Zarqawi declares "bitter war" on election

[TacticalPeek]

Zarqawi declares "bitter war" on election

Sun Jan 23, 2005 04:26 PM GMT


By Matt Spetalnick

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Al Qaeda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has declared all-out war against Iraq's landmark elections in a warning intended to scare away voters a week before they go to the polls amid a raging insurgency.

But interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi vowed on Sunday his U.S.-backed government would do everything possible to safeguard more than 5,000 voting stations against what he called "evil forces determined to hurt Iraq".

Zarqawi, a shadowy Jordanian militant who tops America's wanted list in Iraq, berated the country's Shi'ite majority for embracing the coming election and urged Saddam Hussein's once-dominant Sunni minority to wage a holy fight against it.

"We have declared a bitter war against the principle of democracy and all those who seek to enact it," a speaker identified as Zarqawi said in an audio tape on the Internet.

"Those who vote ... are infidels. And with God as my witness, I have informed them (of our intentions)," he said.

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http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=659195

[shraby]

1. Didn't they say they caught him not too long ago? n/t

[judy]

2. Riverbend thinks

Zarqawi is about as real as WMD's...
<snip>
"When they saw their idiotic president wasn't going to find weapons anywhere in Iraq, they decided it would be about mass graves. It wasn't long before the very people who came to 'liberate' a sovereign country soon began burying more Iraqis in mass graves. The smart weapons began to stupidly kill 'possibly innocent' civilians (they are only 'definitely innocent' if they are working with the current Iraqi security forces or American troops). It went once more from protecting poor Iraqis from themselves to protecting Americans from 'terrorists'. Zarqawi very conveniently entered the picture.

Zarqawi is so much better than WMD. He's small, compact and mobile. He can travel from Falloojeh to Baghdad to Najaf to Mosul… whichever province or city really needs to be oppressed. Also, conveniently, he looks like the typical Iraqi male- dark hair, dark eyes, olive skin, medium build. I wonder how long it will take the average American to figure out that he's about as substantial as our previously alleged WMD."
<snip>

http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/

Sounds like she may be right...

[Ms. Clio]

5. Just before I opened this post that's EXACTLY what I was thinking, too

So convenient to claim that all the resistance to the U.S. puppet elections is "foreign," and that really all the Iraqis just can't wait for the chance to "elect" CIA asset Allawi to be their new Saddam.

[acmavm]

3. I've been wondering lately what old Zarq's been doing. Haven't heard

a lot out of him lately.

He must have decided that the 'elections' were worth dragging himself out of his coffin and limping up to the tape recorder. Or maybe he's like our our fearless leader, can't stand it if he isn't the center of attention.

[Ms. Clio]

6. Like Osama--they only come out for important U.S. elections

[yankeedem]

4. I call BS on this one

The whole bit against being against democracy. Is Zarqawi "Rove" in Arabic by chance.

[amber dog democrat]

7. Maybe he is Emanual Goldstein

when we need him to be. I am beginning to wonder if he ever exisisted in the first place.

[bluestateguy]

8. I do have to say this about Zarqawi

He's an asshole and a terrorist. This Jordanian, just like the United States and its phony coalition, has invaded a country where he is not welcome, made life miserable for the Shiites and made alliance with Al Qaeda (who is hated by most Iraqis). He's just a foreign interloper who does not belong in Iraq. He should not be conflated with the Iraqi resistance fighters, the men and women who are simply defending their homeland from an unjust, illegal and barbaric invasion. It's probably true that Zarqawi would be less dangerous had we not invaded Iraq, but that does not change the fact that he is a cold-blooded terrorist.

[tkmorris]

13. You may be right

IF you accept at face value all the news reports. I would ask though, why do you accept all that is said about this man at face value? In fact, how do you know he even EXISTS? He sure seems to be the boogieman of the week to me. Even if there once was a real "Zarqawi", it doesn't mean that any of the info passed out from the Bush team is true. It all just seems way too convenient to me; this guy is like the the Riddler and Bush is playing Batman.

[renegade000]

14. seriously

isn't it a bit too convienient:

BUSH: (inaugural paraphrase) "We will fight for FREEDOM AND LIBERTY against EVILDOERS who hate FREEDOM AND LIBERTY!"

