I read everything the Intelligence Community, or even the administration, spoon-feeds to David Ignatius with a giant shaker of salt. Ignatius is too credulous and, as a consequence, he serves as little more than a stenographer. When he speaks, it’s because the Intelligence Community wants him to send a particular message at a particular time. Still, the information in his latest column (which is sourced to the administration) doesn’t exactly come off as sounding completely self-serving. Consider the following:
Before his death, Osama bin Laden boldly commanded his network to organize special cells in Afghanistan and Pakistan to attack the aircraft of President Barack Obama and Gen. David Petraeus.
“The reason for concentrating on them,” the al-Qaeda leader explained to his top lieutenant, “is that Obama is the head of infidelity and killing him automatically will make (Vice President Joe) Biden take over the presidency. … Biden is totally unprepared for that post, which will lead the U.S. into a crisis. As for Petraeus, he is the man of the hour … and killing him would alter the war’s path” in Afghanistan.
The documents will be declassified. Anyone who reads Arabic will be able to verify what they say, if not their provenance. However, I wonder about the wisdom of declassifying documents that make the following recommendations:
The terrorist leader urged in a 48-page directive to Atiyah [Abd al-Rahman] to focus “every effort that could be spent on attacks in America,” instead of operations within Muslim nations. He told Atiyah to “ask the brothers in all regions if they have a brother … who can operate in the U.S. [He should be able to] live there, or it should be easy for him to travel there.”
Why amplify that particular message? To remind people of how important it was to kill both bin-Laden and Atiyah? To maintain some support for our efforts in Afghanistan? Because letting every aspiring jihadist in the world read bin-Laden’s directives seems like a lousy idea to me.
I guess I’m a little jaded after all these years of being lied to by my government. Next time, maybe a less compromised source than David Ignatius would help the information go down easier.
The MIC must be worried that public support for the war in Afghanistan is waning. So lets ramp up the fear index at home. You can’t have the US MIC losing market share in the world war market.
Call me crazy, but wouldn’t a propaganda effort aimed at propping up support for the war in Afghanistan include something that has to do with Afghanistan?
Has there been some sort of decline in support for drone strikes against al Qaeda leaders? Or for doing so in Yemen?
In your world, al-Qaeda leaders trying to attack us within our borders has no relationship to why we’re in Afghanistan?
Technically Joe may have a point. Drone strikes against Al Qaeda in the Yemen and elsewhere may still enjoy as much public support as before. However the war in Afghanistan now has more to do with saving face and keeping the MIC in business than it has with fighting Al Qaeda. But in terms of public perceptions and justification that is exactly what it is supposed to be about – preventing Al Qaeda launching further strikes on the US – and that is the fear factor that must be sustained if the war is to retain any public support and legitimacy.
Its all about the marketing. Iraq had zilch to do with 9/11. But if you can make a link stick in the public perception you can justify a war.
Perhaps you and Joe should go re-read the AUMF-Afghanistan.
But, yeah, the point is that we’re in Afghanistan because bin-Laden had terrorist training centers there that were used to attack us with devastating effect.
If you’re trying to maintain support for our military effort there you might want to remind the public that bin-Laden was still plotting to attack us here in the United States but that we were making it very difficult for him to do so.
It sounds like you just answered your own question.
Did you feel, in your world, a whooshing sound on the top of your head when you read my comment?
Because you know what doesn’t have a whole lot to do with Afghanistan? That story you linked to and the bin Laden documents it is about.
If you need me to walk you through this, I will, but I’ll give you another shot to muddle your way there yourself. In your world.
“…wouldn’t a propaganda effort aimed at propping up support for the war in Afghanistan include something that has to do with Afghanistan?“
Not if you’re playing the “we’re fightin’ ’em over there so we don’t have to fight ’em here” card.
He discusses the need for “deputy emirs” and “acting emirs” to run regional operations when the local boss is away, and he suggests that emirs should serve two-year terms and write an “annual report to be sent to the central group detailing the local situation.”
Hey, Ali. How’s it going? I was noticing that you didn’t include a cover sheet with your TPS report. We sent out a memo on that, praise Allah. So, if you could just go ahead and do that, that’d be great.
hahahahahaha! Good one.
