Since Bush fans (including the New York Times and CNN) have been repeating that Al-Qaeda loves Kerry, going so far as to print up bumper stickers, I thought now would be a good time to investigate who Al-Qaeda really likes.
The argument of Bush fans seems to be this: I like Bush. I don’t like bin Laden. Therefore bin Laden must not like Bush. But the objective facts seem to paint a different story: al-Qaeda loves Bush.
al-Qaeda Says So: As Reuters reported an letter from an al-Qaeda group said “it supported U.S. President George W. Bush in his reelection campaign, and would prefer him to win in November rather than the Democratic candidate John Kerry, as it was not possible to find a leader ‘more foolish than you (Bush), who deals with matters by force rather than with wisdom. … Kerry will kill our nation while it sleeps because he and the Democrats have the cunning to embellish blasphemy and present it to the Arab and Muslim nation as civilisation. … Because of this we desire you (Bush) to be elected.’ It seems pretty clear this isn’t reverse psychology.
Experts Say So: Anonymous, a top CIA expert on al-Qaeda, has concluded that al-Qaeda loves President Bush, and might go so far as to plan an election attack to rally the country around Bush. “I’m very sure they can’t have a better administration for them than the one they have now. … One way to keep the Republicans in power is to mount an attack that would rally the country around the president.” This isn’t partisanship, because Anonymous is even more hawkish than Bush is.
Facts Say So: Even administration officials concede “al-Qaeda has morphed into a loose and expanding association of regional terror cells [and] the Iraq war has fueled rather than doused the fires of jihad.” Furthermore, Bush let bin Laden escape while he’s left the US dangerously insecure.
So if you were planning to vote for Bush because al-Qaeda wasn’t, it might be time to change your vote.
Update: Unknown to me, Krugman wrote much the same thing today
posted July 20, 2004 11:02 AM
http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/001393