Is Al Qaeda Messing With Our Elections?

The front page of Drudge is hyping the much anticipated "Al Qaeda endorsement" saying that "al Qaeda Wants Republicans, Bush 'Humiliated."  Of course Drudge's whole point here is to try and get folks believing that Al Qaeda supports Obama.  The reality is much more complicated. 

As Reuters reports

An al Qaeda leader has called for President George W. Bush and the Republicans to be "humiliated," without endorsing any party in the upcoming U.S. presidential election, according to a video posted on the Internet.

"O God, humiliate Bush and his party, O Lord of the Worlds, degrade and defy him," Abu Yahya al-Libi said at the end of sermon marking the Muslim feast of Eid al-Fitr, in a video posted on the Internet.

Libi, one of the top al Qaeda commanders believed to be living in Afghanistan or Pakistan, called for God's wrath to be brought against Bush equating him with past tyrants in history.

The remarks were the first comments from a leading al Qaeda figure referring, albeit indirectly, to the U.S. elections. Muslim clerics often end sermons by calling on God to guide and support Muslims and help defeat their enemies.

A few things to note here.  First, it's not even clear that this has anything to do with the election. The quote is somewhat dubious and it's not all that rare for Al Qaeda videos to decry Bush and his allies.  They've been doing that for years.

Even more noteworthy though, is the fact that this video should never have been made in the first place.  Why?  Because al-Libi was being held at an American prison in Afghanistan in 2005 when he escaped.  It's really hard for conservatives to now try to use his statements to their advantage when it was George Bush's detention policies and general incompetence that allowed this man to escape in the first place. 

Finally, it also worth noting that Al Qaeda has done this before. Terrorism expert Richard Clarke  warned earlier this month about Al Qaeda attempts to interfere in our elections.  And just last week former NY and Current LA Police Chief Bill Bratton penned an op-ed writing:

This is a critical election for Al Qaeda. The U.S.-led invasions of two Muslim countries during the Bush years and scandals such as Abu Ghraib have been a boon for Bin Laden's demagoguery. He and other Islamists continually (and dishonestly) cite these wars as evidence of a U.S. war on Islam. That has helped create a steady stream of suicide bombers eager to destroy U.S. targets on their way to paradise.

Bin Laden is likely to believe that a President John McCain - who has jokingly sung of bombing Iran and who championed the troop surge in Iraq - is more likely to engender Muslim anger and resentment than would his opponent. Indeed, international polls, including those in Muslim countries, show striking support for Barack Obama.

Put simply: Bin Laden probably realizes it could become markedly more difficult to paint the United States as the "Great Satan" with a new President who is admired internationally. The remaining 14 days before the elections should be seen as a time of high threat, and state and local police should be on high alert. With so much at stake in these elections, Bin Laden will probably attempt to make his opinion count.

This view would also seem to be confirmed by a posting on an important Al Qaeda forum just last week that argued that McCain was most likely to continue George Bush's failed policies
- policies that have actually made Al Qaeda stronger.  And Spencer Ackerman has done additional reporting interviewing a number of intelligence experts who agree with this assessment.

Overall, let's hope that these types of statements play no important role in this election.  But it's pretty obvious that conservatives are on weak ground if they want to argue that  any of this somehow shows an Al Qaeda preference for Barack Obama.

Comments

[berrycooda]

Why does the media even put that terrorist's name out there.

It only gives credence to the fact that he still bothers some people.

Who cares what he thinks...he is a coward hiding in a hole somewhere or dressed like
a woman so nobody will be able to capture him and give him what he really deserves and
not the publicity that the media gives him.

He should pray to God... and God listens to many prayers and most of them are that he will get
what he deserves one of these days.
He has caused a lot of pain in this world and God will revenge when it is time.

[lagumbo]

George Bush has humiliated himself and our country all by himself. We didn't need ALQUIADA to confirm this. But Druge and the GOP still don't get it. SLASH AND BURN. They just don't learn, or is it that this is all they know .

[JudgeMoonbox]

Al Qaeda has shown all the generalship of a little boy throwing rocks at a wasps' nest. They should consider themselves lucky that Bush was too eager to get into a grudge match in Iraq to finish the job in Afghanistan.

If they really wanted the Democrats to win on the grounds that the Republicans were more willing to mix it up, it's another indication that they're too focused on the close antagonist to see what their real interest is.

[lstl4]

This is the first time I heard this. I thought CNN put it out that they endorsed McCain because he will follow Bush's policy and then they in turn will have an easier time building their pockets of terrorists. If Obama is the President, he will bring other countries together again as our allies and it will make it much harder for Al Queda to develope their terrorist armies.

[BoshSpong]

Any person who took a little time to research the history of Iraq and the history of Al-Qaida would very quickly have understood the following:

Saddam was a secular leader; he kept the religious organizations within Iraq under tight control. He did not allow religious leaders any participation in politics. In Saddam"s Iraq women were completely free from fundamentalist Islamic roles; they could and did hold administrative and professional positions in government as well as in the private sector.

As a matter of fact it is well known that as far as Bin Laden was concerned Saddam was as big an enemy as the USA. He opposed Saddam"s secularism as an affront to Islam. Saddam"s Baath Party was a Secular political organization with no ties to any religious group.

By attacking Iraq, the Bush/Cheney administration rewarded Al-Qaida by getting rid of one of Bin Laden"s greatest foes. The invasion also provided a huge incentive for new recruits to Al-Qaida, a training ground and an easily accessible front for the battle against the USA.

