Al Qaeda wants credit for congressional elections

December 23, 2006

According to a report from ABC News’ Brian Ross, Ayman al Zawahri, al Qaeda’s No. 2 man, released a video tape that reportedly included messages for Democrats in the U.S. Apparently, the terrorist network wants credit for the results of the congressional elections.

“The first is that you [Democrats] aren’t the ones who won the midterm elections, nor are the Republicans the ones who lost. Rather, the Mujahideen — the Muslim Ummah’s vanguard in Afghanistan and Iraq — are the ones who won, and the American forces and their Crusader allies are the ones who lost,” Zawahri said, according to a full transcript obtained by ABC News.

Zawahri calls on the Democrats to negotiate with him and Osama bin Laden, not others in the Islamic world who Zawahri says cannot help.

“And if you don’t refrain from the foolish American policy of backing Israel, occupying the lands of Islam and stealing the treasures of the Muslims, then await the same fate,” he said.

Now, Zawahri is obviously a nut, whose opinions are not to be taken seriously. Indeed, this clown likes to take credit for just about everything, whether al Qaeda had anything to do with it or not. For that matter, congressional Dems will of course treat Zawahri’s comments with the same scorn as everyone else.

And yet, leading far-right voices, who usually claim to distrust and hate the remarks of killers like Zawahri, seem a little too pleased with this ABC report.

I’ll spare you the litany of links, but Memorandum helps highlight the glee with which many conservatives are responding to Zawahri’s nonsense. For the right, his lunacy was apparently an early Christmas present.

I can’t quite relate to the perspective, but apparently many right-wing observers are thrilled to find themselves in agreement with one of the world’s most vicious terrorists. They’re all reading from the same talking points, which for far-right critics of the Dems, is apparently a good thing. I know; I don’t understand it either.

Once again, Captain Ed, a leading conservative blogger, tries to set his colleagues straight, just as he did under similar circumstances last month.

I know that a number of my friends on the Internet will be tempted to peg this [Zawahri video] onto the Democrats, but they should refrain from doing so. We have to remember that, like any delusional psychopaths, the AQ jihadis claim credit for everything under the sun. If he could, Zawahiri would assure his followers that trees consume carbon dioxide as a direct consequence of the faith of the mujahideen, and it would make just as much sense as this ludicrous assertion. […]

[T]his is a meaningless and unimaginative load of tripe. Taking any part of it seriously is a mistake of the first order.

And yet, most far-right bloggers seem intent on doing a victory dance. It’s more than a little sad.

After reading all those wingnut comments I really need a shower. Yikes.

  • Righties despise us Lefties more than they can put into words. This just gives them a reason to believe their hatred is justified. It is sad and pathetic.

  • A mentally-malignant fundamentalist is a mentally-malignant fundamentalist—is a mentally-malignant fundamentalist. It matters not whether they’re in a cubicle on this side of the Suez, or in a cave on that side of the Suez. They’re ideologically symbiant; each feeding the other, each being fed by the other. Conservatives and al Quaeda can be defined—thoroughly, and accurately—with just three little words:

    Wag. The. Dog.

  • Steve @ 4 is rolling his own metaphors. Good stuff! He’s right, if you’ve looked up one fundie, you’ve looked up them all.

    Credit where credit is due: Al Ququ gets co-credit for our domestic spying program, Gitmo, loss of habeus corpus and other repressive government moves. That’s it though.

  • If one assumes a rational motivation for the AQ statement then it is rational for americans to infer that AQ prefers the current policies of Bushco, given the fact that virtually all Americans hate AQ and all AQ objectives and that AQ must certainly be aware of the fact..

  • 1. What the Slayer of Rethuglicons @ #4 said.
    2. Screw you al Z.
    3. Screw you neo-con pox scabs.
    4. Nice to know the election results pissed off two sets of useless evil shit heads.
    5. I’m sick of hearing about AQ Number Twos. Seriously, every AQ maniac besides bin Laden is automatically labled a Number Two. Is this a polite way of saying he’s a shit, can someone not count? or, is it more exciting for the media to call said maniac a Number Two rather than “Random blood thirsty nut job”?

