HOME	Your Most Trusted Source of Foreign News and Views About the United States

By Jihad El Khazen

July 27, 2005

Original Article (English)

On the day terrorism returned to the streets of London, I was on the Internet reading The Weekly Standard Magazine, the issue dated July 27, 2005. I found myself in front of a perfect example of the reasoning that has resulted in terrorism, which has been spreading ever since the U.S. launched its global campaign against it.

I was struck by a photo' displayed with three different articles, showing Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden side by side under the heading “The Connection.”

Joeseph Goebbels

Apologists for Israel are still trying to find excuses for the unjustified war on Iraq, and they have adopted Goebbels' philosophy more than Goebbels himself did. This is why they keep going back day after day, month after month, year after year, to a relationship that never existed between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda. Even though The Weekly Standard has a limited distribution, it has a major impact on American politics. Its contributors include extremist officials who walk in and out of the Administration's revolving door.

[Editor's Note: Joeseph Goebbels said famously, “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.” He also said, “Truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State].

The first of the three articles was entitled, “The Irrelevance of an Oath: Zarqawi and bin Laden are Brothers in Arms,” written by Dan Darling, who in his opening line reports a letter from Zarqawi to the al-Qaeda leadership explaining to his “brothers” the nature of his work and goals. Thus, I understood that he must have been independent of al-Qaeda; otherwise he wouldn't have needed to explain something as elemental as his work and goals.

The writer continues by revealing his evidence to confirm the relationship. He even denounces the denial of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld of the connection between the two sides. Darling settles the issue by saying that the first one to address this connection was not Secretary of State Collin Powell, but Hans-Josef Beth, the head of the German Security Service's International Terrorism Department.

Should we take the information revealed by Beth for granted? Some of the masterminds of the 9/11 events went in and out of Germany routinely. Even the intelligence agencies of the U.S., Germany, Britain and other countries failed to locate these terrorists. Are we to accept a statement from an officer of one of these intelligence agencies as decisive?

Importantly, Al Zarqawi was not practicing terrorism in Iraq before the American occupation. The decisive factor here, whether or not he had a previous connection with al Qaeda, is that the occupation impelled him to go to Iraq.

Saddam's Man, Izzat Al Douri

The second article that displays the photo' of Saddam Hussein and Bin Laden was entitled, “The Al-Douri Factor” also written by Dan Darling.

This time, the decisive factor was the presentation of “reports” that don't have a source, but were asserted by the Hadramoot Arabic Network, which reported that a meeting between Izzat Al Douri and Abu Mussab Al Zarqawi took place, in the presence of the sons of the former Vice President, in an atmosphere full of “enthusiasm.”

The report also points to a relationship between Al Douri and Islamist groups that seek to create a Jihad against Americans. The writer then invokes Fox News, and a specialist in radical Islamic movements at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Jonathan Schanzer. In other words, he invokes a group of apologists for Israel, all of whom have given the terrorists added enthusiasm and seek to head off charges that they are responsible for America's alignment with Israel in the war on terror.

Abu Mussab Al Zarqawi

More importantly, as indicated by the previous article by the same writer, relations between Islamist groups or with Zarqawi were non-existent before the occupation, so subsequently, the occupation itself is responsible for that connection. In addition, those who called for the war to serve Israel are responsible, because they have instigated the killings of 1700 Americans and more than 100,000 Iraqis, and the scenes of killing go on.

The photo' of Saddam Hussein and Bin Laden was featured in one additional article written by Thomas Joscelyn under the title, “The Four-Day War,” with reference to Operation Desert Fox, or the air bombing of Iraq. This operation started at Bill Clinton's command on Dec. 16, 1998, after the President claimed that Saddam Hussein had been hindering international teams from searching for weapons of mass destruction.

Of course, no weapons of mass destruction were found, and thus Saddam's obstruction was senseless. But the article goes beyond all this to tackle the meeting between Saddam Hussein's representative Faruq Hijazi and bin Laden in Afghanistan on Dec. 16, 1998, just days after Operation Desert Fox.

Is all this true? The writer invokes Italian newspaper Corriere della Serra and some Arab newspapers. But there are certainly 1000 other newspapers that didn't state that the meeting took place.

The recurrent and most important point in these articles is that there is no connection between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda, as stated in official American reports issued following the war on Iraq. Despite that, Goebbels' sons or grandsons repeat the same lie hoping that the people will believe it.

But the lie will only be believed by those who wish to believe, and it only emphasizes the failure in combating terrorism. Is this what Israel's advocates seek in order to maintain feelings of hatred that overwhelmingly influence terrorism experts, and divert attention from Israeli terrorism against Palestinians?

The Weekly Standard issue also published an article written by Austin Bay [Nervous in Baghdad] , who emphasizes the maintenance of the American military commitment in Iraq, and the subsequent continuation of the killing of Americans in an unjustified war that serves Israeli interests.

The article is quite long, and the writer cites the comments of American leaders that Iraqis have participated in military operations and opposition against terrorists. Meanwhile, I have also read American news columns that state that the new Iraqi forces have lost the desire, or the will, to fight terrorists.

This Edition of The Weekly Standard is a clear example of why the U.S. has failed in its battle against terrorism. I hope the government of Tony Blair will avoid such a failure by staying away from the lies of Israel's apologists, who place that nation's interests ahead of the interests of the entire world. 

VIDEO FROM THE MUSLIM WORLD

Abu Mussab Al Zarqawi

---