OBL hates Saddam; Powell loses cred

Sorry I am a couple of hours late with this story. It's my day job and all... (tough crowd!)

This story is weird, even by current standards:

1) Powell announces in Congressional testimony that al-Jazeera will broadcast a tape proving the OBL-SH nexus.

Powell said he read a transcript of "what bin Laden-- or who we believe to be bin Laden" will be saying on the Al-Jazeera Arab satellite station later Tuesday, "where once again he speaks to the people of Iraq and talks about their struggle and how he is in partnership with Iraq."

Powell is smart enough to know that showing solidarity with Iraq in the face of an aggressor invader is not the same as being "in partnership", but whatever.

2) al-Jazeera airs the tape, and makes Powell look the fool:

taped message believed to be from fugitive militant Osama bin Laden branded Iraq's government on Tuesday as "infidels" but said Iraq's leaders shared his goal of fighting the United States.

[...]

The statement said that Iraq's rulers had "lost their credibility long ago" and that "socialists are infidels wherever they are".

In other words, this statement backs everyone (including me) who has argued that OBL and SH HATE each other. To be clear, there is no greater insult in the Fundie world than to call someone an "infidel".

So despite Powell's declarations, this is nothing more than a case of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend", not of any true alliance between al Qaeda and Iraq.

So when did Powell decide to sell his soul? And to paraphrase something I hear more and more every day: If the need for war is so self-evident, why does Bush and his surrogates have to lie so much to justify it?

Posted February 11, 2003 04:28 PM | Comments (63)