CENTRAL VIEW for Monday, November 29, 2004

Al Zarqawi says he’s in a world of hurt

The usual suspects: SeeBS, ABC, NBC, PBS, CNN and NPR often take their lead from The New York Times and The Washington Post. For that reason, the national evening news programs may have missed what follows because The New York Times buried it on page A22 and The Washington Post hid it down in the 17th paragraph of a story about the death of a U.S. Foreign Service Officer in Baghdad. Fortunately, Newsmax.com posted the story on its web pages:

“US Infidels Have Us on the Ropes

The world’s most dangerous terrorist, Abu Musab al Zarqawi, announced on Wednesday that the battle of Fallujah was a massive defeat for the Iraqi insurgency, blaming the debacle on Sunni Muslim clerics who failed to support his reign of terror.

"Hundreds of thousands of the nation’s sons are being slaughtered at the hands of the infidels because of your silence," Zarqawi said in an audiotape posted on an Islamic Web site known as al-Qala’a, which has been a mailbox for Islamic militant groups.

"You have let us down in the darkest circumstances and handed us over to the enemy," the notorious mass murderer complained. "You have stopped supporting the holy warriors."

The finger-pointing tape from Zarqawi is the clearest indication yet that the U.S. offensive in Fallujah has been a massive success and could be the beginning of a rout for terrorist forces in Iraq.

The tape reveals the Jordanian-born terrorist sounding desperate as he admits that his forces are "surrounded" by U.S. troops, who are "cutting the throats of the holy warriors."

"Are your hearts not shaken by the scenes of your brothers being surrounded and hurt by your enemy?" he asks plaintively.

"How long will you continue to abandon the nation to the tyrants of the east and of the west, who are inflicting the worst suffering, cutting the throats of the holy warriors, the best children of the nation, and taking its riches? ...

"You made peace with the tyranny and handed over the country and its people to the Jews and Crusaders by resorting to silence on their crimes and preventing our youth from heading to the battlefields in order to defend our religion," he complained.”

As the editors at Newsmax.com suggest, “The Zarqawi tape is the best news to come out of Iraq since Saddam Hussein’s capture last year.”

Assuming the Zarqawi tape is not some kind of rope-a-dope designed to make us lapse into complacency; it may suggest that Zarqawi is appealing for more support from both Iran and Syria. If it were possible to hermetically seal off the borders of Iran and Syria, the insurgency within Iraq would wither on the vine and do so rather quickly.

The Mullahs who control the government of Iran are skating on thin ice with the newly reelected President George W. Bush. The Mullahs continue to thumb their noses at the desire of the international community to prevent Iran from becoming a member of the nuclear weapons club. Iran continues to fund terrorism directed against Israel and to provide both a transit point and a safe haven for non-Iraqis fighting against the new Iraq government and Coalition forces. Recent speculation is that Osama bin Laden is somewhere in northeastern Iran enjoying the hospitality of the Iranian government.

In 1981, Israeli did itself and the world a favor by sending Israeli fighter-bombers to destroy Saddam Hussein’s nuclear facility at Osiraq. According to Israeli intelligence, Saddam was on the verge of creating nuclear weapons capable of landing on Tel Aviv.

Another story largely un-reported by the anti-Bush press was that the Bush reelection was celebrated by thousands of Iranians dancing in the streets. Therefore, it is not inconceivable that a preemptive strike by the U.S. to eliminate Iran’s nascent nuclear weapons production could be combined with a massive popular uprising to depose the rule of the Mullahs and eliminate yet another state sponsor of terrorism.

William Hamilton, a syndicated columnist, a featured commentator for USA Today and self-described “recovering lawyer and philosopher,” is the co-author of The Grand Conspiracy and The Panama Conspiracy – two thrillers about terrorism directed against the United States.

©2004. William Hamilton.

Dr. Hamilton can be contacted at:

Email: william@central-view.com