Anyone could see this was coming...

Watch NRA heads explode: Al Qaeda spokesman urges terrorists to buy lots of guns at gun shows.

It will be interesting to see what the reaction will be. Besides blaming Obama for being a secret Muslim and setting this up so that he could clamp down on the Second Amendment and take away people's right to bare arms. I mean arm bears. Whatever.

The teabaggery party is giving Bin Laden what he wants

By hating Muslims as if they were a monolithic entity:

This seems like such an obvious point, but it is apparently not obvious to the many people who oppose the Cordoba Initiative's planned mosque in lower Manhattan, so let me state it as clearly as possible: The Cordoba Initiative, which is headed by an imam named Feisal Abdul Rauf, is an enemy of al Qaeda, no less than Rudolph Giuliani and the Anti-Defamation League are enemies of al Qaeda. Bin Laden would sooner dispatch a truck bomb to destroy the Cordoba Initiative's proposed community center than he would attack the ADL, for the simple reason that Osama's most dire enemies are Muslims. This is quantitatively true, of course -- al Qaeda and its ideological affiliates have murdered thousands of Muslims -- but it is ideologically true as well: al Qaeda's goal is the purification of Islam (that is to say, its extreme understanding of Islam) and apostates pose more of a threat to Bin Laden's understanding of Islam than do infidels.

I know Feisal Abdul Rauf; I've spoken with him at a public discussion at the 96th street mosque in New York about interfaith cooperation. He represents what Bin Laden fears most: a Muslim who believes that it is possible to remain true to the values of Islam and, at the same time, to be a loyal citizen of a Western, non-Muslim country. Bin Laden wants a clash of civilizations; the opponents of this mosque project are giving him what he wants.

Meanwhile....

Back at the ranch:

Azzaman , January 4, 2010

Iraqi security forces have launched a wide campaign in Sunni Muslim-dominated neighborhoods of Baghdad and towns and cities to the north and west of the capital.

The campaign is said to be the widest by the government in years and has led to an exodus of people to the Kurdish north.

The campaign comes as the country gears for national elections in March.

The summary arrests have fuelled anger in these areas and raised fears of popular unrest at a time the government finds it extremely hard to reinstate law and order.

In Baghdad most of the arrests have taken place in the restive township of Abu Ghraib, home to the notorious Iraqi prison bearing the same name.

Parents and relatives said they have no idea where the security forces are keeping their beloved ones. They said officials told them all those arrested will remain behind bars until after the elections.

Officials speaking on condition of anonymity said hundreds of young people have been taken away from Tikrit, Anbar and Mosul.

They said popular discontent was apparent in the restive city of Mosul where rebels fighting U.S. and government troops are quite active.

Meanwhile, there has been a separate sweep against members of the so-called Awakening Council, Sunni militiamen who had joined U.S. troops in fighting al-Qaeda.

The war Bush and Cheney started still has people becoming displaced, being jailed, being killed.

Too little too late

Too weird....

• Al Qaeda offers 'condolences' for innocent victims.

• NELSON: A LOST CAUSE?

• High fructose corn syrup responsible for rise in childhood diabetes.

• White House Emails Case Nearing Settlement Between 10 and 20 MILLION of them have been recovered and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW)have been prevailing to get them out.

• Obama’s Delusion

Tell us again why we are in Afghanistan?

Robert Scheer:

It’s time to declare victory and begin to get out rather than descend deeper into an intractable civil war that we neither comprehend nor in the end will care much about. Terrorists of various stripes will still exist as they have throughout history, but the ones we are most concerned about have proved mighty capable of relocating to less hostile environments, including sunny San Diego and southern Florida, where the 9/11 hijackers had no trouble fitting in.

There is a continued need for effective international police work to thwart the efforts of a widely dispersed al-Qaida network, but putting resources into that effort does not satisfy the need of the military establishment for a conventional field of battle. That is the significance of Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s leaked report calling for a massive counterinsurgency campaign to make everything right about life in Afghanistan, down to the governance of the most forlorn village. The general’s report aims not at eliminating al-Qaida, which he concedes is barely existent in the country, but rather at creating an Afghan society that is more to his own liking.

It is a prescription, as the Russians and others before them learned, for war without end. That might satisfy the marketing needs of the defense industry and the career hopes of select military and political aspirants, but it has nothing to do with fighting terrorism. In the end, it would seem that some of our leaders need the Afghanistan battleground more than the terrorists do.

Civil war continues between the Sunni and the Shia

Goaded on by those who benefit from the two fighting each other:

BAGHDAD -- Militants blew up the two golden minarets of an important Shiite Muslim shrine in Samarra today, evading tight security to again target a beloved site already damaged last year in a blast that unleashed fierce sectarian warfare.

Political and religious leaders scrambled to avert a repeat of the bloodshed, declaring indefinite curfews in at least four cities and issuing appeals for calm. But within hours, there were reports of revenge attacks against Sunni mosques and mortar strikes in Shiite-dominated parts of Baghdad.

