The "Selective Leak" (Rolling Stone on phony "Zarqawi" letter)

[struggle4progress]

... The leak was of an alleged letter from Zarqawi to senior Al Qaeda leadership -- reportedly intercepted by U.S. forces -- looking for help in breeding sectarian violence in Iraq.

In retrospect everything about the supposed letter from Zarqawi seems fishy as hell -- in particular the terrorist's fawning admiration of the resolve of American troops and the "suffocation" of U.S. anti-insurgency efforts, and Zarqawi's professed unwillingness to disrupt an Iraqi democracy after the "zero hour" -- the handover of sovereignty: "We will have no pretexts."

If this were a legitimate document, and Zarqawi were indeed a driver of the insurgency, the violence in Iraq should have flamed out by now. History, certainly, has not borne this out ...

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/nataffdaily/story/9753178/the_selective_leak

[Brotherjohn]

1. I just read somewhere where BUSH himself is quoted as possibly slipping...

... admitting "he" wrote this letter. Maybe it was on HuffPo?

Anyway, in talking about the letter recently, he said "the letter I wrote... that I read from", or some correction to that effect.

Now, I don't know if Bush himself wrote this. But I do believe it's a badly drawn up forgery. The way they fawn all over the U.S. is ridiculously unbelievable.

And then there's "pack up and leave". Now, I'm no expert on Arabic, but I do know that figures of speech like this rarely translate to other languages. If this letter was translated literally (and I would think, if authentic, it should have been), then I highly doubt Zarqawi (or whoever) would have said "pack up and leave".