Abu Laith al-Libi

If you don't know who Abu Laith al-Libi was, you are like most Americans. Abu Laith al-Libi was a top Al Qaeda commander. He was killed in Pakistan this week. "In some US intelligence circles, he is seen as al Qaeda’s No. 3."


Abu Laith al-Libi lamenting the death of Mullah Dadullah in this 2007 USA Today photo.






We should have been talking about the al-Libi's of the world for the past 6 years, instead of Valerie Plame, Katrina, Anna Nicole and other such white noise.

The latest leftist meme - Al Qaeda is not Al Qaeda; Abd Al Hadi; Al Zarqawi

The MSM/DNC has found a new meme.

President Bush has finally begun making clear arguments as to why we must continue the fight in Iraq against Al Qaeda. It is not merely so that we can "support the troops" or build democracy in Iraq or prevent a bloodbath or build stability in the middle east. The reason we must fight in Iraq is that we are fighting Al Qaeda:

"The facts are that Al Qaeda terrorists killed Americans on 9/11, they’re fighting us in Iraq and across the world and they are plotting to kill Americans here at home again. Those who justify withdrawing our troops from Iraq by denying the threat of Al Qaeda in Iraq and its ties to Osama bin Laden ignore the clear consequences of such a retreat."

NY Times quoting George Bush

Until President Bush began making that argument, the MSM/DNC was able to distract the American public with such irrelevancies as:

• The Plame affair;
• our inability to find many of Saddam's weapons;
• Cindy Sheehan;
• Halliburton;
• John Murtha's war record;
• the fact that Saddam and Osama bin Laden were two different people;
• Abu Graib;
• misrepresentations regarding Guantanamo;
• the election of 2000;
• Hurricane Katrina;
• The 9-11 Commission

[While some of these items have their own relevance, none of them justify retreat from Al Qaeda. For example, Katrina justifies a retreat from the swamp that is New Orleans, not a retreat from Al Qaeda or from Iraq.]

All of these stories attained "meme" status and helped the MSM/DNC make us forget that Al Qaeda attacked the U.S. on September 11, 2001, destroyed lower manhattan and is being dismembered by U.S. forces around the world, including in Iraq. A steady diet of Plame/Sheehan/torture/Katrina/Halliburton/"selected not elected" stories for the past six years has allowed this country to forget that it is at war and who the enemy is.

President Bush has done the right thing by refocusing the issue on Al Qaeda. American forces have killed Al Qaeda leaders in Iraq and delayed Al Qaeda plans for worldwide jihad. We have known since 9-11 that we would have to destroy the Al Qaeda worldwide network. Such destruction will be expensive, bloody and time consuming. We have always known this. The only real question is what is the best way to accomplish this goal. Questions about who outed the non-spy Plame or the menu at Guantanamo or how many more Florida recounts we need to make Al Gore President, etc. distract from the war and accomplish nothing else.

By refocusing on Al Qaeda, President Bush has forced MSM/DNC to do the same. The MSM/DNC has responded with a new meme. They have desparately tried to differentiate Al Qaeda from "Al Qaeda in Iraq."

A recent Today show episode featured interviews with U.S. politicians that denigrated the Iraqi government, while the label beneath the visual image asked "Will Al Qaeda move into Iraq?" The implication being that Al Qaeda is not already there. The New York Times article that quotes President Bush is entitled "President Links Qaeda of Iraq to Qaeda of 9/11." The Times seek to prove, by mere implication, that these are somehow different groups that the President is trying to "link". The MSM/DNC will eventually employ the old leftist cold war tactic of refusing to acknowledge one's membership in an organization unless a membership card can be produced. Al Qaeda members are not likely to carry cards or other official proof of membership.

[The MSM/DNC spent a tremendous effort downplaying the D.C. snipers in 2002 once it became obvious that they were Islamists with sympathies for Al Qaeda instead of white rednecks. The MSM/DNC further made tremendous efforts to ignore the Islamic implications of the phrase "Ismail Ax" on the Virginia Tech shooter's body, despite providing painful details of every other aspect of the shooting. But denying that Al Qaeda is Al Qaeda is a new low for the MSM/DNC.]