Followers of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr, whose Al Mahdi militiamen were blamed for driving last year's surge in bloodshed, suspended their participation in parliament to protest the failure to protect religious sites.

There is not just one civil war in Iraq, there are at least four. (I've read there are up to twenty different fighting factions):

Defense Secretary Robert Gates:

Our strategic stagnation results from the fact that we are fighting four wars, not one. According to Gates: "One is Shi'a on Shi'a, principally in the south; the second is sectarian conflict, principally in Baghdad, but not solely; third is the insurgency; and fourth is al Qaida, and al Qaida is attacking, at times, all of those targets."

Giuliani caught in lies about Clinton

Apparently he cannot get his head around the fact a popular Democratic president actually fought terrorism:

In fact, President Clinton was eager — at the recommendation of his counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke — to retaliate against al Qaeda for the U.S.S. Cole. But that attack took place in October 2000. As Clinton explained in a 2006 interview, both the CIA and FBI “refused to certify that it was Bin Laden was responsible” for the attack on the Cole until early 2001 which foreclosed on the possibility of a full response during the Clinton administration.

Further, while Giuliani asserted that “America needs leadership to remain on the offense,” on national security issues, his “12 Commitments” to America doesn’t contain a single reference to the war in Iraq. Giuliani defended the omission, claiming “the fluid situation there makes it hard to speak in specifics about the war.”

“Iraq may get better; Iraq may get worse. We may be successful in Iraq; we may not be. I don’t know the answer to that. That’s in the hands of other people.”

Guiliani’s comments demonstrate exactly how far out of touch with the American people he truly is. As a spokesman for American Against Escalation in Iraq said, “The notion that the war in Iraq does not need to be addressed by presidential candidates because it is ‘in the hands of other people’ is simply preposterous.”

Giuliani clearly needs to be on tv more. Give the man as much air time as he wants....

Al Qaeda gives thanks to Bush and Cheney

And plans to move into its nice new home in Iraq:

KARACHI - Having solidified its leadership and opened up financial lifelines, al-Qaeda is preparing for its next major step - establishing a new base in the heart of the Middle East, Iraq.

This will position al-Qaeda to step up attacks on Europe in an effort to force Western countries to cut their strategic alliances.

with Washington, and to serve as a nerve center to bring new al-Qaeda groups into action in the Arab world.

According to people familiar with al-Qaeda's thinking who spoke to Asia Times Online, Osama bin Laden's deputy and the group's ideologue, Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri, sees potential for the group to capitalize on a possible US war over Iran. Relocating the al-Qaeda leadership from the Afghan-Pakistani border areas would put it closer to this new "epicenter".

Some city in the United States will be nuked

And we are distracted with the state of Anna Nicole Smith's decomposition and the Oscars. Paul Slansky of Huffington Post:

George W. Bush and Dick Cheney are our native Manchurian candidates - could anyone from anywhere else have damaged us more? Muslim terrorists are obsessed with the idea of killing as many Americans as possible. They wake up thinking about it, they spend their days thinking about it, they go to bed thinking about it, and then they dream about it. It is what their entire lives are about, and everything Bush and Cheney have done in the Middle East has increased the numbers of such people exponentially. By any laws of logic and reason, this means that they have made us not safer but, rather, enormously less safe.

We had no trouble calling the suicide bombers crazy for believing that seventy-two virgins would be waiting for them in Heaven. Is born-again Bush any less nuts to believe he'll be rising up to Heaven during the Rapture? For all we know, Armageddon has been his intentional goal from the start. It's almost the only explanation that makes sense. America is Flight 93. It's been hijacked and it's about to crash, and every single one of us has to charge the cockpit.

We have been warned. Al Qaeda is still "determined to strike in U.S." Michael Scheuer is the new Richard Clarke, and he says they're going to set off a nuke here. And if we know it, Bush and Cheney know it, every congressman and senator knows it, and everyone in the media knows it. And yet it's not a big story. Hello? Government people? Media people? I live in L.A. and I'm terrified. You live in New York and Washington, the two likeliest targets. Why aren't you shrieking in the streets?

Exactly.

Bryan of Why Now? says it best:

The US was attacked by Sunni fundamentalists on 9/11/2001. Without capturing those responsible, we turned our attention and military might on the most secular state in the region, and are now being belligerent towards a Shi’ia country. By doing this we have allowed our attackers to recover and rebuild their organization after the initial damage caused by the war in Afghanistan.

[For those who came in late: Saddam was an enemy of al Qaeda and Iran, Iran was an enemy of Saddam and al Qaeda, and al Qaeda was an enemy of Saddam and Iran. None of the three was allied in any way to the other two. This is why Iran has benefited from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq: two of its major enemies have been weakened.]

The US finds itself bogged down in two wars, winning neither, anticipating a third, while the world is distancing itself from us. Our military is sagging under the strain and the Treasury is in debt to the world.