For once you wrote something that was worth reading – good for you.
Nothing about how he wanted to rebrand AQ? Ah well.
Why amplify that particular message? To remind people of how important it was to kill both bin-Laden and Atiyah? To maintain some support for our efforts in Afghanistan?
Don’t you get it, Boo? It means more security theater here at home. More pat-downs and rape-scans at the airport. The whole nine yards.
So, if there aren’t any additional security procedures adopted in the next few weeks – psst, there aren’t going to be – then what?
Hopefully there won’t be. But you know how creeps like Cranky McSame, Mini-me and HolyJoe are.
Just a guess here but could be about tamping down the crazy republican candidates outlandish warmonger (e.g. re: Iran which is really putting us at risk) via a reminder that there is a real world
warmongering, that is
I can’t make heads or tails of this post. What is “the real world?” Where does Iran fit in, exactly?
well, what I meant to say is the republican candidates are swaggering around making crazy assertions about Iran. I’m posing one possibility for why we are learning this now that it’s as a reminder that the actual president operates within the constraints of reality which involves real authority and has real risks. He stated last week iirc that the republican candidates’ rhetoric was not helping our international situation. Obviously the klown kar kandidates won’t listen but maybe some of the media will.
I thought the column rather brutally undercut the administration’s attempts to make killing Bin Laden the biggest, most heroic mission in the history of the US military.
So…Bin Laden was a guy with no plans, no followers, no capacity to act within the United States, who lived under de facto house arrest with his wife and kids in the suburbs and wrote micromanaging corporate memos to his underlings who ignored him?
Oh.
Real threat to global security, that guy. And then in the same column, Ilyas Kashmiri’s successful assassination is treated as some throwaway, whereas from an operational and national security standpoint, that guy was the new king shit of jihad mountain. I’d imagine the Indians were rather pleased to hear of his demise, that’s for sure.
Need I remind you that David Petraeus is the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency and is noted for his self-serving PR and his cultivation of Congressional committee chairs.
Petraeus looked good on paper. In command, not so much.
He was put at the CIA so they could keep an eye on him.
The Republican talking points of Bin Laden are that it was 10 years of intelligence that did the trick.
That negates the fact that Bin Laden was alive all those years, and now, With Obama, he is dead.
Bin Laden was threatening Muslims who didn’t follow his way of life for a long time.
running for VP?
For which party?
The part about Biden not understanding foreign policy was patently untrue.
And Biden is more useful politically as a VP nominee than Petraeus would be. Obama has huge high marks on national security he can point to. It is Romney, Santorum, and Gingrich who are the foreign policy lightweights, and it shows.
Could be someone else in the intelligence community wanted to smoke out whether Petraeus is viable for either party. Or start a fight between Petraeus and Biden, who likely struggled over the 2009 surge orders. Remember the story of Obama having to write his own strategic plan because all the military provided him were contentless PowerPoint presentations.
As BooMan points out Ignatius carry water for various factions in DC.
Interesting especially what you say about fight between Biden and Petraeus. I was thinking repub VP but I don’t know enough about the players on that topic. I’ve never seen Obama replacing Biden as VP – doesn’t seem like Obama’s style and I see no upside that could outweigh the many downsides.
Really?
It is
Queines es muy macho – dude.
A reminder that
1 – OBL… He’s dead Jim
2 – that’s a good thing
3 – OBL feared him some US president Obama. You think OBL would bother with Romney? And Santorum or Newtie would make him quiver with a-a-a-a-n-n-n-tici-p-p-ation. Oh no I’m wrong. That’s just laughter.
I don’t think it needs that much thought.
“head of infidelity” is a really bizarre phrase. I am having trouble hearing something like that in Arabic in my mind. It just sounds very odd and awkward, and not like anything I am used to hearing, and I doubt it’s an accurate translation.
Oh, and I DO love that bin Laden “boldly” commanded. THAT’s not slanted at all, is it?
Exactly why it had the smell of Petraeus on it.
The only real skill Petraeus has is brazen self-promotion. Unfortunately, he is really good at it, not to mention ruthless.