Negotiate with al Qaeda!

That straightforward, and already controversial suggestion, is from Jonathan Powell, former chief of staff to former British Prime Minister Tony Blair from 1995-2007

That comment coming from the man recognized as key to establishing the 1997 Northern Ireland accords, was issued as part of an interview fronting his new book, “Great Hatred, Little Room.” Powell simply says: The West needs to start negotiating with al-Qaida and the Taliban.

“There's nothing to say to al-Qaida and they’ve got nothing to say to us at the moment, but at some stage you’re going to have to come to a political solution as well as a security solution. And that means you need the ability to talk.”

The comments came from an interview Powell offered as part of a publicity tour to promote his new book on the Northern Ireland peace process.

Suffice it to say, the book probably won’t be anywhere close to Blair’s nightstand. Not with tidbits like this:

• He did not think Labour had governed boldly enough because it feared losing power.
• Blair had a tendency to change his mind about things and could be “a bit of a flippertygibbet.”
• Blair had failed in 10 years of government to sell Europe to the British.
• Relations between the Blair and Brown camps were so toxic that Gordon Brown did not talk to him for 10 years.

Already, the book is controversial outside of Blair’s house, with the “negotiation” comment. Gordon Brown’s Foreign Office has already weighed in:

“It is inconceivable that (Her Majesty’s Government) would ever seek to reach a mutually acceptable accommodation with a terrorist organisation like al-Qaida.”

Powell is the senior member of Blair’s government to serve his full 12 years. His book, “Great Hatred, Little Room,” will have excerpts serialized in The Guardian starting Monday, March 17.

There's more: "Negotiate with al Qaeda!" >>

It Had To Happen Sometime

Hat Tip to Cernig @ The Newshoggers
It Had To Happen Sometime

A Swedish man is facing a libel case after falsely accusing his son-in-law of being a member of Al Qaeda in an email to the FBI.

The 40-year-old son-in-law and his wife were in the process of divorcing when the husband had to travel to the United States for business.

...When the husband refused to stay home, his father-in-law wrote an email to the FBI saying the son-in-law had links to al-Qaeda in Sweden and that he was travelling to the US to meet his contacts.

He provided information on the flight number and date of arrival in the US.

The son-in-law was arrested upon landing in Florida. He was placed in handcuffs, interrogated and placed in a cell for 11 hours before being put on a flight back to Europe, the paper said.

The FBI contacted Swedish intelligence agency Saepo, which discovered that the email tipping off the FBI had been sent from the father-in-law's computer.

The father-in-law has been charged with aggravated libel.

He has admitted sending the email, but said he didn't think "the authorities were so stupid that they would believe anything. But apparently they are."

He said he "couldn't help the US authorities' paranoid reaction".

The son-in-law is lucky he didn't end up at Gitmo for a few years of non-tortuous waterboarding, without habeas rights and awaiting a rigged military tribunal. Which is, according to Amnesty and HRW, why many of the Afghans there are detained - fingered by ill-wishers in return for a hefty US-paid bounty.

This is your country on Republicanism.

There's more: "It Had To Happen Sometime" >>

Foreign Idiocy

USA Today Diplomatic Correspondent Barbara Slavin released a new book this week: Bitter Friends, Bosom Enemies: Iran, the US and the Twisted Path to Confrontation.

Enter George W. Bush. He had the best chance to patch up relations after 9-11 and he blew it. The U.S. and Iran both opposed the Taliban and Iran believed Bush and Cheney, as ex-oilmen, would lift sanctions. Unknown to many, the U.S. and Iran held secret, one-on-one high-level talks in Paris and Geneva from the fall of 2001 through May 2003, talks led on the U.S. side by Ryan Crocker and Zalmay Khalilzad.

In early May 2003, through Swiss intermediaries, the Iranians also presented an offer for comprehensive negotiations (reprinted in the annex to my book). Bush, full of hubris over Iraq, did not even give the Iranians the courtesy of a reply. The Europe talks ended, meanwhile, after yours truly wrote about them on the front page of USA TODAY and al-Qaeda bombings took place in Saudi Arabia that the White House said were linked to al-Qaeda detainees in Iran.

The Iranians did not give up, however. In late 2005 and through the spring of 2006, Ali Larijani, their new national security adviser, sought backchannel talks with Steve Hadley. Larijani went so far as to publicly accept a prior U.S. offer of talks on Iraq in March 2006. Supreme leader Khamenei publicly endorsed the talks, something he had never done before. Again, Bush sawed off the limb. The upshot: Larijani was weakened, Khamenei humiliated and Iran accelerated its nuclear program and its intervention in Iraq.

