Message from Al Qaida’s Number Two In Command to U.S. President George Bush and the Democrats: a pox (perhaps literally — if he gets a chance) on both your houses:
A new video of al-Qaida’s No. 2 leader released on Saturday mocks President Bush and U.S. legislation requiring the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, saying the bill would rob the group’s fighters of the chance to kill more Americans.
Osama bin Laden’s deputy Ayman al-Zawahri derided the new U.S.-backed Baghdad security plan, recounting an April 12 suicide bombing in Baghdad’s heavily protected Green Zone when an attacker slipped through security and killed a Sunni legislator in the Iraqi parliament’s cafeteria. An al-Qaida-led amalgam of Sunni insurgents in Iraq claimed responsibility.
“And lest Bush worry, I congratulate him on the success of his security plan, and I invite him on the occasion for a glass of juice, but in the cafeteria of the Iraqi parliament in the middle of the Green Zone,†al-Zawahri said…..
….l-Zawahri, shown seated before a bookshelf in a white robe and turban, addresses legislation pushed by Democratic leaders, and vetoed by Bush, that would have required the first U.S. troops in Iraq to be withdrawn by Oct. 1 with a goal of a complete pullout six months later.
“This bill will deprive us of the opportunity to destroy the American forces which we have caught in a historic trap,†al-Zawahri said, according to a transcript released by the monitoring group SITE. The bill is evidence of American “failure and frustration,†he added.
“We ask Allah that they (U.S. troops) only get out of it after losing 200,000 to 300,000 killed, in order that we give the spillers of blood in Washington and Europe an unforgettable lesson,†he said.
Perhaps one significant aspect of this is that contrary to the comments of Bush and some of his associates, this statement doesn’t sound at all as if the terrorists can’t wait until the United States pull out of Iraq. It sounds as if they want to (as usual) increase the body count for a while so they can extract what they perceive to be maximum geopolitical advantage and also undermine the United States. The importance of a large body count is paramount to Al Qaida .
Question: does this statement contain a hint that there could operations on the terrorists’ drawingboard to try and eliminate a larger number of American military? Or is it strictly referring to a long U.S. engagement? OR, is this actually “reverse psychology” — the Al Qaida bigwig sounding like he wants U.S. troops to stay when he really wants them to go?
Look for this statement to be mentioned and quoted by Democrats (on progressive talk and during the Democratic primary debates and perhaps in the Presidential campaign) in the months to come. Regardless of what it really means what Al Qaida’s Number 2 says, it takes the edge off the argument that Al Qaida is clamoring for the U.S. to leave Iraq ASAP.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.