Building on a Foundation of Socks
There exists a well-known parable spoken by Jesus in the Book of Matthew, Chapter 7, that uses the example of foolish builders who build houses on the sand, only to watch those houses wash away in the flood because it had weak foundations.
Writing today at The Moderate Voice, Jeb Koogler builds his house upon the sand of noted sockpuppet Glenn Greenwald, questioning the role of al Qaeda in Iraq:The problem with building his post upon Greenwald's theory is that Greenwald's claim is demonstrably false; a simple review of the MNF-I web site's press releases, feature stories, and daily stories shows conclusively that the military only cites al Qaeda as an actor in a clear minority of cases, typically less than a third of the time, even as surge operations are heavily targeting al Qaeda cells as part of Operation Phantom Thunder. Perhaps in the future, Koogler should base his posts on a more solid factual foundation and go directly to the source (MNF-I) instead of repeating the already discredited claims of a known partisan dissembler such as Greenwald. The only think more dangerous than building one's house upon a foundation of sand is building that same house on a foundation of sockpuppets.
About two weeks, Glenn Greenwald wrote a widely-cited post that questioned the oft-stated notion of a strong al-Qaeda role in the Iraqi insurgency.Greenwald goes on to point out that such statements are misleading, given that the evidence overwhelmingly suggests that al-Qaeda’s role in Iraq is quite small. Indeed, most studies have found that, rather than a large presence of foreign al-Qaeda fighters, the Iraqi insurgency is largely made up of disaffected Sunnis, Saddam loyalists, and ex-Baathists.
That the Bush administration, and specifically its military commanders, decided to begin using the term “Al Qaeda” to designate “anyone and everyeone we fight against or kill in Iraq” is obvious. All of a sudden, every time one of the top military commanders describes our latest operations or quantifies how many we killed, the enemy is referred to, almost exclusively now, as “Al Qaeda.”
Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 11:16 AM
Comments
1
Where's the normal blog swarm attack from the hive in response to this. Everyone must still be distracted by Libby or embarrassed by the truth.
Posted by: daleyrocks at July 05, 2007 05:42 PM (0pZel)
2
The more that one stretches the truth, the worst things are going to get. Tying all opposition in Iraq to al-Queda has been a major PR campaign by the Bush administration. Like every other thing that they have attempted to do, the consequences of this action was not factored in when they discussed the domestic PR implications of the campaign. Al-queda was a minor group worldwide before the USA decided to invade Iraq for it's oil. Many Muslims shunned them, and they were regarded as violent extremists. Now, with the occupation of an Arab state combined with the PR campaign to call all factions in the Iraq civil war al-Queda, they are a major player, drawing recruits from almost every Muslim state on the planet to fight against our guys in Iraq. This foolish PR campaign is literally killing American troops, and has turned a minor nuisance into a major terrorist threat by giving it legitimacy that it didn't have before. The way you win wars is with overwhelming force, clear thinking and taking the fight to them. Not with domestic PR campaigns.
Posted by: persimmon at July 05, 2007 10:44 PM (nUWIw)
3
Persimon,
What part of CY's site of less than one third of articles from MNCI mention AQI did you not comprehend? AQ a minor group? Riiiight I suppose a minor group besides AQ caused the Black Hawk down incident in Somalia or how about the Khobar tower bombings or the African embassy bombings or could it be the USS Cole maybe? Yup sounds like AQ was a "minor" terrorist group before we invaded Iraq alright and oh yeah forgot one minor attack it happened on Sept 11 2001 note two years before the invasion of Iraq but Meh why let facts and reality get in the way of your BDS right? And the invasion for oil thing is just stupid, think about this now put aside your BDS for a minute and ask yourself, what would be the best way to ensure an oil supply from Iraq with Saddam in charge? Hint look to Saudi Arabia and you get a clue instead of invading you make friends with the dictator dum dum. No we did not invade to get the oil and while we are on that subject invading a country for their oil would be perfectly legit it is a strategic resource after all and if we ran out of it the entire economy would collapse and the country and a good part of the civilized world with it. Forunately for us we only get 14% of our oil from the middle east oops I guess that blows a big gaping hole in your libtard talking point about invasion for oil also but then it is to easy since anyone who believes anything the sock puppet says is a low grade embicile anyway. And lastly the trully huge irrefutable FACT that jsut kills all of your libtard talking points and that is DRUM ROLE PLEASE "WE HAVE NOT HAD A SINGLE TERRORIST ATTACK ON AMERICAN SOIL NOR OUR INTERESTS OVERSEAS(EMBASSIES) IN FIVE YEARS" coincidence maybe? I think not.
