Greens Give Red Light To Nader

Ralph Nader recently reversed himself and publicly campaigned for an “endorsement” from the Green Party, the third-party outsiders who nominated Nader in 2000 and the candidate rejected last December. The Greens gave their answer today by blowing a raspberry at the consumer advocate and instead nominating David Cobb, a longtime party activist:

The Green Party on Saturday refused to back Ralph Nader in his independent run for the White House, a move that could reduce his chances of being a factor in this year’s election.
Delegates to the half-million-member party’s presidential convention voted to nominate party activist David Cobb, a California lawyer who led the delegate count going into the meeting.

Nader had announced his selection of Green Party stalwart Peter Camejo as his running mate earlier this week in order to convince the Green’s nominating convention to fall in with his proposed consolidation of various third-party movements. The Reform Party has already agreed to endorse Nader/Camejo, giving the pair access to ballots in seven states. The Greens held the key to 20 others, but now Cobb’s name will sit atop the Green entry on those ballots.
For Nader, who abandoned the Greens and added their alienation and disillusionment to that of the Democrats from 2000, the selection of Cobb only represents a tactical setback, and one that had to have been anticipated. Camejo and Cobb stand to be the real losers in this scenario. Camejo gambled that his party would follow its most productive elective prospect outside of Nader, and now that the Greens selected Cobb, Camejo stands to lose all of the momentum and goodwill he’s built since switching over from the Socialist Party earlier in his career. Cobb may have won the nomination, but Cobb is a non-entity whose selection will convince few donors to switch their support from Nader or the two major parties.
The Greens may well wind up losing their automatic ballot entries in most (if not all) qualifying states, as Cobb will never outshine Nader, Bush, and Gore to collect the 3% the Greens need to keep their exemption from collecting signatures. The Republicans may also be somewhat disappointed, although in the long run a weakened Green party helps to reduce the radicalism that has broken through this election cycle. The only real winner from the Greens’ decision may be John Kerry, and only in a mild way, as he may well face Nader in fewer key states as a result.
Expect to see another Democratic effort to get Nader to withdraw, only this time the envoys should be from a group other than the Congressional Black Caucus, who not only failed to convince Nader to withdraw but antagonized him so much that Nader threatened to focus his campaign on the battleground states that Kerry needs so badly. The Democrats can still transform this good fortune into an albatross if they’re not careful.

More Unilateralism On Display

George Bush demonstrated more of his notorious “go-it-alone” cowboy unilateralism today in Ireland as he negotiated an agreement with the EU to back an Iraqi request for NATO military support:

The United States and the European Union offered strong support for Iraq’s urgent request for NATO military help Saturday. “NATO has the capability and I believe the responsibility to help the Iraqi people defeat the terrorist threat that’s facing their country,” President Bush said. …
The United States and the European Union agreed in a joint statement to back Iraq’s request for NATO military and support the training of Iraqi security forces, and to reduce Iraq’s international debt, estimated to be $120 billion.

So that’s what unilateralism looks like? Seems to me that the unilateralism about which the left complains so much appears awfully crowded at news conferences.

The Minneapolis Hotbed Of AQ

For some reason, the Twin Cities keeps coming up as a critical location for al-Qaeda operations. This dynamic first appeared shortly before the 9/11 attacks with the arrest of Zacarias Moussaoui in the Captain’s home port of Eagan, and now Power Line reports that the latest instance occurred yesterday with the arrest of an associate of Abu al-Zarqawi:

A Lebanese national who allegedly told Minneapolis FBI agents he trained with Al-Qaida and knew three of its leaders, including one of the most wanted terrorists in Iraq, has been charged in connection with an international terrorism inquiry.
On Friday, a federal judge in New York ordered the suspect, Mohamad Kamal Elzahabi, who has lived in Minneapolis, transported to Minnesota without bail on charges of lying to federal agents.
During a series of voluntary interviews in April, Elzahabi told Minneapolis FBI agents that while in Afghanistan in the late 1980s and 1990s, he knew Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, the Al-Qaida figure now suspected of engineering several deadly kidnappings in Iraq; Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the suspected mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, and Abu Zubaida, a top Al-Qaida leader.
Elzahabi is charged with lying in denying that he sent walkie-talkies to Pakistan and that he helped get a Massachusetts driver’s license for a man later convicted of plotting to bomb American and Israeli tourists in Jordan.