There is much more, including an intelligence assessment in early 2003 that invading Iraq would spur the two members of the Axis of Evil with real nuclear programs -- Iran and North Korea -- to intensify their efforts. Also the fact that the White House did not even ask the intelligence community for an assessment of the regional impact of toppling Saddam before invading.

It simply assumed that all would go well and that Tehran would be the next evildoer to fall. Instead of dividing our enemies by negotiating with Iran, the Bush administration has united them. And now -- like the child who shot his parents and complains he's an orphan -- the White House blames Iran for taking advantage of the strategic opportunities the United States has provided.

It's useful though quite troubling to be reminded that our current problems with Iran were entirely self-inflicted by this administration.

-- Steve Clemons, The Washington Note

If Bush attacks Iran we know where the responsibility for the global catalcysm falls:


Simpletons? Check. Lunatics? Check. Fanatical neocon ideologues? Check.

There's more: "Foreign Idiocy" >>

Bin Laden’s Reverse Psychology Missed by Prez and Pundits

Cross-posted from The Paragraph.

Osama bin Laden, the terrorist leader wanted for murder of U.S. citizens overseas and suspected of running the September 11, 2001, airliner attacks that killed 3000 people, issued a new video addressed to Americans, just days before Congress returns to again consider the course of the Iraq occupation⁹⁰x⁹¹. In the video he knocked Democrats for continuing to fund the occupation, and taunted President Bush for failing in Iraq. He also knocked Bush for leading a corporatist crony system, and for rejecting the Kyoto treaty and worsening global warming. And he praised socialist thinker Noam Chomsky as one who advised against invading Iraq. Bush commented on the video: “I found it interest[ing] that on the tape Iraq was mentioned, which is a reminder that Iraq is part of the war against extremists. If al-Qaeda bothers to mention Iraq, it’s because they want to achieve their objectives in Iraq, which is to drive us out.”x⁹⁵ Republican pundits Sean Hannity and David Brooks found something else interesting in the video. Hannity said: “He seems to adopt the exact same language being used by the hard left in this country … He talks about global warming. He demonizes capitalisms (sic) and corporations …”x⁹³ Brooks said: ”... it’s like he’s been sitting around reading lefty blogs, and he’s one of these childish people posting rants at the bottom the page, you know, Noam Chomsky and all this stuff.”x⁹⁴ But the angle these Republicans missed is that bin Laden might be using reverse psychology— he knocks the Iraq occupation and backs some Democratic-championed issues because he wants to continue the Iraq occupation and undercut Democrats who might stop it⁹⁵. The Iraq invasion and occupation has been a boon to bin Laden—letting him escape at Tora Bora, inspiring jihadist recruits, and bringing funds to al-Qaeda’s leadership in Pakistan. CIA officials concluded that bin Laden used reverse psychology in his prior video address to Americans, four days before the 2004 presidential election⁹⁶x⁹⁷. In it he knocked Bush and threatened states that would vote for Bush. After that video, polls showed the race swing from a dead heat to a five point Bush lead. At a CIA strategy meeting one analyst said, “Bin Laden certainly did a nice favor today for the President” Another said, “Certainly he would want Bush to keep doing what he’s doing for a few more years.”

Sources

⁹⁰ ‘FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitive: Usama bin Laden’

USAMA BIN LADEN IS WANTED IN CONNECTION WITH THE AUGUST 7, 1998, BOMBINGS OF THE UNITED STATES EMBASSIES IN DAR ES SALAAM, TANZANIA, AND NAIROBI, KENYA. THESE ATTACKS KILLED OVER 200 PEOPLE. IN ADDITION, BIN LADEN IS A SUSPECT IN OTHER TERRORIST ATTACKS THROUGHOUT THE WORLD.

⁹¹ ‘Transcript of bin Laden Video Address’ 2007-09-06, pdf image

⁹³ ‘FOX News attempts to connect Osama bin Laden with American left and Democrats’ – Raw Story, September 8, 2007

⁹⁴ ‘Brooks: In His New Tape, Bin Laden Sounds Like He’s Been ‘Reading Lefty Blogs’’ – Think Progress, September 8, 2007

⁹⁵ ‘Bush-Bin Laden Symbiosis Reborn’ By Robert Parry, Consortiumnews.com, September 8, 2007

In a new video, al-Qaeda leader bin Laden again taunts Bush, the United States – and then the Democrats for not forcing an American withdrawal from Iraq, which should help guarantee that the Democrats won’t dare press for a withdrawal from Iraq.

