Wednesday, June 23, 2004

The telltale link

About that link between Saddam and al-Qaeda that Cheney is now claiming...the administration has gotten desperate, hasn't it?

The confusing bit of B.S. that's flying around now is cleared up by Juan Cole.

The whole thing is a good read. And entertaining. Here's an excerpt, but read it all.

Political Scientist Christopher Carney, who was brought in to look at documents by Doug Feith's Office of Special Plans so as to second-guess trained analysts at the CIA who actually know Arabic, first made the mistake of identifying the two. Carney is an Americanist at Penn State and had no business butting in.

The family name (here, nisba) of the al-Qaeda guy in Malaysia is Azzawi.

The family name of the guy in Iraqi intelligence is Ahmad.

Do you notice how they are not the same?

The personal or first name of the al-Qaeda guy is Ahmad.

The personal or first name of the Iraqi intelligence agent is Hikmat.

Do you notice how it is not the same?

So, Ahmad Azzawi is not Hikmat Ahmad. See how easy that is?

...Mr. Carney, Mr. Lehman, journalist Stephen Hayes, Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith, and all the other persons who gave a moment's thought to the idea that these two are the same person, based on these names, have wasted precious moments of their lives and have helped kill over 800 US servicemen, over an elementary error deriving from complete ignorance of Arabic and Arab culture.

Isn't it a shame that we have these key people doing important things who are either incompetent ignoramuses or dumb as posts?

Stephen Hayes of the National Review was on Jon Stewart's Daily Show Monday, by the way, peddling his book, which is full of similar nonsense, and at one point Stewart actually told him he thought the book was a load of crap. Stewart's Daily Show is among the best sources of news analysis on television.


Keystone Cops intelligence. And Cheney is the head dick. Or you can reverse that.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

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