Hamas overtook Gaza, though the fighting between two elected governments in the form of Hamas and Fatah have waged numerous battles over the past year alone.  The fighting escalated in recent weeks, thus one major question has been posed.  Is there a civil war in the Palestinian territories?

A civil war is loosely defined as a war between two groups with a right to govern.  In the case of Palestine, both Hamas and Fatah can and do claim a right to govern.

For the purposes of debate, let us look at another conflict which is called a civil war by politicians and journalists.  Yes, that conflict is inside Iraq.  There are numerous sides to the conflict, but only one of those sides is represented in the Iraqi government.  That side affiliated with the current elected Iraqi government is aligned with radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al Sadr.  Sadr’s military wing, known as the Mahdi Army, chooses to war against Sunnis.  Now those Sunnis the Mahdi Army has declared war upon are not affiliated with the Iraqi government, nor for the most part are they affiliated with the umbrella Sunni insurgent group known as the Islamic State of Iraq, who, by the way, has no affiliation with the Iraqi government nor any legitimate claim to govern the nation of Iraq.

The conflict in Iraq, however, was declared a civil war by NBC News despite not carrying the main characteristic of what a civil war entails.  Calling Iraq a nation engulfed in a civil war has also been hoisted by leading Democratic politicians, apparently without regard to what the term actually means.

Meanwhile back in Palestine, it strikes me as completely odd none of the ‘purveyors of truth’ within the media elite or Democratic Party’s stronghold of Iraq naysayers have concluded there is actually a civil war ongoing.  Perhaps it’s already over after Hamas overtook Gaza and posed for pictured in Mahmoud Abbas’ presidential palace, fully hiding their true identities for whatever reason.  Regardless, what would make Iraq a civil war and Palestine not?  By the pure definition of what a civil war is, the opposite is true.

Earlier today I flipped to Fox News just at the right time to catch the Reverend Jesse Jackson who stated there was an insurgency in Chicago.  He went on to call handguns weapons of mass destruction and asked if the United States wished to engage insurgencies why the U.S. government has not taken action in Chicago.

Good question Rev. Jackson.  Should Americans conclude because there are people murdered in Chicago there is in fact an insurgency, and should Americans conclude that if we as a nation wish to curtail the use of WMDs we should vote in favor of gun control?  Jackson argued in favor of both stances.

But perhaps the good reverend should take a look around at the party he’s adopted during his runs for office and call for an immediate withdrawal of Chicago.  Nope, instead Jackson argued for more federal involvement and helped lead a protest against violence, I suppose deciding to place himself within a theater of war as he put it.

Don’t get me wrong here.  Just like the vast majority of people across the globe, I abhor violence.  I prefer to make jokes as opposed to lash out physically, but the solution to crime in Chicago isn’t to classify criminals as insurgents or to confuse the GWOT with gang wars that have gripped Chicago for decades.

I love Chicago and hope to get back there some day, though hopefully I’ll wait until after the insurgency is ended and after all WMDs are secured.  Until then, however, I am eagerly awaiting Rev. Jackson to explain why the United States should engage one insurgency while withdrawing from another.

Farfour, the Hamas-run Al Manar TV Mickey Mouse clone that urges Palestinian children to wage jihad, is still on the air.  This should come to no surprise since Farfour is the perfect symbol of how Hamas has run the government.  In fact, it could be argued Farfour actually speaks with more clarity than Hamas does since Hamas tries to play a game where statements are backtracked once they receive public attention.

But has Farfour being pushed out?

Farfur, star of the Al Aqsa TV children’s show Tomorrow’s Pioneers, was joined on today’s broadcast by his regular co-host, a little girl named Saraa. Today’s program also featured an adult, Hazim, who delivered most of the show’s messages about Islamic supremacy.

Hazim told the child viewers that Islam will spread all over the world, including Spain, and that the spread of Islam is for the world’s benefit. He said the “massacres” in Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine will be replaced by “love and justice” under Islamic rule.

