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Big Fish Caught in Iraq
Topic Started: Apr 27 2007, 12:47 PM (695 Views)
JBryan
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The state department says he was a major in Iraq's army "before going to Afghanistan to fight the Soviets". We're talking early to mid 80s, around the time when Rummy and Saddam were photographed shaking hands and smiling.

Hardly Saddam's miltary attache to Bin Laden.


Do you really think Saddam would have something as open as a military attache to bin Laden? The contacts he would have with al Qaeda and the Taliban would be most likely through intelligence operatives most of whom were ex-military. Being formerly in Saddam's army is not like being a member of the VFW here. We are talking about one of the tightest police states there ever was patterned after the Stalinist model. Having former Iraqi officers (this is not the first) in cahoots with al Qaeda and the Taliban as far back as the early '90s is just too much of a coincidence to me.
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jon-nyc
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But as the guy joined the mujajadeen fighting the Soviets in the 80s, his later association with the Taliban and Al Qaeda doesn't seem out of the ordinary.

Look, for all we know this guy was funneling money from Sadaam to OBL to finance pilot school for Mohammad Atta. But there's nothing in his bio to suggest he was any different from the thousands of Arabs who joined the Jihad against the soviets and later joined the Taliban and OBL. Yet you guys jump on his Iraqi nationality as of special significance.

You are reaching, my friends.
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ivorythumper
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What reach, Jon?

We've been told for the past few years that there was ABSOLUTELY NO CONNECTION BETWEEN IRAQ AND AL-QAEDA. Is that really a tenable assertion?
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Mikhailoh
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Also because there is an old adage from that part of the world - the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
Once in his life, every man is entitled to fall madly in love with a gorgeous redhead - Lucille Ball
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jon-nyc
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IT, the problem is that 'link' or 'connection' is so vague as to be meaningless. I have links to Saddam Hussein. The Bush family has links to Bin Laden. What does that mean?

As far as we know, Saddam was not involved in 9-11. The fight against Al Qaeda and the war against Iraq were entirely separate (before the invasion, that is). One was a defensive war against islamic fundamentalists, the other a war of choice against a secular, neo-stalinist police state. Thats what people mean to say when they say they're unconnected.

(its all mooted now anyway, since the invasion, perhaps we should move on)
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jon-nyc
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Mikhailoh
Apr 28 2007, 02:21 PM
Also because there is an old adage from that part of the world - the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

Note that when this pilgrim joined the good fight in Afghanistan, he was on our side.
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ivorythumper
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Sorry, Jon, when you start dissecting words like "connection" for an Iraqi major who also worked with Al-Qaeda I have to wonder why.
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jon-nyc
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When you start clinging to the fact that he was a major in the Iraqi army some two decades prior to 9-11 I have to wonder why.

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ivorythumper
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I'm not clinging to anything, I am just pointing out a fact. Sorry that bothers you.
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jon-nyc
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The fact that this chap served in the army in the 80s (along with most every other able-bodied young Iraqi male) bothers me not in the least, IT.
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Mikhailoh
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jon-nyc
Apr 28 2007, 02:31 PM
Mikhailoh
Apr 28 2007, 02:21 PM
Also because there is an old adage from that part of the world - the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

Note that when this pilgrim joined the good fight in Afghanistan, he was on our side.

Jon, I don't care about this particular guy, my comment was more general toward the Baathist regime. IMNSHO it would be foolish to believe that no discussions of cooperation ever took place.
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Larry
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As far as we know, Saddam was not involved in 9-11.


Answer this one for me, Jon. It was widely reported, and pictures were shown of it, that the government controlled newspaper in Iraq, run by one of Saddam's sons, ran a news story about a coming "major event" that was going to occur in America, with an artist's drawing of the Twin Towers being hit by planes and falling - *weeks* before it actually happened.

If Saddam wasn't involved, even indirectly, how do you explain this? Was he a prophet?
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ivorythumper
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jon-nyc
Apr 28 2007, 01:22 PM
The fact that this chap served in the army in the 80s (along with most every other able-bodied young Iraqi male) bothers me not in the least, IT.

A major is a career officer, Jon, not a grunt. He is hardly a typical able bodied young Iraqi male. I am sure that once he went to Afganistan he abandoned all his relationships with his former colleagues in the Iraqi army.

