Please, Mr. Postman
By Callimachus | Related entries in The War On TerrorismThis is interesting. A letter from al-Zawahiri to al-Zarqawi, dated July 9, 2005.
Plenty of people know chapter and verse on the Bush Administration’s rhetoric and blunders in Iraq, who have never bothered to read a word the enemy writes.
This letter is a great place to start. If you think Halliburton is the evil empire, consider the “caliphate” these boys want to create. And if you think you can form strategic policy without reference to the outlook and expectations of your enemies, think again.
Pick your favorite line. Here’s two that struck me:
Things may develop faster than we imagine. The aftermath of the collapse of American power in Vietnam-and how they ran and left their agents-is noteworthy.
… and …
I say to you: that we are in a battle, and that more than half of this battle is taking place in the battlefield of the media.
Evil, but not stupid. Evil almost never is.
Marc has an analysis.
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October 12th, 2005 at 11:20 am
and they certainly seem to be winning the battle in the media.
The MSM was willing to help all along. al-Qaeda didn’t even need to ask.
Many of us know that things aren’t going nearly as bad as the media portrays it. Unfortunately, too many Americans only get their “news” from the New York Times or the 6:30 TV news.
October 12th, 2005 at 4:17 pm
The rest of that letter dealt with the inadvisibility of blowing up Iraqi civilians in the PR battle. The media are spreading that word about that carnage too, and it is hurting the AQ effort.
October 12th, 2005 at 4:17 pm
Well, the slanted reporting by the vast majority of the media seems to be working both ways. If Al-Qaeda has truly bought into the “another Vietnam” meme portrayed by the media, that’s to our advantage. Not that it outweighs the overall negative effect of the rest of the media’s coverage, but it’s something in our favor.
The situation in Iraq is far from ideal, but it differs from that in Vietnam in most if not all of the militarily important ways. As long as our enemy thinks it’s fighting something that resembles the Vietnam War, i.e. “Tet offensives work”, it makes the job of killing them that much easier.
October 12th, 2005 at 5:01 pm
[...] On the ballyhooing letter from Al Zawahiri to Al Zarqawi: “If you think Halliburton is the evil empire, consider the “caliphateâ€Â? these boys want to create.” [...]
October 12th, 2005 at 8:21 pm
You mean the same media that’s reporting the Iraqis are getting along enough to get a constitution signed?
What coverage would you be okay with?
October 13th, 2005 at 1:28 pm
Maybe we should be saying the caliphate they want to “recreate”.
Justin, I think he’s trying to put the point across that all we see are the car bombs and IEDs all the time. We never see the Operation River Gate, or Operation Saratoga, the military details must bore the media or something. If we SAW this, and heard of the successes against insurgents, don’t you think that our opinion of the war would be better than it is? The media wants to portray it as something it isn’t.
And err, Callimachus, nice article but I get the feeling you think that a Caliphate is evil in and of itself. Was the British Empire evil? Was the Holy Roman Empire “evil”? They are just names. What makes their Caliphate “evil” is that they want to lead it and to do so have so far advocated cutting people’s heads off on video. You mention, and I agree completely with, they’re not stupid, and as you see have realized that these actions are not helping them (when was the last time any of us saw/heard of one of these?).
I do think however they are misguided, to compare Vietnam to Iraq. Troops now are volunteer and much better trained, and yes, at least to appearances, the President is letting the Generals make the military decisions (which was not the case in Vietnam as so many have pointed out before).
October 13th, 2005 at 3:25 pm
english guy: Although there are certainly some Dan Rathers out there, I’m not ready to declare there’s a general conspiracy to mislead in the media. I think a lot of the slant can be explained by the relative difficulty of reporting on an Operation River Gate vs. reporting the latest body count that comes over the wire, combined with the natural coloring of events which comes from political leanings. In other words, don’t ascribe to conspiracy that which can be explained by general laziness, subconscious bias and unprofessionalism. Dan Rather and his ilk nonwithstanding.
Or maybe I’m just naive.
August 7th, 2006 at 8:34 am
Good job.