Uninformed comments | 16.07.05
Despite my embarrassingly weak grasp on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, I know enough to laugh at Prof. Juan Cole’s suggestion that Jenin compelled Bin Laden to speed up his plans to attack New York and Washington:
According to the September 11 Commission report, al-Qaeda conceived 9/11 in some large part as a punishment on the US for supporting Ariel Sharon’s iron fist policies toward the Palestinians. Bin Laden had wanted to move the operation up in response to Sharon’s threatening visit to the Temple Mount, and again in response to the Israeli attack on the Jenin refugee camp, which left 4,000 persons homeless. Khalid Shaikh Muhammad argued in each case that the operation just was not ready.
Apparently, the terrorist superman managed that with plenty time to spare, September 11, 2001 coming almost seven months before April 2, 2002.
This reminds me to a similar professorial gaffe involving Thailand. Earlier this year, Prof. Duncan McCargo of the University of Leeds wrote in Time magazine:
Since being granted non-NATO ally status by U.S. President George W. Bush, Thailand has become a regional lieutenant of the U.S., helping to prosecute the war on terrorism—most notably with the 2003 capture of Riduan Isamuddin, a.k.a. Hambali, the alleged operations chief of the regional militant network Jemaah Islamiah.
Hambali was nabbed on August 11, 2003, more than two months before President Bush announced his intention regarding the NNA status for Thailand and more than four months before the actual designation. One doesn’t need to be a “professor of Southeast Asia politics” to know at least know the correct order for the two events, as President Bush showed in this interview.
Note, too, the highly questionable premise that Thailand needed the NNA designation as an inducement to arrest Hambali. Indeed, the article is so full of dubious premises and claims that, taken as a whole, it is utterly absurd. To do justice to this kind of absurdity, however, requires a full fisking, which may take a while (especially on the back burner). You’re welcome to chew Prof. McCargo by yourself in the meantime.
00:32 ▪ politics
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