Iraqs' links with al Qaeda?

PH01

Just when the US was about to convince the world about Iraqs non-compliance with weapons inspections as been a fair enough reason to go to war, Bush starts talking about Iraqs links with al Qaeda. It's like grabbing defeat from the jaws of victory.
One kind of believes that Iraq is hiding stuff, nasty stuff they didn't declare, but links with those responsible for '9/11', well I thinbk they're going to have to work pretty hard on that one. Even the Israelis don't believe there is a link, and they would have a vested intereest in seeing Saddam and his cronnies put down.
No. The US might have f***ed-it up fro themselves by persuing this 'link with al Qaeda' lark.

Wook

dont worry , 'dead man don't talk' any of the victims can and will be the terrorist...

Snowball

they will more than likly show that they have met and know each other. So then on that basis I acuse Bush of helping the 911 attacks, since his family was none to be freinds with the Bin Ladins

bonkey

What I find interesting in this is how they are attempting to link Iraq and Al Qaeda.

Most of what I have read goes along the following lines :

1) Saddam Hussein is the leader of Iraq
2) Al Qaeda members are knownto have travelled through Iraq, and in at least one case received medical treatment there, but were not arrested.
3) Ergo, Saddam - and, by extension, Iraq - is clearly in league with Al Qaeda.

Course, it took me about ten seconds to think that :

1) Gearge W. Bush is the leader of the USA.
2) Al Qaeda members are known to have travelled through the USA, and in at least one case received flight training there, but were not arrested.
3) Ergo, Dubya - and, by extension, the US - is clearly in league with Al Qaeda.

Now, I dont believe my latter scenario for one second. Not only is its deduction hopelessly flawed, but it is lacking key points such as the awareness of authorities of teh Al Qaeda presence at the time, as opposed to after the fact.

This, of course, begs the question as to why the Iraq scenario is any different.

Personally, I get the impression that all this connected talk is simply a ploy to get The Common Man In The Street to associate Saddam with those scary people who carried out 9/11, which would hopefully help sway his opinion towards the Dubya camp.

Will it ultimately help or hinder the US cause? Hard to say....it depends just how gullible and uninformed TCMITS really is, and how much those in opposition want to really be seen to stand up to the US. Its one thing to say "we do not support the war". Its quite something else to say "the US is using propaganda to try and convince us that war is the right way".

jc

Bateman

I think you are on the right track bonkey, as a recent survey in the US showed that the majority of American people think that the hijackers were Iraqi. Forget where I read it, but take my word.

Maybe the job is done as far as the propaganda effort is concerned. Although the marches should be interesting.

DadaKopf

Originally posted by bonkey
Personally, I get the impression that all this connected talk is simply a ploy to get The Common Man In The Street to associate Saddam with those scary people who carried out 9/11, which would hopefully help sway his opinion towards the Dubya camp.

Also think about the subtle ways in which politicians and the media are deliberately misinforming the American public as regards Arab culture. We in Europe are (mostly) aware of the fact that there are many Arab nations within the Gulf Region and most of them don't neccesarily like each other - particularly those comimg from different Muslim sects and it's for that reason that Saddam and bin Laden have reason to dislike each other. It's easier for Americans to think that they're all the same - just one massive, homogenous bloc. It's just about as far from the truth as possible.

Although one could say that Saddam may support Al Quaida for opportunistic reasons - that it's simply pragmatic form him to get into bed with terrorists because it'll widen the front against America (even if Saddam has a problem with America) while taking much of the heat off him. I think it's unlikely, though, because bin Laden's political aims and Saddam's political aims are divergent. Saddam is a secularist, a statist and a progressivist. Bin Laden is an Islamist and a ludite.

The two have even less in common politically than they do religiously so why would his regime link up with Al Quaida.

So, in support of Bonkey's post, I think it's orchestrated ignorance - the creation of knowledgeable ignorance - that's giving weight to whatever nonsense the Bush administration comes up with. Well, that and xenophobia. The reality, however, renders whatever story they tell absolutely ficticious outside the US. Washington is connecting Saddam to terrorism by capitalising on the latent ignorance (which includes all the misconceptions presented by all that Clash of Civilisations stuff) and racism in American society. When people feel they're right, why would they bother knowing they're right?

spongebob

...Rumsfeld was sent to Iraq by Ronald Reagan to offer Iraq support in its military build up against Iran in the 1980's, details Here and Here

This support allowed Saddam to manufacture and use chemical weapons on a larger scale than in any other war ever...bar maybe WW1.......

Another effect of this support was that Saddam widened his WMD efforts to include Nuclear and Biological warfare programmes by the late 1980's . The US and the West only got worried when Saddam funded the manufacture of the worlds biggest gun ...EVER ..... the supergun made in Sheffield and confiscated (what happened to it I wonder). Germany , France , Italy the UK all helped him along in his WMD program.

That thiing woulda dumped the WMD on Israel and then the west got worried....this was in 1990 , 6 or 7 years after Rumsfeld visited. Then Saddam went into Kuwait and had his army mashed up by the yanks shortly afterwards.

Saddams WMD program is a creation of the West. It was good for business until he got ahead of himself with the superguns (a small one was installed and tested in Iraq)

M

Bateman

Yeah thats just it, there are far too many recycled Reaganites in the policy decision process, the paranoia is very real however, ridiculous as it seems.