What part of CY's site of less than one third of articles from MNCI mention AQI did you not comprehend? AQ a minor group? Riiiight I suppose a minor group besides AQ caused the Black Hawk down incident in Somalia or how about the Khobar tower bombings or the African embassy bombings or could it be the USS Cole maybe? Yup sounds like AQ was a "minor" terrorist group before we invaded Iraq alright and oh yeah forgot one minor attack it happened on Sept 11 2001 note two years before the invasion of Iraq but Meh why let facts and reality get in the way of your BDS right? And the invasion for oil thing is just stupid, think about this now put aside your BDS for a minute and ask yourself, what would be the best way to ensure an oil supply from Iraq with Saddam in charge? Hint look to Saudi Arabia and you get a clue instead of invading you make friends with the dictator dum dum. No we did not invade to get the oil and while we are on that subject invading a country for their oil would be perfectly legit it is a strategic resource after all and if we ran out of it the entire economy would collapse and the country and a good part of the civilized world with it. Forunately for us we only get 14% of our oil from the middle east oops I guess that blows a big gaping hole in your libtard talking point about invasion for oil also but then it is to easy since anyone who believes anything the sock puppet says is a low grade embicile anyway. And lastly the trully huge irrefutable FACT that jsut kills all of your libtard talking points and that is DRUM ROLE PLEASE "WE HAVE NOT HAD A SINGLE TERRORIST ATTACK ON AMERICAN SOIL NOR OUR INTERESTS OVERSEAS(EMBASSIES) IN FIVE YEARS" coincidence maybe? I think not.
Posted by: Oldcrow at July 06, 2007 02:18 AM (q7b5Y)
4
I don't know about politics, Oldcrow, so however you wish to compartmentalize me is your business. Most of what you wrote is difficult to understand. I read everything and study on it, and have come to the conclusion that the war is over oil and keeping that commodity traded in dollars. If we were fighting terrorists worldwide we would be putting resources into that instead of running a cost plus war in Iraq. What we are doing in Iraq has spiraled out of control, due to the mistakes of Rumsfeld and Bush. We are 563 days away from the end of those mistakes, then a solution to Iraq can commence, whatever it is.
Posted by: persimmon at July 06, 2007 03:27 AM (nUWIw)
5
Uh yuh like I said BDS a terminal case of eyes wide stupid. So tell me exactly how are things spiraling out of control in Iraq? Come on name one battle we have lost, one objective AQI or AIF have achieved come on just one example based on facts not feelings that show it is "spiraling out of control" as you put it. Oh and nice try you did not address a single one of my points and yea in 563 days if a Dhimmi or whack job like Ron Paul gets in office it will be less than a year before we have another terror attack in the U.S. because after all in yours and those like you thinking it is a criminal problem not a military one. Funny I seem to recall another Dhimmi Administration using that approach and it got us all the terror attacks I mentioned.
Posted by: Oldcrow at July 06, 2007 05:01 AM (q7b5Y)
6
"So tell me exactly how are things spiraling out of control in Iraq?"
Have you seen the state of the government in Iraq recently? It is clearly falling apart. Without the government there is no political settlement, without the political settlement the surge is an excercise in futility.