Farfour could not be reached for comment on why the mouse has taken a side-step to allow someone else to speak the words of Islamist supremacy.

Other than the obvious desire for Islamist supremacy for the good of mankind, it strikes me as incredibly ironic Iraq and Lebanon are used as examples of “love and justice” under Islamic rule.  Neither nations live under Islamic rule, but the vast, vast majority of violence in both nations are due to Islamist terrorist attacks.

Also see the Dry Bones comic on the latest ‘cartoon crisis.’  While Kirschen does not state the ultimate meaning behind the cartoon, I believe it’s that he’s a bit peeved that it took a Mickey Mouse ripoff for the American media to finally at least recognize the poison that is spread by Hamas.  The answer is relatively simple: everything else could be spun as some giant Zionist conspiracy.

Representative Dennis Kucinich (D-Oz) has already stated he’s all for bringing back the Fairness Doctrine which would in fact end all political debate on talk radio both liberal and conservative, but it appears that when Kucinich is not trying to find out if the Bush Administration blew up the World Trade Center in an effort to start a war with Iraq (even though Afghanistan was first you loons) he’s drumming up support with Democratic Party higher-ups.

The American Spectator reports none other than Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) Steny Hoyer (D-MD), you might remember those two for presenting an “alternative democratic foreign policy” to the leadership of Syria and the Muslim Brotherhood, are on the path towards trying to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine over this summer.

“First, [Democrats] failed on the radio airwaves with Air America, no one wanted to listen,” says a senior adviser to Pelosi. “Conservative radio is a huge threat and political advantage for Republicans and we have had to find a way to limit it. Second, it looks like the Republicans are going to have someone in the presidential race who has access to media in ways our folks don’t want, so we want to make sure the GOP has no advantages going into 2008.”

Allow that quote from a senior advisor to Rep. Pelosi sink in for a minute.  Pelosi’s advisor is essentially saying the American consumer doesn’t deserve to have a choice when it comes to talk radio, because when we do we make the wrong decisions based upon Pelosi’s own ideology.

Air America has largely failed while conservative talk radio continues to steam on.  Why is that?  Judging by the only valid polls available, elections, it’s more than safe to conclude a liberal talk radio show would have a large audience if such a station or show was given the opportunity to succeed.  Therefore, aren’t we really just concluding Air America had no chance to succeed?  The money poured into the network and the incredible press the station achieved before even being launched though suggests otherwise.  It was therefore an issue of content; content the American consumer quite obviously didn’t want to hear.

But Pelosi, through the words of a senior advisor for, has decided for the American consumer the the U.S. government should expand into the airwaves and further regulate the industry, as if regulations already in place are not stringent enough, because we aren’t hearing what she wants us to.

It strikes me as completely ironic that it is the left-fringe of the Democratic Party, who has tried to remake fascism into a right-wing totalitarian government forgetting the very founding philosophies of fascism as an intolerant socialist system with an emphasis on government regulation laid out by Benito Mussolini, is now doing their best to do, well, just what Mussolini’s fascist dream did in Italy circa 1930.

You see, Pelosi isn’t concerned with candidates from both of the major United States political parties having access to media, and there’s little question which party is held in higher regard in most publications and television studios across this great nation, rather Pelosi is concerned a Republican candidate for the Office of the President will have “access to media in ways our folks don’t want.”

The correct way to counter that is to present an alternative viewpoint and debate the issues, not to silence that outlet with government regulation.  Instead Pelosi just seeks to silence all her critics, leaving behind the entire idea of being ‘liberal.’  It’s a good thing the American Left has decided a rebranding was in order to ‘progressives.’  While there’s nothing exactly progressive about government regulation, it is also far from liberal.  True liberals would be outraged.

Yousseff Ibrahim on today’s ‘useful idiots’ whitewashing the Muslim Brotherhood’s attempted ‘move’ toward moderation.

