Here we go again. The hot-off-the-presses State Department's annual
Country Reports on Terrorism (formerly
Patterns of Global Terrorism prior to 2004) contains yet another specious reference to the
now-discredited letter, purportedly from Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi to Osama Bin Laden.
Yep, those industrious revisionists and cover-up artists at in the Bush Administration are at it again: in a long and rambling discussion of the various players on the Iraqi stage right now, which they refer to prominently as remaining "one of the central fronts in the war on terror," literally repeating a Bush administration talking point word-for-word, on page thirteen, there is the following:
"As Zarqawi wrote in his 2004 letter to bin Ladin, "If we succeed in dragging the Shia into the arena of sectarian war, it will become possible to awaken the inattentive Sunnis as they feel imminent danger ... the only solution for us is to strike the religious, military, and other cadres among the Shia blow after blow."
Now, this may turn out in the end to actually BE Zarqawi's thinking, but since we had, until this recent videotape, precious little beyond speculation and rumor regarding Zarqawi's thinking, motivations and goals, it's amazing that the State Department would include this now-discredited, known fake, letter in its official annual report on terrorism to bolster its case.
No, wait, I take that back. It's NOT amazing. Not anymore, after the last five years. But it still qualifies as appalling.