Unfortunately, most of our Twin Cities neighbors have chosen to shade their eyes to this threat. We have a wonderfully diverse community in the Twin Cities, one of whose components is an active and vibrant Somali community. While the vast majority of these people celebrate their freedom in the US, their presence allows al-Qaeda operatives some manuevering room here, as the arrests of six other men in our area for their AQ connections since 9/11 indicate, including that of Mohammed Abdullah Warsame, whose arrest sparked a short-lived protest from Twin Cities Somalis.
This action shows that the FBI has not let up in its counterterrorism efforts and remains vigilant in the area. However, it also shows that al-Qaeda has not given up in its efforts to infiltrate American cities, using blameless immigrants to hide themselves from justice and in some cases to manipulate immigrant communities into protesting on their behalf. AQ’s continued focus on this area worries me, especially after the FBI smashed the conspiracy to attack a Columbus shopping mall earlier this month. After all, the largest and most famous shopping mall in the US is located minutes away from my house.
Big Trunk has posted the entire article on their site, as the Strib only leaves their articles available on their web site for seven days. Be sure to read the entire article.

Iraqis Discover A Sense Of National Mission?

The decision by the American-led CPA to remain steadfast in its decision to transfer sovereignty to the interim Iraqi government has, predictably, resulted in more desperate measures by Islamofascist terrorists in Iraq, with a wave of coordinated attacks this week resulting in over 100 dead Iraqis. Now even the more radical native elements within Iraq have come out in support of the new government, decrying the hijacking of Islam by the foreigners and calling for their expulsion from the new nation of Iraq:

The objections — from anti-U.S. Shiite and Sunni Muslim leaders, including rebellious cleric Moqtada Sadr, and even from militia fighters in the embattled city of Fallujah — arose in part from revulsion at the fact that victims of the car bombings and guerrilla assaults in six cities and towns Thursday were overwhelmingly Iraqis. But they also betrayed Iraqi nationalist concerns that the fight against U.S. occupation forces risked being hijacked by Abu Musab Zarqawi, a Jordanian whom U.S. officials describe as a paladin in bin Laden’s al Qaeda network.
“We do not need anyone from outside the borders to stand with us and spill the blood of our sons in Iraq,” Ahmed Abdul Ghafour Samarrae, a Sunni cleric with a wide following, declared in his Friday sermon at Umm al Qurra mosque in Baghdad. … “Which religion allows anyone to kill more than 100 Iraqis, destroy 100 families and destroy 100 houses?” raged Samarrae in his sermon. “Who says so? Who are those people who do this? Where did they come from? . . . It is a conspiracy to defame the reputation of the Iraqi resistance by wearing its dress and using its name falsely. These people hurt the Iraqis and Iraq, giving the occupier an excuse to stay longer.” …
In Baqubah, where scores of fighters proclaiming allegiance to Zarqawi attacked police stations and government buildings in Thursday’s offensive, clerics called on the faithful not to support such attacks. The attackers, they said in their Friday sermons, were foreigners attacking Iraqis.
“This is the first time we have heard the minaret broadcast support for the Iraqi government,” said Edward Peter Messmer, the occupation authority’s coordinator for the Baqubah region, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad. “And it couldn’t come at a better time.”

