Letters to the Editor

Everyone we fight in Iraq is now "al-Qaida" A change in the way the Bush administration and military commanders refer to "the enemy" in Iraq has been almost immediately adopted by the media. Glenn Greenwald [2007-06-23]

• Funny, that...

  In today's Times article, Gordon cites a military spokesman comparing the flight of al Qaeda from Baquba with "the escape of Qaeda leaders from Falluja ahead of an American offensive that recaptured that city in 2004."

  Funny, that.... In an April 2004 article (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/09/international/middleeast/09FALL.html?ex=1182744000&en=9ccd44786cd1aef1&ei=5070),a week after the four American "contractors" were killed, Gordon writes about all the reasons Fallujah is a hotbed of insurgent activity. Not once did he use the term al Qaeda.

  Something else: An Agence France-Presse article (http://rempost.blogspot.com/2006/06/most-foreign-fighters-in-iraq-come.html) published almost exactly one year ago quotes Army spokesman Major General William Caldwell claiming al Qaeda "is very disorganised right now and very disrupted right now. The reason we were able to pick up and track some of the middle-level people is because their system is so disrupted and that has given us the opportunities to find them, track them and go get them."

  So, last year al Qaeda was on its heels and now nearly every insurgent captured or killed is al Qaeda. Someone should ask Bush what happened in the past twelve months and why his policy in Iraq is breeding al Qaeda fighters.

  -- John Manning
  [Read John Manning's other letters]
  Permalink Flag Saturday, June 23, 2007 08:11 AM
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