It is really too bad W didn't study history, or he would have known OBL and his rag-tag bunch of US-funded jihadists kicked the USSR out of Afghanistan in the early 80's. OBL just loved hearing the "fight 'em over there so we don't have to fight 'em over here" rhetoric. Osama Bin Laden wanted our Dear Leader to be re-elected in '04 cuz with W comes the promise of an open-ended war gainst "terrorism," and Al Q is more than happy to oblige. Al Q fighters get martyrdom and 72 virgins when they die battling the "infidels," and all our troops get is pine boxes and shattered families. Heckuva job there, Dumbya! The terrorists think they are kickin' us.

Military Analyst and Veteran wrotein his comments above:
"Al Qaeda is pleased with the sympathy and admiration it receives from the liberal press and liberal news media in this country."

I think the thing is that the so called "liberal press" is intelligent enough to make the distinction between fighting Al Qaeda, ( the people who actually did attack us on 9-11) and invading the sovereign nation of Iraq, (a country which never attacked us.) Even President Bush himself has stated on the record that there is no evidenct that Saddam Hussein had any links to the attacks of September 11.

I live in Los Angeles, and the LA Times, a fairly "liberal" paper, was very supportive of Bush when he went after Al Qaeda's training camps in Afghanistan. But Osama Bin Laden was allowed to escape from Tora Bora, and Bush has come out and said that he doesn't really think much about Osama any more. It's clear that Iraq has been a huge diversion from the hunt for Osama. Whatever happened Bush's vow to capture Osama "Dead or Alive"? My question is why this diversion to Iraq when we keep hearing the conjecture that Osama escaped into Pakistan? Something just doesn't add up here.

So my point is, I don't think it's that the press has any "sympathy and admiration" for Al Qaeda, but they do have some legitimate questions for the President as to how invading Iraq has done anything whatsoever to help hunt down Osama Bin Laden.

bush is not incompetent. he is using and applying conservative principles of the free market and rugged individualism on iraq.

"Fight them there so we don't fight them here," was always a ridiculous argument. First of all, it asssumes a finite number of terrorists...in WWII we could have (theoretically) killed all the Japanese and Germans. Unfortunately in this war for hearts and minds, brutality and collateral damage will inevitably create more terrorists. Secondly, there is no reason Al Q et al. cannot operate in two places simultaneously. And finally we have the point(s) offered by Naji. We played right into their hands...but hey, at least America is "more free" without Sadddam, right.

Perhaps further release of this information might help the American people protect itself from the continuing consequences of Republican incompetence and cowardice.

The Republican failure to protect the American people from a clearly warned Al Qaida attack on 9/11 only reinforce the Republicans' constant inability to perceive and react to genuine threats.

Perhaps simply out of shame for this failure and a desire to change the subject, the most cowardly and non-military among them began to excitedly push for an invasion and occupation of Iraq.

Certainly for a time, their confusing act of chest-beating to imply that their failures and stupidity were some sort of nation-saving courage, could perhaps work with the American people.

I, on the other hand, have full confidence that given time the American people will mature past the shock of the 9/11 attacks and will clearly see the posturing knuckleheads for who they are.

When I served my time in the military -- something most of the cowardly Republicans in office staunchly avoided -- there were occasional loud, proud bullies, but most of the time our commanders were smarter than to give them more authority than they could handle.

I agree that the US responded to 9-11 as a typical imperialistic bully would. That is usually what brings their downfall. I am totally against this WAR in Iraq, but lately feel we should maybe 'stay the course'. It benefits the rest of the other countries globally that are not 'Pro-USA' to live under their own democratically designed vision for themselves. The US only meddles when corparate greed is endangered.

You Liberals will stop till you destroy the US will you?
This story is made up to support the cut and run crowd

The tactics do make perfect sense. They worked against the USSR in Afghanistan when used by the Mujahadeen (precursor to al Qaeda) back when Reagan/Bush Sr. thought OBL was a good guy, hmm, just like Saddam Hussein (coincidence?). Why shouldn't they work against the US as well?
So far, our leadership is just as bright even adopting some Soviet techniques. What's freedom besides something that helps terrorists anyway?

This is a forgery published by our own psy-ops to convince us..."gotta fight em over there to keep them form coming here." Nonsense...spend the kind of money we are spending in Iraq on border security and Law enforcement and we would have a utopia, and money left over to fix our schools..but you can;t have a smart safe population..they might vote democrat...gotta keep em poor, stupid and scared.
It is a fake.