On May 2, the Wall Street Journal glossed over Prime Minister Erdogan’s program of Islamizing Turkey. The editorial page of America’s weightiest conservative newspaper instead criticized Mr. Erdogan’s secular opponents and warned the deeply secular army against considering a coup.

In an April 29 New York Times article, James Traub wrote as though there was no question mark in the “Islamic Democrats?” headline that ran over his embarrassingly obsequious piece, which sang the praises of a reborn democratic Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.

The current issue of Foreign Affairs carries a propaganda piece by Robert Leiken and Steven Brooke, “The Moderate Muslim Brotherhood,” that is so lacking in inquisitiveness it is being used as a calling card by the Brotherhood’s Politburo. Even the enormously level-headed Economist has argued that maintaining “democracy is more important” for Turkey than the fundamentalist threat, “even if it means enduring a bad, ineffective, corrupt or mildly Islamist government.”

“Mildly Islamist” is as oxymoronic as “chilly fire.”

It continues to amaze me why people are buying into the Muslim Brotherhood turning away from violence and towards peaceful change.  We’ve heard this all before from the Brotherhood, and they’ve always had a covert military wing to carry out their wishes.

Flashback to the aftermath of the Israel-Hezbollah War: The Muslim Brotherhood was alleged to have sent jihadis to Lebanon to fight against Israel.  The allegations were loose based upon no concrete evidence, but then there comes a Muslim Brotherhood statement which stated they did not send any “militants” to Lebanon.  What “militants” does the group, who once again claims to be peaceful yet has spawned the world’s most dangerous radical Islamic groups since its inception in 1928, have?  If it did not have a military wing, why would it deny it sent any “militants” into Lebanon?

The French news wire AFP is now referring to Farfour the Hamas cloned Mickey Mouse as a ‘resistance mouse.’

Yes, a ‘resistance mouse’ who urges children to shed their blood to not just destroy Israel, but spread Islam throughout the world.  Who, exactly, is the mouse resisting from?

U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates testified on the Hill yesterday, and while most media accounts seem to center around his comment that Al Qaida has grown in strength, there is no comparative term in his quotation to note when Al Qaida has increased with comparison to what.  This is the quote that has many press outlets sounding the alarm.

“We know that al Qaeda has re-established itself … on the western border of Pakistan where they are training new recruits,” he said. “They have established linkages now in North Africa. Al Qaeda has actually expanded, I would say, its organization and its capabilities.” (source)

Gates is correct.  We do know this has happened and we’ve known this has happened or is happening for some time now.  However, Gates does not say whether the terror network is at pre-9/11 levels or not though it’s clear the group is not at that level.  The group has morphed a bit into more of an ideology with localized cells, though this is also how Al Qaida operated since its inception finalized in 1996.

On Iraq:

“If we were to withdraw, leaving Iraq in chaos, al Qaeda almost certainly would use Anbar province as another base from which to plan operations not only inside Iraq, but first of all in the neighborhood and then potentially against the United States,” Mr. Gates told the committee.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi contends the U.S. military needs to fight Al Qaida, a measure I certainly agree with, yet she wants full withdrawal from Iraq.

This is what I continue to simply not get.  I fully understand the apprehension regarding the war in Iraq, seeing as how it hasn’t exactly gone as well as one would like to say it kindly, but if the goal of the GWOT is to fight back Al Qaida and Al Qaida is certainly inside Iraq operating, why would it be the best strategy to withdraw?  Have we not learned the valuable lessons of retreating from Islamists before in Beirut or Somalia?  Apparently not, or there’s just more politics to play.

Going back to the Gates quote that is being run to slam President Bush on the GWOT, where did Gates say Al Qaida has resurged?  Gates stated Pakistan (Waziristan) and North Africa (Maghreb).  He could have added the Horn of Africa prior to the end of the Islamic Courts Union in Somalia.

