Vietnam collection (lessons plus)

[Uboat509]

In regards to your quote above, I was wondering who would be mainly to blame for creating Al Quaeda in Iraq, since before the war they did not exist within that country?

Says who?

SFC W

[Tc2642]

Says who?

SFC W

Well, They didn't, Saddam's political machine would not allow such elements which could undermine his own authority to be in his country. Please understand that I am not saying that there may have been 'elements' of the radical jihadist's operating within Iraq, but they were on a cause to nowhere, Saddam would have stamped them out as soon as he found them. My point is that the efficent, well funded and deadly organisation known as Al Qaeda in the Land of two rivers did not exist before the invasion. That it is mainly made up of foreign fighters seeking Jihaad against america. Think about it, it opened up a whole new place which they could blow up and shoot at Americans.

[RTK]

Well, They didn't, Saddam's political machine would not allow such elements which could undermine his own authority to be in his country. Please understand that I am not saying that there may have been 'elements' of the radical jihadist's operating within Iraq, but they were on a cause to nowhere, Saddam would have stamped them out as soon as he found them.

You mean like he did with the MEK? Oh, wait...he didn't.....

[Tc2642]

You mean like he did with the MEK? Oh, wait...he didn't.....

That may be, but I can find no evidence of Al quaeda operating in Iraq before 2003, if you have information to the contary then please send me some links.

[RTK]

That may be, but I can find no evidence of Al quaeda operating in Iraq before 2003, if you have information to the contary then please send me some links.

1.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HF13Ak02.html

Look about halfway down the page. Masri entered Iraq in 2002 and began a cell. Al Qaeda in the Middle East is like Walmart in the mid-west.

2.
http://zfacts.com/p/653.html

Zarqawi was fingered in early 2002 in NE Iraq and named a high payoff target.

3.
http://www.littlegreenfootballs.com/...ntry=3732&only

Blog from August 2002 talking about PUK's fighting with Ansar Al Islam, a group closely affiliated with AQIZ

4.
http://www.rense.com/general28/alaq.htm

Even Tariq Aziz mentioned they were in Iraq in August of 2002, but that they were in NE Iraq near Sulamaniyah fighting the Kurds.

[Tc2642]

Thanks for the links, I have read through them, interesting but I will still state that they were not a major threat before 2003 and grew to be so, (implied by the fact they were setting up a cell in 2002), I am not sure what to make of the littlegreenfootballs article since it states its validity is in question and I am always wary of articles trying to link Saddam to 9/11, this to my mind is a fallacy, as for the last article I will admit that I did not know that they were fighting in the Kurdish controlled part of Iraq in 2002 but again I stand by my point that they were not the deadly organisation that they have transformed into after 2003.

May I also add this from today's news links, scroll down to about halfway,

http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/...1913-4688r.htm

[marct]

... but again I stand by my point that they were not the deadly organisation that they have transformed into after 2003.

I think that there is a bit of a semantics problem here. Al Qaeda is not, primarily, a military force in the "classic" sense of the term. In many ways, it is closer to the SF model - primarily a training network (and a loosely-coupled network at that). As such, they have been a "deadly organization" since the 1980's.

The fact that they were setting up cells in Iraq in 2002 shouldn't be surprising - anyone who watched CNN could pretty much figure out that the US was going to get involved in Iraq. As such, setting up cells is really just the first step in establishing a base for local operations including local recruitment. Furthermore, given the speed with which the Bush government rammed through the invasion, the lack of general international support, and the local socio-cultural conditions in Iraq, it was a tailor made opportunity for al Qaeda.

May I also add this from today's news links, scroll down to about halfway,

http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/...1913-4688r.htm

I just finished reading the article and I have to say that while the title is certainly correct - "Wrong 'ism', wrong history" - I suspect that the "corrected solution" offered in the article is totally wrong as well. For example,

Al Qaeda today is a global politico-religious, ideological and spiritual movement that has far more in common with global communism than the European fascism of the 1930s and '40s. What Mr. Bush calls the global war on terror is an ideological struggle, punctuated by acts of terrorism, a fundamental clash of civilizations between democratic freedom and totalitarian religious regimentation, that is likely to endure at least as long as the almost half-century Cold War.

While there are some overt similarities between al Qeada and the Commintern of the 20's and 30's, these are mainly organizational rather than symbolic or historical. Organizationally, this is quite understandable given the dominance of Lenin, Mao, Trotsky and Gueverra in the literature. At the symbolic level, it would be better to look at the early time of expansion for Islam - say the first 20 years. I think this was made pretty evident over the past little while with the criticism of bin Laden's breach of the Islamic rules of war and the recent calls for conversion.

On the historical level, control of Iraq is central to control of one of the major seats of the Caliphate. Again, symbolically, the model that is being used by al Qaeda is closer to that of a re-establishment of the Caliphate than it is to Commintern. The movement is of the general form of what A.E. 'Pete' Hallowell called a "Revitalization Movement" - hearkening back to a Golden Age that may, or may not, have ever existed. Regardless of its actual historical existence, it exists symbolically within Islamic culture and, co-incidentally, is a major flashpoint between Sunni's and Shias.

The only similar example that I can think of where the American military has any experience with how to deal with the type of symbolic change necessary isn't the WWII European/German reconstruction but, rather, the occupation of Japan. I think we have all seen how effective the de-NAZIfication, oops, sorry, de-Baathification program was. Again, a tailor made recruitment opportunity for al Qeada based on Bremmers' complete misunderstanding of the situation.

Marc