From your perspective he would have to, right? After all, it is inconceivable that a career officer in the Iraqi military could been a liaison since it has been also told to us that AQ and Saddam were intractable enemies, so there was absolutely no connection between Saddam's Iraq and Al-Qaeda.
The dogma lives loudly within me.
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jon-nyc
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ivorythumper
Apr 28 2007, 05:13 PM
so there was absolutely no connection between Saddam's Iraq and Al-Qaeda.

Please see my post, above.
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jon-nyc
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Larry
Apr 28 2007, 05:05 PM
Quote:
 
As far as we know, Saddam was not involved in 9-11.


Answer this one for me, Jon. It was widely reported, and pictures were shown of it, that the government controlled newspaper in Iraq, run by one of Saddam's sons, ran a news story about a coming "major event" that was going to occur in America, with an artist's drawing of the Twin Towers being hit by planes and falling - *weeks* before it actually happened.

If Saddam wasn't involved, even indirectly, how do you explain this? Was he a prophet?

Widely reported where, the UPI or the Washington Times?


Seriously, had such a story existed, don't you think Bush and crew would have mentioned it?
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ivorythumper
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Jon, it is not his "iraqi nationality" that I am looking at (as you incorrectly surmise above) but his status as a career officer in the Iraqi army.

You assert that he was there in the early to mid 80s, which would have made him around 25 years old. When the Afghan war ended he would have been 27 or 28 years old, which means he would have been promoted to major some years previous. Seems "meteoric" to me. Majors in the US Army are typically in their 30s, after 10 or so years of service. I am curious about his being a major in his 20s, and then giving it up to go to Afghanistan.

Perhaps you can point us to other information about him -- such as did he resign his commission? Was he in Afganistan as a mercenary, a loose jihadist, or an advisor? Was that before or after he was made a major in the Iraq Army?
The dogma lives loudly within me.
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jon-nyc
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I have very little info about this chap - just that the State dept says he was a major 'before going to Afghanistan to fight the Soviets'. I don't have a timeline on him, I suppose its possible he went as late as 87 or 88. I always think of Afghanistan as being a Brezhnev adventure, so I had the early 80s fixed in my mind.


Re his age, it would be young to be a major - but less so in wartime, especially that war. Keep in mind, Sadaam's army went from around 180k troops to almost 1 million through that war. It was also historically top heavy. There must have been tens of thousands of young officers in Iraq by the end of that war.

In my defense, I was left unsupervised.
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Larry
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Seriously, had such a story existed, don't you think Bush and crew would have mentioned it?


Oh, it existed. And it was widely reported at the time, on many main stream newscasts and papers. Why Bush and crew hasn't mentioned it I couldn't tell you any more than I can't explain why they've sat on their hands on *several* issues they should have talked about.


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jon-nyc
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Could you provide a link, Larry?
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ivorythumper
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OK, I doubt after the CIA talked to him there is much that they don't know about him. :lol:
The dogma lives loudly within me.
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George K
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Finally
Seems that even today, the fact that he appears to be the mastermind behind the London bombings has gone beneath the ever watchful radar of the press in the United States.

The Washington Post breathlessly leads the story with this headline:

Quote:
 
CIA Held Al-Qaeda Suspect Secretly.

Officials Disclose That Use of Overseas Prisons Resumed
By Dafna Linzer
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, April 28, 2007; Page A16


An Iraqi man accused of being a key aide to Osama bin Laden and a top leader of al-Qaeda was arrested late last year on his way to Iraq and handed over to the CIA, the Pentagon announced yesterday, in what became the first secret overseas detention since President Bush acknowledged the existence of such a program last September.


The word "London" doesn't even appear in the story.

Our media is first to paint the CIA as villians in the story while ignoring the story of who this character was.
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Piano*Dad
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Sorry to break into this little fight over how many Iraqi majors can dance on the head of an artillery shell, but the NY Times (yes, I mean the NY Times) ran a story today about the calming of Anbar province. Quite a shock:

Taming Anbar
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David Burton
Senior Carp
“You mean one of Saddam’s sons had a picture showing the WTC with planes going into them long before 9/11?”
“Yes, Mr. President.”
“And you don’t want me to even mention that I knew anything about it?”
“That’s right, Mr. President.”
“Is that an order?”
“Yes, Mr. President.”

He gets lots of this kind of “advice.” They all do.

What seems more puzzling to me is why the people who run the American “drive-by” media are so concerned we should be shutting down those “secret prisons?” Is it due to the fact that there are, and there are, many out of work lawyers in America? Is it also due to the fact that there has existed for quite some time an alliance between the “drive-by media” and a host, nay juggernaut, of mighty American law firms? What’s in it for them?

… be seeing you

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