For all those reasons it is in the interest of Al-Qaida that the war continue, this is why McCain is the ideal candidate for Al-Qaida; he has promised to continue the Bush policies that have caused this debacle.

[peterg76]

Even al Qaeda thinks Americans have suffered enough.

[eddiemyboy1]

I believe that you are wrong peterg76.The reason is that al quaeda is a radical islamic group and believes that ANYONE who is not islamic is an infidel and needs to be destroyed.I do not say that islam,as a religion,feels this way.As I understand it that is not true.Islam is supposed to be a religion of peace.As in any religion there are people who will use that religion and it's followers as tools to advance THEIR own agenda.

[shackelford]

If I were the leader of another country I would want the most sane and intelligent person to be the
president of the United States. Then maybe we could all get along rather than the way it is now with
2/3 of the world hating us for our abuse by the privileged few. As long as money is our God there will
be war after war after war.

[pmag88]

Obama represents an opportunity to unite rather than divide, while McCain prefers going it alone to make a point.

[FlamingLibrul]

Why is Drudge given the time of day by legitimate news sources? The cure for for such a canker on society is to completely ostracize the lunatic fringe, refusing to give them a national platform with which to spew their neonuts propaganda. The influx of tinfoil-hat wearing, Faux News/Inshanity devotees on all web forums is proof enough that the angry b*got base of repugs are feeling emboldened. They're not even pretending to be reasonable anymore.

No matter what "Surprises" pop up between now and Nov. 4th, it's time for the "Fake" Americans to have a say in their country's future again, after 8 long years of a regime that served only the people who voted for them.

[Garvagh]

G W Bush and the neocons have done more damage to the US than al-Qaeda.

[Sideswiped]

Pass over what ever your smoking as we know you got plenty for everybody

[CyrusBeaucephus]

Sideswiped
Member Since October 2008

RNC troll 10 total posts

Please don't mutilate yourself like some other desperate repug kooks are doing

[CricketsMom]

Idiots like you prove the point.....can't cure stupid. You have no clue.

[CyrusBeaucephus]

Are you one of those RNC nuts who still thinks Iraq attacked us?

[mitchgrrt]

I thought by now that it was clear that Al Qaeda favors Bush/McCain. Extremists on one side like to have extremists in power on the other side. It helps with recruiting and fundraising.

[tck29]

I repeat: Al Qaeda has already endorsed McCain. Al Qaeda will not endorse Obama.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/26/opinion/26kristof.html

[Rajul al Fudhi]

This issue might be the clearest illustration of why McCain and Republicans are unfit for command: they are promising to "win the war" on terror, failing to acknowledge, and perhaps failing to realize, that Al Qaeda needs to recruit more than anything, and the Republicans are their number one recruiting tool. Republicans said it best, we are fighting a new kind of enemy. This is an ideological struggle and Bush's foreign policy of unilateral use of preemptive force against enemies, regardless of whether or not they are an imminent threat, is a huge boon to Al Qaeda. I am not some liberal saying this. I'm a guy who has worked in Iraq, with the Iraqi government, on this very issue. The overwhelming majority of people participating in the insurgency in Iraq do it because they resent the US presence in Iraq and the fact that the US has not helped make their lives better. They attack US soldiers using this rationale and justify attacking other Iraqis if they work with the US. This is not a war we can win using the "Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran" strategy.

[bojack]

Raila Odinga was implicated in the bloody coup attempt in 1982 against then-President Daniel Arap Moi, a close ally of the United States. Kenya has been one of the most stable democracies in Africa since the 1960s. The ethnic cleansing earlier this year was the worst violence in Kenya since that 1982 coup attempt.

Mr. Odinga spent eight years in prison. At the time, he denied guilt but later detailed he was a coup leader in his 2006 biography. Statue of limitations precluded further prosecution when the biography appeared.

Initially, Mr. Odinga was not the favored opposition candidate to stand in the 2007 election against President Mwai Kibaki, who was seeking his second term. However, he received a tremendous boost when Sen. Barack Obama arrived in Kenya in August 2006 to campaign on his behalf. Mr. Obama denies that supporting Mr. Odinga was the intention of his trip, but his actions and local media reports tell otherwise.

Mr. Odinga and Mr. Obama were nearly inseparable throughout Mr. Obama's six-day stay. The two traveled together throughout Kenya and Mr. Obama spoke on behalf of Mr. Odinga at numerous rallies. In contrast, Mr. Obama had only criticism for Kibaki. He lashed out against the Kenyan government shortly after meeting with the president on Aug. 25. "The [Kenyan] people have to suffer over corruption perpetrated by government officials," Mr. Obama announced.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/oct/12/obamas-kenya-ghosts/

[TexasHorns]

anybody care which candidate osama bin laden prefers... anybody think it will slow osama from planning terrorist actions against innocent people in the USA and elsewhere...
who does the PLO want....who does Syria want....who does N. Korea want...
who does Russia want...who does China want...who does Iran want...

who does Israel want...

.........who would 70% of Americans want if they weren't so ignorant about the cause of the current economic crisis?

[dragonlady620]

You seem to have completely bought in the hate/fear rhetoric of the Republican party-which, if look at it closely bears a strking resemblance to the hate/fear propaganda of al-Qaeda.

[idest]

"...anybody think it will slow osama from planning terrorist actions against innocent people in the USA and elsewhere..."

Maybe I'm misunderstanding you, but I would say the competence of the President of the United States, or lack thereof, would most certainly affect bin Laden's ability to plan terrorist actions against innocent people in the USA and elsewhere.

No duh, really.