While the MSM/DNC has argued that Al Qaeda was not in Iraq before we removed Saddam, such argument is false. In reviewing my tapes of the invasion from 2003, I noted that American forces destroyed an Al Qaeda base in Iraq on or about March 29th, 2003 (during the invasion). I have no further details because the NBC scrolling marquee was very vague. On April 1, 2003, the ABC scrolling marquee noted that a terrorist base was captured with "Al Qaeda manuals" and chemical weapons manuals. I do not know if those stories referred to the same bases. The MSM/DNC felt it was more important to cover other aspects of the war, such as Jessica Lynch or anti-war protests in the U.S. [To the MSM/DNC's credit, it did provide a great deal of coverage of major battlefield movements.]

Even if Al Qaeda did not occupy Iraq until after we removed Saddam, so what? Where would you rather fight Al Qaeda, in the mountains of Pakistan or in the flat lands of Iraq? The terrain of Afghanistan contributed to the downfall of the Soviet Union in the 1980's. By contrast, we have drawn Al Qaeda into the open by fighting them in Iraq. As long as we kill their members and leaders in Iraq, those members can not be used by Islam in the global war. If the U.S. has drawn Al Qaeda into Iraq, then President Bush is to be commended for that reason alone.

Zarqawi - Al Qaeda leader killed in Iraq.










My biggest concern in the immediate aftermath of 9-11 was the mountainous terrain of Afghanistan. The Afghan mountains dwarf those mountains even in the Western U.S. A Soviet style Afghanistan war, with no other fronts, was not an option. But an air war to liberate Afghanistan followed by a lengthy occupation of Iraq, in which Al Qaeda loses leader after leader while Al Qaeda soldiers die and the Iraqi army gains strength and experience is a far different matter. Four years after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Soviet losses amounted to five times the current level of U.S. casualties in Iraq. Fighting Al Qaeda in Baghdad is clearly a better option than fighting Al Qaeda in the caves of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

The only other option is to refrain from fighting Al Qaeda at all. That option would allow 9-11 to go unpunished. That option would invite more 9-11's. That clearly is the option we face if we withdraw from Iraq, either in September or at any time in the next few years. Should an Iraqi withdrawal take place, we would soon forget that 9-11 ever happened while we concentrated on socializing medicine and turning the U.S. into another version of the European countries that face rapid decline.

While this fate would not appeal to most Americans, it is a virtual utopia for the MSM/DNC. MSM/DNC cannot achieve its utopia unless it forces American capitulation in the war. Capitulation means, among other things, pullout from Iraq now before we kill more Al Qaeda. MSM/DNC cannot force a pullout unless it creates the impression that Al Qaeda is somehow different from "Al Qaeda in Iraq."

Abd Al Hadi - Al Qaeda leader behind the 7-7-05 London bombings killed in Iraq








To counter this meme, we must remember the following:

1) Al Qaeda attacked America and destroyed lower Manhattan on 9-11;
2) We fight Al Qaeda now in Iraq.

Now that America is on the verge of hearing the story expressed that simply, MSM/DNC is forced to separate #1 and #2. MSM/DNC has tried to separate those two items with irrelevant nonsense for the past four years, but now that President Bush is explicitly linking them together, MSM/DNC is forced to meet Bush' arguments with explicit denials instead of white noise. MSM/DNC always has a problem when it is forced to be explicit.

We should repeat points ## 1 and 2 at every opportunity.

Visit page added July 31, 2007

Anna Nicole Smith, Lew Burdette, Joshua Perper, Al Qaeda, Abu Ayyub al-Masri and MSM/DNC white noise

Did you know that Lew Burdette died this week? Do you know who Lew Burdette is? Lew Burdette was the MVP of the 1957 world series. He pitched 24 straight scoreless innings over the Yankees (the team with Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra, etc.) in that series. He won three complete game victories. He was a teammate of Hank Aaron.








Yet his death was relegated to a brief mention in the sports pages or on Fox Sports Radio. There were no features or interviews with Hank Aaron or endless updates on his death with absolutely no new information. Can this be explained by the fact that he did not look like this - ?




