southchild

John at powerlineblog.com makes an excellent point about how once again, the “experts” are dead-wrong concerning the relationship between our united enemies, in this case Hezbollah and al Qaeda. Given these “sophisticated observers” tendency to place their own theories above objective reality, this is no surprise; however, John exposes and explains it nicely.

Sophisticated observers are often equipped with theories about things that can’t happen. Like, for example, the theory that the Nazis couldn’t possibly collaborate with Communists, since they were polar opposites. As it turned out, they were barely distinguishable–sort of like the Crips and the Bloods–and when it came to dividing up Poland, they were more than happy to cooperate. Likewise, not long ago sophisticates told us that Iraq couldn’t possibly cooperate with al Qaeda and other Islamic terrorist groups since Saddam’s government was “secular.” We now know that wasn’t true, either.

A recent variant is the claim, often asserted by “experts” and others, that Hezbollah and al Qaeda are rivals, and therefore couldn’t possibly collaborate on anything. Not only that, but al Qaeda is Sunni and Hezbollah is Shia. Enough said.

Not surprisingly, this neat construct doesn’t work, either. The latest Zawahiri tape, in which he vows to avenge al Qaeda’s “brothers” in southern Lebanon, is not a departure. Rather, as Thomas Joscelyn shows in the Daily Standard, it is consistent with a considerable history of collaboration between the two terrorist groups. Who, at the end of the day, are as alike as two peas in a pod.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 28th, 2006 at 1:45 pm and is filed under General, politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.