Pakistan is a sovereign nation, just as Algeria and Morrocco are as well.  Both Algeria and Morrocco are battling against Al Qaida and Pakistan is at least doing something to hinder the group.  It is though in Pakistan where Al Qaida has a stronger foothold, not in the Maghreb.  The ‘resurgence’ of Al Qaida in the Maghreb is primarily due to the GSPC declaring allegiance to Al Qaida, but Al Qaida cells still exist in many other nations and have sprung up in Palestine.

What is the alternative to the current policy that would wage war more effective against Al Qaida?  A retreat from Iraq is taken into consideration, but surely Pelosi et al are not in favor of invading Algeria, Pakistan or Saudi Arabia.  They don’t even favor any Iranian action, neither do I at this moment, who is the main state-sponsor of terrorism at this point.

It is also a rather close-minded view.  While Al Qaida is the symbol of Islamism, it is not the end-all, be-all of the movement.  President Bush recently stated Al Qaida is enemy number one of the United States, or something to that regard.  He might be right, but the group isn’t the only force standing in opposition to the non-Islamic world.  Shia groups such as Hezbollah pose just as much of a threat and they continue the ideology that teaches hate, though it differs slightly from the Sunni Islamist ideology.

In a perfect world, what would happen if Al Qaida ceased to exist tomorrow?  A magical weapon takes out every single Al Qaida member.  Would President Bush or any Bush opposition declare an immediate victory?  Both probably would, but it it would be a fallacy of monumental proportions.  Just as we saw with the reaction to a dozen silly cartoons and with a show regarding a Mickey Mouse clone, it’s the culture that spreads the ideology that is the threat.  Sure, the immediate threat is a jihadi strapping a bomb to his or her waist, but there will always be a jihadi if the ideology continues to exist.

You cannot eradicate that ideology through bombs or bullets, however you can eliminate a jihadi one by one with military firepower.  There needs to be a joint strategy to defeat the enemy, not just propaganda or not just military force.  It strikes me that if Pelosi and her counterparts had their way, the only strategy would be of propaganda value, but what happens to the jihadis who are already indoctrinated?

The entire Al Aqsa TV mouse calling on children to wage jihad is getting a good deal of press across the globe, and I suppose that’s a good thing. But where it’s not a good thing is when media outlets seem to think the opinions presented on the show are one of a kind. They are far from one of a kind. The only original item within the show ‘Tomorrow’s Pioneers’ is having a carbon copy of Mickey Mouse call on children to wage jihad and overtake the entire world.

I suppose it’s best to take the press while it’s available, and that means interviewing the daughter of the late Walt Disney.

Walt Disney’s daughter, Diane Disney Miller, 73, attacked Hamas’s use of a Mickey Mouse-style character. “It’s indoctrinating children like this, teaching them to be evil,” she said.

“The world loves children and this is just going against the grain of humanity … What we’re dealing with here is pure evil and you can’t ignore that.”

Now I don’t expect Miss Miller to keep up on what is being aired on Al Aqsa TV or other similar networks (Hezbollah’s Al Manar included), however there should be some sort of beat writer out there who tracks this kind of information for numerous publications.

No, there shouldn’t be a beat writer zeroed in on television stations distributing hateful propaganda, but there are beat writers covering certain areas of the world. Why haven’t they put any of this new furor into the greater context that this sort of programming is hardly unique?

Even more telling is that the exact program now under scrutiny has been airing for one month and the Palestinian Authority didn’t demand its end until after the story garnered media attention. Hamas though says it won’t end the show, and why should they? The show does exactly what Hamas wants and, again, it’s not any different than other programs they produce aimed directly at children. Hamas knows that if they wish to continue to exist, there must be a new generation of jihadis who call out their line, and they’ve done everything they can think of to ensure that will be the case.

Elsewhere, the world is still under the grand delusion that Hamas might actually want a peaceful coexistence with not just Israel, but the entire non-Islamic world too. And they are fooling people apparently, evidenced by the outrage one show has caused when the other shows, statements and actions hardly cause any concern by those most bothered by hearing Hamas endorses a Mickey Mouse clone urging children to ‘resist.’

