Matthew Yglesias on the new tape released by Ayman al-Zawahri telling Muslims not to be fooled by Obama:
Perhaps the best thing that ever happened to the relatively small group of people known as al-Qaeda was the rise to power of George W. Bush, whose brutality, stupidity, and mendacity managed to do an enormous amount to discredit American power and to push those already inclined to be skeptical of the United States further in the direction of hostility and radicalism.
Bush clearly caused this “small group of people” to do the following: The bombing of hotels in Yemen aimed at U.S. servicemen and simultaneous attempted attack on U.S. military planes (1992); attempted assassination of Jordanian Crown Prince Abdullah (1993); the 1993 World Trade Center bombing; the “Black Hawk Down” killing of U.S. servicemen in Somalia (1993); the attempted bombing of the Israeli embassy in Thailand (1994);the bombing of a Shiite shrine in Iran (1994); surveillance of Bill Clinton’s trip to the Phillipines in anticipation of an assassination attempt when Clinton was to return two years later (1994); bombing of Phillipines Airlines plane (1994); failed attempt to bomb 11 international airplanes simultaneously (1995); bombing in Saudi Arabia killing five Americans (1995); bombing of our embassies in Africa killing hundreds (1998); the attempted Millennium bombing of LA airport (2000); the attack on the U.S.S. Cole (2000); turning Afghanistan and the Pakistani tribal areas into an al-Qaeda sanctuary and launching pad (the late 1980s and 1990s); and the planning stages of the 2001 World Trade Center attack.
Once again, I ask that that liberal bloggers (particularly members of the exalted JournoList) study history, not just their own memories. It’s even on Wikipedia and MSNBC.com.
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