I think there is more to it than mere looks. Anna Nicole Smith was famous for no good reason. She was the subject of an inheritance lawsuit, she appeared on reality television, she was the center of tragedy in recent months, she was involved in a paternity suit, etc. But these events are not that uncommon anymore. In a world where the vice-President's daughter can have a baby with another woman and be greeted with yawns, Anna Nicole's life was quite mundane. Yet I believe that is the reason for her fame. The media specializes in creating celebrity out of nothing.

What does Paris Hilton actually do? or Sean "Puffy" "P. Diddy" Combs? They do nothing as far as I can tell. They are famous merely because they are famous. They receive attention merely because they have already received attention. Their fame has become a self-fulfilling prophecy. They are the celebrity version of political polls.

When Princess Diana died, television commentators stumbled all over themselves around the clock for the next few days trying to think of something she actually did to merit all of the attention. For ten seconds they would list her work against land mines and in favor of AIDS victims. After that they had very little to say. Today, the commentators have stopped even trying to find some justification for the fame. Instead of trying to summarize why Anna Nicole Smith justifies all of the endless coverage, the MSM/DNC speculates as to which drugs may have been in her hotel room when she died. [The commentators have also tried to contrive a Marylin Monroe analogy, but that analogy is pitiful, as Monroe acted in many, many first run movies with A-list co-stars. Monroe's fame was based on her acting.]

A modern Rip Van Winkle, waking up after sleeping since the mid-1970's, upon hearing the news coverage of the past few days in which the MSM/DNC continuously used the deceased's middle name, might conclude that Anna Nicole Smith had assassinated the President or committed some other horrific crime like other three-named villains of the past.

The Anna Nicole Smith coverage is nothing but White Noise. See p. 171 of Hugh Hewitt's book "Blog" and #21 in the bias categories list for a fuller discussion of how the MSM/DNC uses "White Noise" to drown out important topics.

As an example of how successful this White Noise strategy has been, do you know who Abu Ayyub al-Masri is? Did you know that he is the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq and that U.S. and Iraqi forces have killed or captured numerous of his aides in the past few days. If you receive your news primarily from the MSM/DNC, you most likely are unaware of this fact. The
MSM/DNC does not want you to know that U.S. forces in Iraq are eliminating much of the group responsible for 9-11. Any story that reveals our success against Al-Qaeda in Iraq would undermine MSM/DNC efforts to generate public support for a U.S. retreat in the face of the enemy that destroyed part of New York City.

Here is another example of how MSM/DNC shallowness results in missed stories. In watching some of the coverage of the Anna Nicole Smith death, I was surprised to see Joshua Perper on television holding a press conference. I recall Perper's term as coroner in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, which term ended when he was replaced by Dr. Sanford Edberg. The two men got into a shoving match in front of TV cameras in 1980 as Edberg sought to assume his office. The sight of two coroners physically shoving each other for control of the coroner's office was, to say the least, interesting. It would make an interesting sidelight during the endless, monotonous Smith coverage for the MSM/DNC to resurrect and display that film. Yet the MSM/DNC misses that opportunity because the concept of "memory" is hostile to the mission of the MSM/DNC. MSM/DNC propaganda depends on the public forgetting what happened yesterday or last year or 27 years ago. Even though Dr. Perper's history in Pittsburgh has no real bearing on the Smith case, the MSM/DNC cannot break out of its anti-memory default mode even for the purpose of finding some historical film that would entertain its audience during this nonstop gabfest.

Here is a final analogy and a prediction. The MSM/DNC cannot continue to operate forever in this manner. Eventually, it will be successful in destroying western civilization (in which case the MSM/DNC will die also) or it will continue to lose power and market share to the new media and will eventually cease to exist. But if the MSM/DNC were to continue in power indefinitely despite its silliness and its strategy to distract attention from the vital issues affecting America's survival, our children will experience the following:

In 50 years or so, Peyton Manning will pass away. Like Lew Burdette, Manning's death will receive little coverage (despite his accomplishments in our own era).

In 30 years, a woman will be born - it does not matter who she is. By a combination of luck, looks, scandal and publicity stunts, she will eventually become famous despite having no actual career or accomplishments. Her exploits as a 20+ year old will eclipse the news coverage that Peyton Manning's death receives.
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