Also see CNN’s Glenn Beck explaining how CNN decided not to run any excerpt of the show in question.

Al Qaida in the Maghreb (GSPC) released a video of last month’s suicide bombing in Algeria complete with a call for further suicide bombers, all aired on Al Jazeera television.

It’s one thing to air the footage of the attack, but yet another to air footage of the terrorist group making a plea to Muslims to join their ranks.  Well, it would be another thing if the media organization in question didn’t tacitly support radical Islamic terrorism, but this is Al Jazeera we’re talking about.

“We bring good tidings to our nation and youth and tell them that the list of martyrdom-seekers has become long and is growing every day,” Abu Musab Abdul-Wadud, a leader of al Qaeda Organisation in the Islamic Maghreb, said in the video.

“This is a crusader war on Islam and a battle of destiny between the infidels and believers so do not miss out … come to a paradise that is as wide as earth and the skies.”

And from CNN on the same video:

“He who misses this war misses the opportunity of a lifetime and gets deprived of the reward,” he said in the video.

Eh?  If the list of useful idiots wanting to strap a bomb to their waist is long and growing daily, why would the group seek to recruit more jihadis?  There are just so many “clocks designed to alert Muslims to prayer times” to be converted into timers, thus using the symbolism of religious prayer to murdering as many as you can and carrying out the un-Islamic practice of suicide.

Oh, that’s right.  When you purposefully kill yourself while murdering the Infidel Apostate Crusader Collaborator fellow Muslim, it’s not actually suicide because you’re doing the murdered soul a favor by sending him or her to Allah that much faster.  Yet when you murder another individual when it’s not for an Islamic purpose you’re killed.

On second thought, why would any respectful media organization run any of this video?  The attack was one month ago therefore it’s not exactly newsworthy.  That’s right again.  We are talking about Al Jazeera, a network that seeks out the jihadi perspective not realizing if the jihadis achieve what they wish there won’t be a television station to broadcast.

So NBC gets delivered a post-mortum ‘look at me’ package from Virginia Tech shooter Seung-Hui Cho. Of course it never crossed the network’s mind they might be better off not running any of the film or reporting on Cho’s inane ramblings. There are ratings to make after all, but now NBC and other networks that ran the footage are being shelled by the consumer.

The usually rational talk radio host Michael Medved brought this topic up on today’s show. Medved argued that if there is a copycat, and we all know there will be, NBC should be held at least partially responsible for giving a platform for Cho to speak his mind. I disagree, however my disagreement is not rock solid.

Medved also said he can already envision a playhouse deciding to try out one of Cho’s two plays. I’ve read them, and even if a playhouse does indeed decide to act out Mr. Brownstone, the entire script will have to be re-written to the point that it won’t actually be Cho’s work. For a college senior who was an English major, the loser couldn’t figure out how to actually write.

What I do find troubling about this entire ordeal of whether media organizations should have run the tape is that there’s a double standard in play. There’s now a “dilema” over the footage, Rueters reports.

Broadcast of a video diatribe by the Virginia Tech gunman has reopened the debate over media use of vile or disturbing material that goes back decades to the likes of Son of Sam and the Zodiac killer . . .

“It was a very bad decision,” said Paul Levinson, chairman of the communication and media studies department at Fordham University. “He’s not a public official, he’s not a terrorist we are pursuing as part of our government policy. He’s just an individual psycho.”

Did you catch that? The dilema now is over whether to air the thoughts of a mass shooter, not whether or not to air thoughts of, say, a mass bomber. Levinson concludes Cho isn’t a terrorist, but ask any Virginia Tech student if they were not scared this past Monday. Find one who says they weren’t.  Cho even said that he sought out to be like Jesus, in that he’d inspire others to either do the same or at least speak for the . . . little man?