At a summit of Pacific Rim leaders in Sydney, Australia, President Bush then did his part, highlighting bin Laden’s Iraq comments:

“I found it interested that on the tape Iraq was mentioned, which is a reminder that Iraq is part of the war against extremists. If al-Qaeda bothers to mention Iraq, it’s because they want to achieve their objectives in Iraq, which is to drive us out.”

Except that U.S. intelligence has long concluded that al-Qaeda really wants the opposite: to bog the United States down in a hopeless, bloody war in Iraq that has been a boon for recruiting young jihadists, raising money and protecting al-Qaeda’s leadership holed up in base camps inside Pakistan.

⁹⁶ ‘Bush Agrees Bin-Laden Helped in ‘04’ By Robert Parry July 14, 2006

⁹⁷ ‘Bin Laden’s ‘Nice Favor’ for Bush Helped al-Qaeda’ – The Paragraph, June 24th, 2007

* * *

By Quinn Hungeski – Posted at G.N.N. & TheParagraph.com

There's more: "Bin Laden’s Reverse Psychology Missed by Prez and Pundits" >>

Bush gives al Qaeda its boogeyman

I don’t think I could say it any better than Gary Kamiya:

Jihadists need their American boogeyman as much as Bush needs his Islamist boogeyman. By fighting them in the wrong way and on the wrong terrain, we have inadvertently allowed them to claim the heroic mantle of nationalism and anti-Americanism. When the U.S. occupiers leave, Osama bin Laden and his ilk will groan in despair. ...

By conflating jihadists with militant, religiously oriented national liberation movements like Hamas, Bush has not only undercut the support we might otherwise have received from Arab populations for police operations against genuine jihadists, he has helped to create toxic new forms of anti-Western extremism. … The irony is that without our help, the jihadists would be struggling to survive. As Gilles Kepel, a French expert on radical Islam, argues in "The War for Muslim Minds," very few Muslims, no matter how radical, support al-Qaida. "Beyond the circle of Bin Laden and Zawahiri and their supporters and admirers ... the majority of Islamists and salafists, let alone most of the world's Muslims, no longer see the commando action carried out by 'the umma's blessed vanguard' against the twin towers and the Pentagon as fulfilling the promise of jihad," Kepel writes. "On the contrary, after the first few seconds of enthusiasm for this blow to America's 'arrogance,' most Muslims saw the massacre of innocents on Sept. 11 as opening the door to disorder and devastation within the house of Islam."

The suggestion that we now leave a bunch of fanatical mass murderers alone may strike most Americans as cowardly and morally contemptible. But what we want are results, not self-righteous campaigns that make matters worse. Bush's righteous war has failed. To leave jihadists alone is not to appease them. It is to plan their isolation and eventual extinction more precisely.

Kamiya goes on to worry about what could happen if al-Qaeda gets established in Gaza or Lebanon.

I’m not that worried about that. I suspect that Egypt would give tacit assent to Israel cracking down in Gaza and that Syria, where a majority is Druze or Alawite or otherwise non-Sunni, that Assad would do the same in Lebanon. (Another reason why it’s absurd for Bush to think AQI is getting support from Damascus.)

Cross-posted at Socratic Gadfly and Watching Those We Choose.

There's more: "Bush gives al Qaeda its boogeyman" >>

The Yugo-Forders, otherwise known as “Al Qaeda in Iraq”

“Huhhh?” you may be saying at this moment. Let me explain.

As Blue Girl posted at Proctoring Congress, mainstream media groups such as The New York Times seem too willing to conflate Al Qaeda in Iraq with a whole panoply of groups and splinter movements of Sunni and nominally Sunni terrorists and insurgents in Iraq, running from basically secular unreconstructed Baathists to and through various Falafists, whether called AQI or not.

In a political e-mail group on Yahoo, in response to one of Bush’s “there has to be a pony here somewhere” true believers, I started calling AQI “Yugo-Forders.”

I said, “You can slap a Ford badge on a Yugo; that doesn’t make it a Ford.”

I’m surprised he hasn’t come back with the “franchisee” counterargument, i.e., saying that a franchise 7-11 is just like a corporately owned store. I’ll shoot it down if he does, because the Yugo-Forders simply declared themselves to be “Al Qaeda in Iraq,” and that’s not the way 7-11 works. It would have nothing to gain by adopting every convenience store that calls itself 7-11 as being an actual 7-11.

If my metaphor sounds a bit clunky, try another one. But, we need to counter the incredulity, gullibility and BushCo stenography of the MSM with an alternative.

Cross-posted at Socratic Gadfly and Watching Those We Choose.

There's more: "The Yugo-Forders, otherwise known as “Al Qaeda in Iraq”" >>