    “And if you don’t refrain from the foolish American policy of backing Israel, occupying the lands of Islam and stealing the treasures of the Muslims, then await the same fate,”

    According to the ReThug’s play book they must now call on the Democratic majority to surrender to bin Laden.

  • The nuts on the Right certainly hate liberals more than they hate fundamentalists who use terror; after all, many of them have more in common with those people than they do with patriotic Americans who understand the foundational notions of our country and appreciate that they’re a source of great strength.

    They should also recall this:

    Ron Suskind, in his book “The One Percent Doctrine,” claims that analysts at the C.I.A. watched a similar video, released in 2004, and concluded that “bin Laden’s message was clearly designed to assist the President’s reëlection.” Bin Laden shrewdly created an implicit association between Al Qaeda and the Democratic Party, for he had come to feel that Bush’s strategy in the war on terror was sustaining his own global importance.

    That said, the Democrats should get out in front of this and pledge to deliver the bastards’ heads on two pikes–while pointing out that we’d likely have them already were it not for the Splendid Little War in Iraq.

  • “How the hell did Captain Ed ever become a right winger? He seems to have a brain.”

    Not only is he a winger, his was a leading voice in the Swift Boat choir. Weird, huh?

    The thing about the non-Ed right is that now they’ve convinced themselves a foreign terrorist network has the inside dope on American elections. Maybe they’re just embarrassed because Zawahiri didn’t fall for all that talk of a Foley backlash. Or for talk of the terrible doom Democrats were bringing on themselves with regard to warrantless wiretapping. Or … Come to think of it, it’s not like AQ is worse than the average rightie blogger when it comes to understanding American voters.

  • ***Seriously, every AQ maniac besides bin Laden is automatically labled a Number Two***
    ——————————–TAiO

    That’s because (1) “every AQ maniac besides bin Laden” is a Cheney clone, or (2) Cheney is an AQ maniac in a very clever disguise. By the way—“Slayer of ReThuglicons?”

    I like it….

  • The MoFo doesn’t even exist, and ‘yawl are affording it credibity?

    Did you even read 1084?

  • OK, I am really going to piss some people off with this, but here goes.
    First, a disclaimer. This guy IS taking way too much credit for our elections. Americans won’t do jack-squat if it does not effect their pocket books. Our crappy economy, and the obvious money-hole that is Iraq, is why we voted centrist ( it was a leftward movement, but not a move to the Left) Lets make that clear.

    But it is this quote, from Mr. Al Z that I cannot ignore-

    “And if you don’t refrain from the foolish American policy of backing Israel, occupying the lands of Islam and stealing the treasures of the Muslims, then await the same fate,”

    This does not sound like a nutjob, but a desparate plea of a native trying to preserve his culture from an overpowering invading force.
    Like these fine folks….

    …whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness…..

    wait, theres more!

    …that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

    These are quotes from the Declaration of Independence.
    I find it strange that we cannot see the struggle of AQ, fighting to end a tyrranny imposed on them(Western Culture, Capitalism) in any way similiar to our own.

    Now calm down, don’t get yer panties in a knot.
    I do not advocate AQ’s tactics, nor that of the brutal and oppressive Taliban Regime, but I can see the validity for their argument.
    If we had changed our greedy, over-consumptive ways, cut our need for oil 20years ago, and not stolen a native peoples land from them , we may be in a different place in history.
    We have done this too many times throughout history, to too many peoples, and yet we still have not learned the lesson.

    Greed Kills.
    Capitalism is the celebration of Greed. Conservatism/Fundementalism is the cloak in which the greedy hide behind to oppress their fellow humans.

    Do we, as a society, have the strength to take the moral high ground, for once.??

  • “Did you even read 1084?”

    Nope, and I’m not sure I read 1984 either 😉

    As for the Right believing that al Qaeda is responsible for the Democratic victory, just remember they are the people who read the homosexual press for clues to hidden gay symbolisms like Winky’s purse and purple color.

    The same sort of in depth thought that had the Bushites Googling names of Iranians “linked” to their nuclear program to sanction.

    In short, the wingnuts and their creatures are a bunch of f**king morons.

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