Apparently media critics are trying to debate whether to show any future footage, a debate worth having in my opinion. Footage of the Columbine killers was aired, and Cho did refer to the two killers. Cho knew how to get his point across and knew what he sent, no matter how pathetic it made him look, would be aired and his story would get told.

This is precisely why Islamist terrorism works, and it is precisely why the 1972 Munich terrorists struck the world’s stage. They wanted to shed light on their grievance, and they did and second generation terrorists continue to through to this day, only this time they have media organizations push that same exact agenda too.

Why then is there a dilema of whether or not to publicize Cho but not, for instance, ‘martyr’ videos of the latest suicide bomber? Part of the argument against Cho falls on that it’s cruel to the families of the VT murdered. Sure it is, but cannot the same exact thing be said of the families of those killed on September 11, March 11, July 7 or any other dates that Islamists have struck?

Levinson provides an answer in the above excerpt. Because Cho was “not a terrorist we are pursuing as part of our government policy” NBC and other networks should not have run the footage, therefore I must presume terrorists that are pursued as part of a government policy should continue to reach the airwaves according to Levinson.  I find that an unbelievably weak argument.

I am not against showing Islamist footage. In fact I’ve done so myself and continue to, in a way, spread their message. However, I try to do it all in context and show the fallacies of their arguments, what they say versus what they actually want or what they have said in the past with what they have actually done. When is the last time you’ve flipped on ABC, CNN or the BBC and they’ve put any of the car bombs going off in Iraq into context? Excuse me. That is context of the group’s supposed intentions, not context into how many people have been killed as the networks relay statistics.

This is a predictable pattern that we’ve all seen before. There is a buzz around gun control. There’s wild speculation Cho was either a closet jihadi or even a fundementalist Christian (no links to either asinine diatribe either) . Rush Limbaugh suggested today Cho was pushed to kill through the Liberal agenda to harp on class distinctions. Cho watched violent movies. I do too, but I haven’t killed anyone nor have I ever thought of doing so. And then there’s the suggestion we also have heard before, that Cho was picked on in high school. Is there anyone reading this or anyone that you know that wasn’t? Judging by how much a loser this Cho was, there isn’t any real question he was ridiculed.

Everyone seems to want answers to why Cho did what he did. Some people have just ended the discussion and concluded he was mentally deranged. Well, sure, but for someone being supposedly psychotic he sure did plan things pretty well.

Just as we want to know why radical Islamists attack the rest of the world, our media organizations give those groups carte blanche to say what they want, when they want and some even push the exact same agenda or decide it’s best not to pick sides.  With Cho, media organizations have picked sides, but what is the major difference between the two?  Cho, on the other hand, should be silenced because someone else out there might want to do the same thing to make a name for himself. That’s the critic’s contention at least, but have they ever actually watched a jihadi video or read any of their communiques? It’s the exact same thing, and it’s hypocrisy of the highest order.

In the Washington Post, good news in Iraq can positively turn to bad news. The Post reports on the positive situation of Sunnis and Sunni groups leaving and combatting Al Qaida in Iraq’s ‘The Islamic State of Iraq,’ yet surmises this may ultimately be a bad thing because “the split could help isolate a primary foe of the United States in Iraq but could also further splinter the Sunni insurgency and make it even harder to control.” To garner this opinion, the Post received observations from both insurgent leaders and U.S. officials.

Well, you know, this split could make it harder to combat. Several smaller groups not meeting in grand conclaves would certainly make it more difficult to bomb, but the United States didn’t exactly do that anyway.

In the Sunni heartland of Anbar and other provinces, Sunni groups are accusing al-Qaeda in Iraq of killing, kidnapping and torturing dozens of their fighters, clerics and followers. One leading Sunni extremist organization, the Islamic Army, says al-Qaeda has killed more than 30 fighters from different armed factions in recent weeks.