""WE HAVE NOT HAD A SINGLE TERRORIST ATTACK ON AMERICAN SOIL NOR OUR INTERESTS OVERSEAS(EMBASSIES) IN FIVE YEARS" coincidence maybe?"
It may sound rather pedantic, but your Embassy in Bagdhad is mortared most days now.
Have you seen the state of the government in Iraq recently? It is clearly falling apart. Without the government there is no political settlement, without the political settlement the surge is an excercise in futility.
""WE HAVE NOT HAD A SINGLE TERRORIST ATTACK ON AMERICAN SOIL NOR OUR INTERESTS OVERSEAS(EMBASSIES) IN FIVE YEARS" coincidence maybe?"
It may sound rather pedantic, but your Embassy in Bagdhad is mortared most days now.
Posted by: Rafar at July 06, 2007 07:17 AM (kkgmI)
7
That is most certainly rather pedantic Rafar, embassies countining as U.S. soil and all. Would you like to join persimmon in explaining where we are not fighting teroism worldwide?
Posted by: daleyrocks at July 06, 2007 09:38 AM (H+Y7x)
8
Have you seen the state of the government in Iraq recently? It is clearly falling apart.
As a practical matter, its no worse than the Taiwanese legislature...where open fist fights on the floor are common.
As a practical matter, its no worse than the Taiwanese legislature...where open fist fights on the floor are common.
Posted by: Purple Avenger at July 06, 2007 11:49 AM (gQtXT)
9
I do not agree, Mr Oldcrow. Al-Queda has grown in strength and legitimacy while you are claiming that we have already won the war against them because they haven't attacked American soil. But there are 30,000 dead and wounded Americans from the current Iraqi occupation. The American military is in bad need of an expensive refitting before they will be able to respond effectively to any domestic terrorist threats. The standards for the soldiers have been lowered, and the less said about the integrity and courage of the senior American military leadership, the less they will be embarrassed. There is currently no plan for success in Iraq. The Bush administration is just playing out the string until the end of their term in office, then it will be somebody else's problem. The democrats are going to let him do what he wants in hopes that there will still be this unpopular war going on when the '08 elections come around. In the meanwhile, this PR campaign to sell the war to the American public is working out quite well for al-Queda, drawing both manpower and money to Iraq. It has literally become a hands on training ground for terrorists. As the tactics of our opponents become more and more sophisticated, and their recruiting becomes easier (due in part to the boomerang effect of this domestic PR campaign) our own army over there grows weaker. It is not a blueprint for success, it is the makings of a failure. You wish very much to ignore this, but that is the reality of the situation. And if we don't watch out, we are going to get one of those spineless democrats as a president, who will attempt to pull out of Iraq.
If they do that, we will be right back over there within a decade. Not for the terrorists, but for the oil and currency exchange.
If they do that, we will be right back over there within a decade. Not for the terrorists, but for the oil and currency exchange.
Posted by: persimmon at July 06, 2007 03:08 PM (nUWIw)
10
Al Quaeda has grown in legitimacy??? Sheesh, the hive-mind speaks.
Posted by: DirtCrashr at July 06, 2007 05:14 PM (VNM5w)
11
Currency exchange? Who is this bozo? Why do we have to go over there for a currency exchange when we've got them every two blocks in most cities?
Plus, we're going to use the U.S. military to fight terrorism domestically? Tanks in the street type stuff?
Keep me away from the crap he's smoking please!
Plus, we're going to use the U.S. military to fight terrorism domestically? Tanks in the street type stuff?
Keep me away from the crap he's smoking please!
Posted by: daleyrocks at July 06, 2007 06:43 PM (0pZel)
12
"Tying all opposition in Iraq to al-Queda has been a major PR campaign by the Bush administration."
Except that they're not doing that. Not by a long shot.
Except that they're not doing that. Not by a long shot.
Posted by: Rob Crawford at July 08, 2007 09:16 AM (bH9q3)
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