ZARQAWI: "I hate FREEDOM AND LIBERTY! ROAR! *does evil*"

i dunno, maybe he is real...if he is he is definitely the most cartoonish bad guy out there right now.

[ECH1969]

15. One thing I was wondering

When did he enter Iraq? Did he enter the country in 2004 or just after we invaded? That always confused me.

[NNN0LHI]

16. Powell started the Zarqawi BS the same time he was lying about Iraqs WMDs

Is Zarqawi Really the Culprit?


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4466324 /

March 6 - The stark fact is that we don’t even know for sure how many legs Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi has, let alone whether the Jordanian terrorist, purportedly tied to al Qaeda, is really behind the latest outrages in Iraq. What is clear is that the Iraq conflict has elevated suicide bombing as a weapon of war to a scale never before seen, not only in numbers of victims, but in numbers of attackers, and their ability to field large number of suiciders at the same time.

Aside from the evidence suggested in a letter attributed to Zarqawi intercepted by officials earlier this year, we don't really know much more now than we did when Secretary of State Colin Powell made the case before the U.N. Security Council for war in Iraq in February, 2003. In that presentation, Powell cited Zarqawi’s presence in Baghdad—where he may or may not have gotten an artificial limb fitted after a wound suffered in Afghanistan—as, if not a smoking gun, at least a smidgen of a powder burn linking Saddam Hussein to al Qaeda. The letter so neatly and comprehensively lays out a blueprint for fomenting strife with the Shia, and later the Kurds, that it's a little hard to believe in it unreservedly. It came originally from Kurdish sources who have a long history of disinformation and dissimulation. It was an electronic document on a CD-ROM, so there's no way to authenticate signature or handwriting, aside from the testimony of those captured with it, about which the authorities have not released much information.


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[Igel]

18. I think he was involved with the group

up in E. Kurdistan when Saddam was still kicking about. Committing the occasional "I want shari'a" kind of act in the no-fly zone.

Actually, he's Jordanian, but Palestinian (not from a refugee camp).

[NYC]

9. There's a current article on DU

where Allawi said he will not confirm or deny whether Zarqawi is in custody.

There was an article last week that Zarqawi was arrested.

Then, of course, there are the articles from the past in which Zarqawi is/was dead.

[NNN0LHI]

10. I call bullshit on this. Zarqawi is a figment of someones imagination

Who is Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi?





http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO405B.html

<snip>Al Zarqawi is often described as an "Osama associate", the bogyman, allegedly responsible for numerous terrorist attacks in several countries. In other reports, often emanating from the same sources, it is stated that he has no links to Al Qaeda and operates quite independently. He is often presented as an individual who is challenging the leadership of bin Laden.

His name crops up on numerous occasions in press reports and official statements. Since early 2004, he is in the news almost on a daily basis.

Osama belongs to the powerful bin Laden family, which historically had business ties to the Bushes and prominent members of the Texas oil establishment. Bin Laden was recruited by the CIA during the Soviet-Afghan war and fought as a Mujahideen. In other words, there is a longstanding documented history of bin Laden-CIA and bin Laden-Bush family links, which are an obvious source of embarrassment to the US government.

In contrast to bin Laden, Al-Zarqawi has no family history. He comes from an impoverished Palestinian family in Jordan. His parents are dead. He emerges out of the blue. snip

The CIA, with its $30 billion plus budget, pleads ignorance: they say they know nothing about him, they have a photograph, but, according to the Weekly Standard (24 May 2004), they apparently do not know his weight or height.

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[renegade000]

11. i'm not a conspiracy theorist at all...

but after reading those Zarqawi quotes...

he's totally fabricated...

[hector459]

12. I don't think the US cares because they will be killing mostly Iraqis.

They're just doing our dirty work. We will be able to own Iraq soon, without any trouble because the fighting men willhave been killed off. Just give us a year more.

[pinniped]

17. Anyone else think these assclowns are talking to themselves?

Allawi the ventriloquist.

[VirginiaDem]

19. Forgetting the conspiracy for a moment, the administration

is really moving the goalposts on these elections. If Iraqi election day goes off without an all-out apocalypse, Bush will proclaim victory for Democracy. If the Sunni triangle nets anything higher than a fifteen percent turnout and lower than 300 casualties, then Democracy will have been spread!