Last weekend, the Islamic Army posted on insurgent Web sites a nine-page letter urging bin Laden to stop those killing in his name. “He should rise up for his faith and assume religious and organizational responsibility for al-Qaeda and search for the truth,” the letter said. “It is not enough to disown those actions, but it is imperative to correct the path.”

The Islamic Army of Iraq is not the best group to use as a test case for this type of article. They are currently aligned with Al Qaida in Iraq, but they certainly have not always been. In fact, the two groups used to compete for heads, literally, and there have been instances of red on red fighting between the two. One case was the last election held in Iraq, where the Islamic Army of Iraq pledged to protect polling areas in Sunni areas from Al Qaida in Iraq attacks.

A better group to determine if there is a real split would be the Army of Ansar al-Sunnah, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s former group before he decided Iraqis just cannot kill like other Sunni Arabs and went foreign. That group is firmly within the ‘Islamic State of Iraq’ umbrella group, however Sunni clerics have started to turn against the movement in larger numbers. Police recruiting stations are now buzzing with new potential recruits in Sunni areas, whereas they were not even a few months ago.

But according to the Post, these new intra-Sunni divisions are the “latest addition to a dizzying mosaic of battle lines.”  That “dizzying mosaic of battle lines” though has always existed for anyone to see.  The real “dizzying mosaic” occurs when the Post reports on what anonymous insurgent leaders have said.

Insurgent leaders, in interviews in person or by telephone, offered different explanations for their split. Many said their link to the al-Qaeda groups was tainting their image as a nationalist resistance force. Others said they no longer wanted to be tools of the foreign fighters who lead al-Qaeda. Their war, they insist, is against only the U.S. forces, to pressure them to depart Iraq.

The first two are correct as numerous reports and within their own communiques exist similar thoughts and dialogue, but their war is not just against the Coalition; it’s against the majority Shia Iraqi government.  The Islamic Army of Iraq has made a name for itself not for attacking the United States military, but for attacking the Iraqi military, Iraqi police and the Shia.

“Al-Qaeda has killed more Iraqi Sunnis in Anbar province during the past month than the soldiers of the American occupation have killed within three months. People are tired of the torture,” said Abu Mohammad al-Salmani, an Islamic Army commander, who said the group had written the letter to bin Laden. “We cannot keep silent anymore.”

Al-Salmani should try a new line: “Al Qaida has killed more Iraqi Sunnis in the Anbar Province during the past month than the soldiers of the American occupation have killed period.”  Al Qaida in Iraq attacks the Iraqi civilian on a daily basis, but not the Coalition soldier.

Khalid Awad, a commander of the Jamiat Brigades, another insurgent group in Anbar, said: “We must confess that if it was not for al-Qaeda, neither Iraq nor Afghanistan would have been occupied. For al-Qaeda has awakened the American ogre against the Islamic nation after the September 11th events, and it is still causing disasters.”

A nice breath of fresh air from Awad, even if he believes the United States is an ogre.

Within these Sunni groups who oppose Al Qaida in Iraq, other splits happen and have happened for at least four years.  There are divisions over nationalities even though we are always told in Islamist circles they are a nation of Islam and not Saudis, Jordanians, Syrians, etc., but there are also divisions over tactics.  If a group did not carry out a bloody enough campaign in a given month, the more hardcore element will splinter off and spring up with a new name and gameplan to spill blood in the name of Allah.

It would seem this is a positive occurence because each smaller group becomes more disjointed and less able to carry out the larger attacks needed to garner press attention and, frankly, slaughter a good number of innocents, but the Post explains that may not be the case through the words of Tariq al-Hashimi.

“If they maintain their independence from each other and each one has its different strategy, there will be chaos on the ground and chaos at the [negotiating] table,” said Tariq al-Hashimi, the Sunni vice president and leader of the Iraqi Islamic Party.

Well, there’s that, however there’s also the concept of splitting groups up and bringing them to the table one at a time.  That’s how counter-insurgency is fought.  Divide and conquer.