singaporean and Australian and Israeli). And as a European you may not realize this, but most of the American press is composed of leftists, and they dislike the American policy and tell us all about it as often as they can. The alternative press consists of the internet, talk radio, and Fox News. We are hardly short on information here.
Implying that Adolf is my friend is the oldest and sorriest trick in the rhetorical book. Have you forgotten that Europeans created and enabled Adolf (do you remember the Munich agreement) and we defeated him? Do you forget that he was imperialist, socialist and totalitarian, and we are none of the above. Shame on you for the insulting Nazi comparison.
John
you traveled with the 3-7 army, my son is john dresel you took several great pictures of him , one with the small iraq child kissing him, one holding a sword, and another one of the guys taking 5 at a palace, i was wondering if you have anymore pictures that where not posted on the news releases , and if so do you have a web site i might see them. I can not tell u how wonderful it was to dee those pictures. please get back to me, i would love to see all the pictures you have.
Elizabeth Guilmette u may send me email and i can give u my phone number if you need it
if this is the same john moore i am thinking you r , u would have been photgrapher i belive in iraq with the army 3-7
Pablo is an idiot! thanks for putting him in his place, I was out of waders! What is it with the liberal Europeans these days?
I have just spent the last two years living in europe and to be honest with you it has really declined. To begin with, both germany and France have 10 % unemployment, and both have almost ZERO growth in their economies. The socialist policies of western europe have really bled that part of the world dry, and made those people soft and narrow minded. I found that most europeans were uneducated about the war in Iraq and the history which I feel supported the decision to go in. I think that the current situation in North Korea is the primary reason why we should have gone to war. In 1993 the Clinton administration did nothing to prevent the development of WMD’s by the North Koreans. Like the Iraqis, they did NOT have stockpiles of large underground warehouses of weapons, but they had the intention to build them. Instead of stepping in and removing that intent, the Clinton administration sat back and allowed Pyongong to develop WMD’s. The result of that decision is a nuclear armed North Korea! I think that had the global community sat back with Sadam, we would be facing a similar situation with Iraq. I also feel that there has been a muslim invasion of Europe and the europeans are afraid to speak out for fear that their nations will become targets. But as Spain showed, this does not work! Thank God new europe and Italy are strong enough to stand up for what is the correct move.
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