This is a forgery published by our own psy-ops to convince us..."gotta fight em over there to keep them form coming here." Bullshit...spend the kind of money we are spending in Iraq on border security and Law enforcement and we would have a freaking utopia, and money left over to fix our schools..but you can;t have a smart safe population..they might vote democrat...gotta keep em poor, stupid and scared.
It is a fake.

Al-Qaeda's strategic vision is right on the money with anticipating the sorry overreaction which has been guiding the administration's "war on terror" since inception.

Above all, it may well explain why there have been no attacks in America after 9/11/01, as well as why there has been not one major cell of proven Al-Qaeda species uncovered here.

As to the "home grown" terrorists beginning to emerge everywhere they and their parents have been granted asylum, that is the bonus Al-Qaeda gets from sitting back and watching
them trained in Iraq before they go home to start trouble. Or simply watching them get indoctrinated by the "refugee" immams on welfare in London, for instance.

That is the "War on Terror" the gullible, scared public still believes is being fought right: the fight which "was brought to the enemy", just the way Al-Qaeda hoped
it would be.

I am a retired army Lieutenant colonel. When we invaded Afghanistan I applauded Bush's decision, but felt he should have gone in with five times the number of boots on the ground to seal the border and kill Bin Laden. He screwed up and decided he could take Iraq easy (what a joke!) I, along with many of my military colleagues, are students of a chinese leader that wrote a book thousands of years ago. While it teachs a good deal about the tactics of war, it has great strategic significance. The name of the book is "The Art of War," by Sun Tsu. In the first chapter he proclaims that the best leaders are those that are able to keep their country from war. Later he says that the basic idea is to start a war when your enemy is weak and you are strong. Also that you do not want to fight wars too far away from your own borders as it is more difficult from a logistics standpoint, and wars should be short in duration, so your country does not tire of it and the costs increase. It is obvious that Bush, Cheney, and the rest of the Republican neocons have not read the book either. I have said since 2003 that when we invaded Iraq we were making the same mistake we made in Vietnam and the Russians made in Afghanistan. We are being bled in a war we should not be in, too far from home, and at a tremendous cost. When my Republican friends have told me that there has not been a terrorist attack on American soil since 2001--I tell them that it is not in the best interest of al queda to attack us here again. They have world opinion on their side, and we have transported Americans right into the middle east where they are close by and easy to kill. This article is not a great revelation to me, and should not be to any thinking person. Of course "W" has never been accused of being a thinking person. "Stay the course." As long as it is someone elses son or daughter getting killed or maimed!

Bin Laden said the same thing in a public tape a couple years back. All we have to do is raise the Al Queda flag in some remote spot and the US will spend millions just to get there overnight.
Also remember that for the first year the Iraqi people waited, they watched what was happening. After they didn't get work and the army was disbanded, No water or electricity, they got the picture pretty quickly.

Could have been so different if we gave contracts to Iraqis' and not haliburton, hell they might even have running water by now.

So where's the story? Who or what has blanked it out?

"Al Qaeda"

HA!

Al Qaeda is largely a myth. bin Laden never used that term to describe his small organization until well after 1998 when the US began using it as a coverall term to enable the US to go after anyone deemed a member of "Al Qaeda" via legislation geared toward fighting organized crime.

Pick up a copy of "Al Qaeda: The True Story of Radical Islam" by Jason Burke for some truth behind the history of the radical Islamic movement and the deconstruction of the "Al Qaeda" myth.

How is it that people that support freedom of speech, thought,honest government,honest elections..all the things we are told Al Queda hates..are twisted into the ones that "support" the terrorists. The logical argument would run exactly the other way. Its radical republican bizzaro world all over the librl medya.

"The translation is being released by the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point."

"I'd like to know why this information is being made public. Did anyone think that Al Qaeda might change its tactics now that we know what they are up to. Not too bright in my book.
Posted by: D. Fife"

That's because the folks at the Combating Terrorism Center are really the Dixie Chicks in disguise.

This basic scenario was outlined in Richard Clarks book, "Against All Enemies". It makes complete sense.

I like how all you Gop people think that if we just keep quiet and let the governmernt do what it "needs" to do everything will just be ok. Freedom requires freedom of information, open discussion, and transparency. When these things are lost we no longer will have true freedom. Just some cowardly half baked version of it. So what if Al Queda knows we have their "book", the intelligence community works on an entirely differnt level of operation so that discussion of such a book has no real effect. It's all political. The radical right is just miffed that the folly of being drawn into an impossible insurgency was actually what the enemy was hoping for all along.

Those who would sacrifice freedom for security deserve neither.
-Benjamin Franklin

Once again Osama is helping the PNAC cabal with their agenda.