Zawahiri writes for warbloggers

Guest post by Libby Spencer

(Ed. note: I'm very pleased to present our first guest post from Libby Spencer. Libby -- a New England native who marched against Vietnam, fought for civil and women's rights in the '60s and '70s, and worked on political campaigns for George McGovern and Robert Reich, among others -- is the North Carolina-based author of two excellent blogs, The Impolitic (which addresses a broad range of political issues from a liberal perspective) and Last One Speaks (which addresses the drug war and drug policy reform from a reasonable perspective). She is also a blogger at The Detroit News (link to her bio and recent posts). This post below was originally published at The Impolitic on December 23, but it is still timely. It looks at al Qaeda #2 Ayman al-Zawahiri's recent claim that the Democratic victory in November's midterms was essentially a victory for the terrorists and the response to that claim from the warbloggers of the right. What Libby finds is that those warbloggers are very much like Zawahiri himself in their calls for violence against "perceived enemies". It's a provocative, thoughtful post, and I hope it's the first of many from Libby here at The Reaction. -- MJWS)

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Zawahiri released an interminably long screed this week and our own warbloggers are jumping all over one sentence in it that claims the terrorists consider the midterm sweep by the Democratic Party as some kind of victory for themselves. I have to ask, so what? Didn't Bush also claim victory for the "forces of good" when Iraq and Afghanistan held free elections? If mere words had the power to make things so, I would be getting a hot air blimp under my Christmas tree this year.

But our warbloggers seize on Zawahiri's few words and hold it up as some kind of confused proof that validates their own call for the U.S. version of jihad against Islam and find it the culimation of their dire warnings that the terrorists would win if we elected Democrats. I don't get their logic myself when I read the same words. I think perhaps the most sense Zawahiri made was in this one paragraph:

The fourth thing I wish to talk about is a message to the American people. I say to them: you only realized the failure of the administration and toppled the Republicans' candidates after the Mujahideen slaughtered you, and you didn't listen to the voice of morality, justice, principles and intellect. And the Mujahideen's weapons continue to be raised and aimed, by the grace of Allah.

I mean, who can honestly deny that's true? The American people, in the goodness of their hearts, wanted to believe their president had their best interests at heart and so -- aided and abetted by the relentless cheerleading of the 101st Fighting Keyboardists who assured the masses that we were on the right track and only Republicans could save us from being overrun by terrorists -- bought into the fictions the White House sold and returned an incompetent president to office.

It wasn't until the ugly reality on the ground could no longer be disguised by the smokescreen of swaggering bluster that ordinary Americans finally saw the light and realized they had been sold out by greedy and arrogant neo-cons whose purpose and personal fortunes are served better by endless war than a lasting peace.

So also is Zawahiri's power founded on war and death. If we ordinary citizens of the planet could bypass the politicians and come to a peaceful accord on our own and learn to live with and accept each other in all our differences and our commonalities, who would listen to either Zawahiri or our own warmongers? But unlike our Warmonger-in-Chief, Zawahiri at least offers a defined solution:

The formula for your safety is "You shall never dream of security until we truly experience it in Palestine and all lands of Islam," and not the fallacious formula with which Bush deceives you when he says, "We strike the terrorists in their countries so that they don’t strike us in ours." On the contrary: if we are struck in our countries, we shall never stop striking you in your countries, with Allah's power and permission.

And as our commander, Shaykh Usama bin Ladin (may Allah preserve him) told you, "As you bomb, you will be bombed, and as you kill, you will be killed."

Granted it's not that useful, but heck, that last sentence could almost have come from the Old Testament of the Bible. And one has to give the Islamic extremists this much credit: They have been consistent in their rationale for jihad. They haven't changed it from week to week and month and month and year to year according to the fortunes of battle, as our own president has. They took a position and they stuck with it for decades now. But again, it's all just so many words.

In the final analysis, who is Zawahiri? He's just another warblogger calling for his followers to take up arms to acheive his aims against his perceived enemies -- not that he's likely to found on the front lines of the battle any more so than our own warbloggers in the U.S. He urges his people to make the ultimate sacrifice to fight the infidels -- and includes even the people of his own faith that would seek diplomacy over war in that category, calling them the Muslim equivalent of surrender monkeys. Frankly, I don't see much difference between this Islamic wingnut and our own 101 Fighting Keyboardists. Change a few a words and the rhetoric is exactly the same. And so is the human suffering that their policies promote.

After Saddam: Investigating the execution

By Michael J.W. Stickings

You may recall that I called the execution of Saddam Hussein an act of sectarian vengeance. What with the taunting from his Shiite executioners and the references to Shiite warlord Moqtada al-Sadr from his guards. And the fact that the "new" Iraq that condemned him is largely Shiite and out for blood.

Well, even the "new" Iraq -- or parts of it anyway -- has found the conduct of the execution (if not the execution itself) to have been poorly executed:

As thousands of Saddam Hussein's supporters protested in Sunni Arab enclaves across Iraq, the Shiite-led government said it had launched an investigation into the chaotic scene at his execution, captured on video, which has deepened the nation's sectarian rift and sparked condemnation around the world.

Iraqi officials said a committee from the Interior Ministry would likely question everyone, including senior Iraqi officials, who was present at the hanging, where witnesses mocked and jeered the ousted president as he stood at the gallows. Hours later, grainy video of the event, taken with a cellphone camera, was broadcast around the world, bringing more pressure on Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to take action.

The video triggered outrage, in Iraq and abroad, at Hussein's undignified and disorderly end. Iraq's Sunnis declared the execution an act of Shiite revenge. The Vatican, in its official newspaper, called the images from the hanging "a spectacle" that violated human rights and could harm Iraq's process of reconciliation. The Italian government, which like all members of the European Union opposes the death penalty, said after the appearance of the video that it would push at the United Nations for a worldwide moratorium on capital punishment.

U.S. officials have declined to comment publicly, but have privately expressed concern at the hastiness of the execution, which came just four days after an appeals court upheld Hussein's death sentence.

This could turn out to be a show investigation to rival the show trial that sent Saddam to his death. After all, it was Maliki who wanted Saddam dead so soon. But at this point an investigation, any investigation, is better than no investigation, and it seems to me that the "new" Iraq must examine this appalling episode of its brief history if it is ever to move beyond sectarian violence and vengeance towards the rule of law and the protection of individual rights.

Saddam was a brutal tyrant, of course, but his execution and everything that led up to it are a stain on the fledgling state of post-Saddam Iraq.

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What should have happened to Saddam?

He should have been tried at the International Criminal Court at The Hague for all his crimes against humanity, and not just for a specific event targeting Shiites, then sentenced to life imprisonment.

And although I say this with cautious trepidation -- given my lack of confidence in Bush, the warmongers, and the war effort -- what better punishment would there have been than for Saddam to witness the emergence of a democratic Iraq upon the ashes of his tyranny? Or even the partition of Iraq and the establishment of three separate states within a loose federal arrangement? The transformation of Iraq, whatever form that transformation takes, will take time. All the more reason, beyond the injustice of the death penalty, for life imprisonment.

Osama, Obama, whatever

By Michael J.W. Stickings

CNN (Wolf Blitzer) may have apologized, but this sort of mistake is inexcusable:


There's already been more than enough focus from the bigoted right on Obama's middle name. Now he has to contend with this? From CNN? The so-called "most trusted name in news"? I realize the typo was likely just an innocent "mistake" without "malicious intent," as Obama's press secretary put it, but it would behoove CNN to be a bit more careful in future. Sometimes one consonent can make all the difference. And, given the state of public discourse and understanding today, a mistake like this can feed all sorts of preconceived biases.