Zawahiri’s Advice
Friday, October 14th, 2005 12:41 am by NealCheck out Zawahiri’s Advice from powerlineblog.com for the best analysis of Zawahiri’s letter to Zarqawi. Hindrocket writes,
During the summer, American forces in Iraq intercepted a long letter from al Zawahiri, al Qaeda’s number two leader, to Zarqawi, leader of al Qaeda’s forces in Iraq. Initially, only a few sentences were made public. Zawahiri’s letter has now been verified as authentic and translated in full; the New York Times publishes the translation, with an article by Douglas Jehl. The letter is intensely interesting in several ways, but the Times’ commentary is not. Jehl opens his discussion by saying:
In it, Mr. Zawahiri told Mr. Zarqawi that the American occupation of Iraq had provided Islamic militants with a historic opportunity to win popular support.
That is, of course, consistent with the Times’ view of the Iraq war, but it is an absurd reading of Zawahiri’s letter. You’ll notice that Jehl doesn’t provide a quotation from the letter to support his interpretation. In fact, Zawahiri is evidently worried about how al Qaeda is doing in Iraq. His main purpose in writing the letter was to dissuade Zarqawi from the mass murder of Shia, and from releasing videos of beheadings.
Well, powerlineblog.com DOES document their analysis with quotations, so read this if you want to know the enemy’s appraisal of Iraq. The Times article on this letter is here.