Sunni, Shiite, Al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, Iranian, Saudi Arabian, Pakistani, Iraqi

Just who are we giving money to? Have we considered the blowback on this?... forget I asked that of this crew in the Bush White House....

Listen to Seymour Hersh:

Hersh says the U.S. has been “pumping money, a great deal of money, without congressional authority, without any congressional oversight” for covert operations in the Middle East where it wants to “stop the Shiite spread or the Shiite influence.” Hersh says these funds have ended up in the hands of “three Sunni jihadist groups” who are “connected to al Qaeda” but “want to take on Hezbollah.”

Hersh summed up his scoop in stark terms: “We are simply in a situation where this president is really taking his notion of executive privilege to the absolute limit here, running covert operations, using money that was not authorized by Congress, supporting groups indirectly that are involved with the same people that did 9/11.”

And Hersh says the US has been running secret operations inside Iran.

Hersh talking to Wolf Blitzer

BLITZER: Your bottom line is that Negroponte was aware of this, obviously, and he wanted to distance himself from it? That is why he decided to give up that position and take the number two job at the State Department?

HERSH: He — that is one of the reasons, I was told. Negroponte also was not in tune with Cheney. There was a lot of complaints about him because he was seen as much of a stickler, too ethical for some of the operations the Pentagon wants to run.

As you know, this Pentagon has been running covert operations. I think Mr. Gates' job and one of the things he wants to do is get some control over it. But under Rumsfeld we were running operations all over the world with who knows what money and who knows what authority, because most of those operations were not briefed to the intelligence committees.

And the Pentagon has basically been open about it in saying, hey, this is military stuff that has nothing to do with CIA operations. We have nothing to do with them. We are running military operations. And the president has the authority to do this.

But Negroponte was unhappy about — in general about some of the things. He also, I don't think, liked — he may not have been terrific at his job, that is another factor. But certainly John Negroponte went through this issue, Iran-Contra in the '80s, when we had the first big debate over the use of unlawfully obtained money to buy arms.

We know, the whole arms-for-hostages business was to generate cash to fight the war — the Contra war against the Sandinistas, that mess that we had. Negroponte was ambassador to Honduras there, very sensitive to the issue that took place 20 years ago. He did not want a repeat of it.

And I frankly — it is something that I think to be asking him in congressional session or whatever. But I have that — you know, I understand this is very serious stuff. And my magazine understands this is very serious stuff.

And we have really taken a lot of time with this story and couched it as carefully as we could and with all of the caveats, this is serious business.

Tristero at Hullabaloo:

Seymour Hersh in the New Yorker has a concise article explaining only a fraction of the fiendishly complex twists and turns of the political situation in the Middle East right now. As you read it - and you'll have to read it several times even to begin to understand the vertigo-inducing complexities - perhaps, like me, you will shudder to remember that the US is led by a "gentleman's C+" and a demented flake who shot his friend in the face, neither of which have had a lick of genuine experience in the Middle East, not to mention a glimmer of understanding as to how the world works. These are the people who deliberately are sending your children, your friends, and your neighbors to mutilation and death in a faraway desert for no sensible purpose whatsoever.

Digby at Hullabaloo:

And now the Bush administration has spawned untold numbers of future war criminals who will claw their way back into power so they can "prove" they were right the first time. This pattern is repeating itself over and over again and we simply have to figure out a way to put an end to it.

Today we have the DOD equivalent of Brownie running around with boatload of cash making deals with Muslim extremists and Saudi princes, whom the administration has divided up into completely useless designations of "reformer" and extremist." Nobody knows who's talking to who or what agenda they really have. Liberals think up complex plots like this and make them into movies. Republicans steal billions from the taxpayers and actually try to implement their hare-brained schemes.

Osama determined to strike within the United States

With a nuclear device.

Frank Rich of the New York Times:

...The intelligence and counterterrorism officials back then were privately sounding urgent warnings like those in last week’s Times, culminating in the President’s Daily Brief titled “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.” The system “was blinking red,” as the C.I.A. chief George Tenet would later tell the 9/11 commission. But no one, from the White House on down, wanted to hear it.

The White House doesn’t want to hear it now, either. That’s why terrorism experts are trying to get its attention by going public, and not just through The Times. Michael Scheuer, the former head of the C.I.A. bin Laden unit, told MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann last week that the Taliban and Al Qaeda, having regrouped in Afghanistan and Pakistan,

“are going to detonate a nuclear device inside the United States”

(the real United States, that is, not the fictional stand-in where this same scenario can be found on “24”). Al Qaeda is “on the march” rather than on the run, the Georgetown University and West Point terrorism expert Bruce Hoffman told Congress. Tony Blair is pulling troops out of Iraq not because Basra is calm enough to be entrusted to Iraqi forces — it’s “not ready for transition,” according to the Pentagon’s last report — but to shift some British resources to the losing battle against the resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan.