Kansas Bear

The U.S. command said Wednesday the highest-ranking Iraqi in the leadership of al-Qaida in Iraq has been arrested, adding that information from him indicates the group's foreign-based leadership wields considerable influence over the Iraqi chapter.

Khaled Abdul-Fattah Dawoud Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, also known as Abu Shahid, was captured in Mosul on July 4, said Brig. Gen. Kevin Bergner, a military spokesman.

"Al-Mashhadani is believed to be the most senior Iraqi in the al-Qaida in Iraq network," Bergner said. He said al-Mashhadani was a close associate of Abu Ayub al-Masri, the Egyptian-born head of al-Qaida in Iraq.

Bergner said al-Mashhadani served as an intermediary between al-Masri and Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahri.

"In fact, communication between the senior al-Qaida leadership and al-Masri frequently went through al-Mashhadani," Bergner said.

"Along with al-Masri, al-Mashhadani co-founded a virtual organization in cyberspace called the Islamic State of Iraq in 2006," Bergner said. "The Islamic State of Iraq is the latest efforts by al-Qaida to market itself and its goal of imposing a Taliban-like state on the Iraqi people."

US: Top al-Qaida in Iraq Figure Captured

Bluesman

Friggin' figures. The day AFTER I leave town...

__________________
"The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it, and if one finds the prospect of a long war intolerable, it is natural to disbelieve in the possibility of victory."
- George Orwell

Lunatock

Markets itself? The article says they market themselves? a/q seems to have a high demand among the Iraqi tribal clans wouldn't you agree?

Might be doing better than the attempts by the Government to get freedom loving Americans to swap liberty for security.

dalem

Maybe they'll have him in a duffel bag all ready for you.

-dale

JAD_333

Talkative fellow. Or did a little washboarding loosen his tonque? Note he's been in our hands for more than a week. Plenty of time to Cheney him.

__________________
To be Truly ignorant, Man requires an Education. (Plato)

Shek

AQ and AQI absolutely markets itself, and most demand is based on an aversion to getting killed by AQ rather than an affinity for AQI.

Second, since you seemingly allude to Ben Franklin's quote, I'll just put it up for all to see. Not a comment really, just a chance to make sure that people get to see the real quote since many folks will misquote this.

__________________
"So little pains do the vulgar take in the investigation of truth, accepting readily the first story that comes to hand." Thucydides 1.20.3

Lunatock

It still seems the reaction of the heavily armed Iraqi tribes was to form a huddle and "think about it". Actually locking and loading.

That's what the second paragraph was based on.

And feck no! I'm not interested in becoming a government mule just to be that much safer from the al-qaeda boogeymen.

And furthermore this minor, insignifigant, yet possibly imfamous marriage scam didn't earn a lot of trust or respect for the US Government either.
The fine details of that might be found in a dossier about me somewhere.

JAD_333

How important is this story, anyway?

Anti-war babblespeak goes on, but coverage of this positive development is rare as hens teeth.

Bluesman

While it's true I haven't been parked in front of the tube very much during these very busy days, do you know that to date I've seen exactly ONE mention of this extremely important and strategic story on ANY newscast? Almost NObody in America, and very, VERY few people anywhere else, have any idea who this individual is, and what his capture means. And that is by design and conscious effort.

This is the God's own gospel truth: the media as a whole wants us to lose this war.

Nobody can convince me otherwise; they really do want us to be defeated. And when I think about what that really means, what a horrible reality that is, I nearly go crazy with the absolute loathing and disgust I hold for them as a class.

astralis

bluesman,

i don't see the president doing such a great job communicating, either. selling the US public on the war effort isn't the job of the media. it is the job of the executive branch. he is supposed to be the war president; so where are the fireside chats?

and while the capture of this SOB is certainly a very important tactical success, i fail to see how it is strategic. not even zarqawi's death was strategic in nature.

__________________
Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.

-Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

Bluesman

Okay, when have I ever said they SHOULD sell ANYthing to ANYbody? You know dam' well what I'm talking about.

astralis

bluesman,

perhaps sell was the wrong word. however, if this capture is as important as you say it is- and it very well could be- then it is up to the president to explain to the nation why this is so significant. it is the executive branch which is supposed to help us win the information war.

it is up to the executive branch to clearly delineate the overall strategy, to convincingly demonstrate why his plan will work and is better than the other plans thought out, and if he has gone wrong, explain to the nation what has gone wrong and what steps he is doing to fix it.

and we're only talking about the public relations aspect of this whole thing, too- we haven't even discussed the just as important aspect of planning. had there been any decent planning whatsoever, this war would have been wrapped up by now. hell, even this latest plan (which was created after the executive branch ignored the recommendations of the last plan drawn up) is something of an on-the-fly affair: the original theory was for a 80,000-man surge, which was then drawn down to 50,000, and by the time bush put his stamp on it, down to 20,000 men, further and further away from the levels which CI theory recommends.

by shirking his responsibilities- not fully planning out this war, trying to sell the war on the cheap, not explaining to the american people what the strategy is and what is required- i would say the executive branch, more than any other factor, has done more damage to the war and the war effort than the machinations of congress or the media (neither of whom have especially covered themselves with glory, either).

to blame the media for the way the war is going (or for that matter, even how it is portrayed), this is the equivalent of our own little Dolchstoßlegende. and like the germans learned, while it might be comforting to wallow in that legend, it does absolutely nothing to prepare us for future trials.

Bluesman

Bull.

The media are fellow-travellers. I don't care if you don't believe it, but I see it day after day after day, and it is as plain as anything what's going on. It's no 'legende'; it's happening.

Whatever the administration can be blamed for (and the list is growing every day), whenever the good news DOES come forth, how much traction does it get? How much play does something like THIS story get?

Why, 'NONE' is the answer you're looking for, I believe, and why do you suppose THAT is? Because, instead of all us sheeple that don't know what's going on being sold on a 'legende', ala the German mythology of orogin of their misfortune, the truth is 180-out.

The media has its own paradigm, and it refuses to be shaken out of it. (And when I write of them as if they are a monolithic, single-minded bloc, I'd just like to point out right here and now that they dam' near ARE, as proven time and time and time again through studies and surveys and facts that cannot be dismissed anymore by the media's apologists.) And that paradigm is VIETNAM.

They are CONVINCED that every single time a uniform talks to them, it's nothing more than the Five O'Clock Follies, just like the Good Ole Days back in Saigon. (YOU know - the Glory Days, when they first felt their power; a war lost through political power and public opinion, led by - guess who?) Every briefing, every press conference, every news release; all lies from them Evil Uniformed Gang-Rapists. All officers are mendacious and evil; all enlisted are stupid and desperate to escape their poverty-ridden lives. The military is filled with sadistic knuckle-dragging troglodyte jungle-dwelling creatures, eager to murder and destroy.

They LONG for this war to BE Vietnam; they hope it'll end the same way, and for the same reason. And if it DOES end the same way, it WILL be for the same reason: a press corps hostile to the war's aims. Oh, and abetted by a chief executive that can't coherently explain why we should at least TRY to win.

But don't come at me with your weak 'liberal-media-is-just-a-conservative-stalking-horse' crap, because it's WAY past us whining about the media not helping, or whatever it is you think I'm saying. I don't need 'em to help, )although you can bet Ernie Pyle is totally ashamed of his so-called 'colleagues' these days). I'd settle for 'em to stop being traitorous vipers, and report what's REALLY going on there. To tell the truth, instead of trying to make their country into what they believe it to be: an evil, bumbling over-amped man-child that needs to be humbled and put in its place.

Let me perfectly clear about what I believe: the media almost universally wishes for the United States to be defeated in Iraq, and are doing whatever they can to further that objective that won't be so over-the-top as to invite their offices to be burned to the ground by a finally-too-outraged-to-take-it-anymore public.

You want us to prepare for future trials? Hey, so do I. But I'm not the one in denial about the nature of what the media has done and is doing right now to make certain we lose more soldiers, more money, more prestige, more allies, more strategic position, and finally, THIS WAR. YOU are. It's YOUR 'legende', mate, not mine.

astralis

bluesman,

and i say even if that WERE true- which i do not believe- none of it would mean anything had the executive branch carried out its duties. it was not the media that set our troop levels at a minimally low level; it was not the media that told the administration to scrap carefully laid out plans and promote interagency wrangling; etc etc etc.

what the media DOES have an effect on is public determination/will, as you say; but again, was it the media that told us we'd be down to 30K troops by nov 2003? was it the media that said $50 billion for the war and a cakewalk thrown in? in short, false impressions on the war is not a province of the media alone.

in any case, i don't believe the media is a "conservative stalking horse", nor do i believe it is all part of some big liberal conspiracy. the media, as with all businesses, is out there for profit. as shek has pointed out, the media does not so much create bias, but follows them. the war is perceived by the public as going poorly (and by the original standards- ie our troops gone by 2004 and iraq a fully functional democracy- it is hard to say it is going well), and so the media portrays it poorly. that's what sells well.

but hey, if you wish to keep to your stereotype of them liberal traitorous newsie- a blanket statement just as ridiculous (if less patently offensive) as that of the knuckle-dragging military type, that's your call. too bad such a viewpoint doesn't get us an iota closer to winning the vital information war, though.

JAD_333

Where does the public get the grist to perceive anything about the war? I agree with you that the media is not monolithic, but I agree with bluesman that it goes well beyond objective journalism in this instance. Reporters, editors and so forth are just mere mortals and can be illogical, which I think those are who argue that the prosecution of the war was wrought with errors from the getgo, therefore we should pull out. Good, God, what a dumb premise. Errors don't justify quitting; weakness does. I would think the media would beat the drum for increased efforts and applaud what is now going right, IF THEY WANTED US TO SUCCEED.
It is logical to assume that those who would have us quit because of tactical errors, would have us stay when we overcome our tactical errors. So why was going in wrong and why is right to leave? Those are the questions on which we should act, not old tactical errors.