Immediately after the terrorist attacks last Tuesday, all I heard was “bin Laden did this” over and over in the media. Then Duhbya was quick to tell Pakistan, a nuclear power with a very unstable government bordering China and India “You’re either our friend or you are our enemy.” Then we broadcast to the world that we think bin Laden is hiding out in Afghanistan and they better hand him over or we’ll attack. Then I hear on CNN today that one of the hijackers was communicating with an Iraqi official. That got me wondering.
Is it possible that secretly, we’re planning our revenge on Iraq, and all this talk about Bin Laden, Afghanistan, and Pakistan is a decoy? I hope so, because the way we’re trash talking to the Arab world is an incredibly stupid way to prepare for war, but incredibly smart if it’s a decoy.
You’ve got the chronology wrong here. We’ve suspected and/or known the bin Laden has been hiding in Afghanistan for a few years. Clinton launched a few cruise missiles at his training camps a couple years ago.
The US has identified bin Laden as a primary enemy. He was almost certainly involved with the attack. Iraq may have been involved as well, but officially we haven’t accused them. Pakistan is important only for being a neighbor and friend of Afghanistan.
What trash talking? Certainly most of the Arab world has not been implicated at all. Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran are not Arabic countries. Iraq is the only Arabic country we seem to think might have been involved, although Syria has been mentioned as having supported terrorism, IIRC.