Terrorists have made the predictable and probably fatal error to target Iraqis after attacks on CPA forces demonstrated little effect on their determination to stay. Also, as more and more terrorists were caught or killed in attacks on American security forces, it forced the gangsters to look for easier targets, such as hotels, buses, and other civilian-dominated areas. Iraqis that cheered on attacks on “occupiers” suddenly found themselves not just to be collateral to those attacks but to be the main target — and now even those who oppose occupation understand that the terrorists are a far worse threat to their safety and freedom.
Iraqi national pride, at this point, provides a helpful dynamic in setting the nation back on its own footing after decades of Ba’athist tyranny. Now that Zarqawi has demonstrated the al-Qaeda plan for Iraqis, and with the promise of full sovereignty looming, they have made the decision to get rid of those foreigners who murder Iraqis by the score before the foreigners who want to rebuild a free Iraqi republic.
UPDATE: Rocket Man notes this passage from the Washington Times’ coverage and is less than impressed:

“What sort of religion condones the killing of a Muslim by another Muslim?” asked Sheik Abdul-Ghafour al-Samarai, a member of the influential Sunni group the Association of Muslim Scholars, during a sermon in Baghdad’s Umm al-Qura mosque.
Sheik Ahmed Hassan al-Taha said at Baghdad’s al-Azimiya mosque, Iraq’s foremost Sunni place of worship, that “it makes me sad to see that all the victims yesterday were Iraqis.”

Muslim “religious” leaders don’t seem to care much when infidels get beheaded, but draw the line when fellow Muslims start getting killed. My sympathy for these guys is limited.

To me, this was more of a rhetorical mechanism for making the point that Zarqawi is no Muslim and no friend of Iraqis than a discounting of non-Iraqi lives, but I understand Rocket Man’s disdain.

Labor Down Under Puts Target On Australia

Leaders of the Australian Labor Party have already forgotten the lesson of Madrid and have pledged to unilaterally withdraw from Iraq if given a majority in their upcoming elections:

An Australian Labor Party opposition pledge to withdraw troops from Iraq will present a major challenge to US ties if his party wins office in elections later this year, a senior party figure has warned. … The policy has become a key issue in the election, with the government accusing Labor leader Mark Latham of anti-Americanism and reiterating its policy of remaining in the US-led campaign “until the job is done”.

Spanish Socialists made essentially the same argument and were trailing in the polls until helpful terrorists killed 191 Spaniards and changed the outcome of the election. One has to wonder if that thought has even occurred to the Australian Labor’s leadership. After all, scores of Aussies lost their lives in an al-Qaeda bombing in their backyard just 20 months ago, and AQ openly operates a lot closer to their shores than ours.
Beyond that argument, AQ killed 88 Australians and Labor proposes to simply sit out a major battle against them. Regardless of whether one considers the Iraq phase a “distraction” from the war on terror or a major component — and the NY Times article yesterday clearly shows Iraqi collaboration with AQ — no one doubts that al-Qaeda is in Iraq now, chiefly in the presence of Abu al-Zarqawi and his minions. Labor doesn’t endorse a principled stand on international conventions; they argue for retreat, a chance to hide under the covers and hope the bad men go away. It worked for the Spanish Socialists, at least for the election, but Australians sadly delude themselves if they think a withdrawal from Iraq will make the terrorists love them. After all, the Bali bombing occurred well before Iraq, demonstrating that even if the Laborites don’t want to make war, war is being made on them.
It took us ten years and 3,000 dead civilians before we learned that lesson, and even today some of us haven’t learned it. Despite the blatherings of Labor leader and NSW Premier Bob Carr, we’re not “ultranationalists”, we’re simply unwilling to pretend we’re not being attacked, and to die in mass quantities while France and Germany dither. Let’s hope that Australians don’t put themselves in the position of having to learn the hard way that war has already been declared on them.

You’re The Vice-President. Act Like It. That Is All.

Dick Cheney attempted to dress down Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy on the floor of the Senate Tuesday by suggesting a new form of entertainment and self-actualization for the partisan hack:

On Tuesday, Cheney, serving in his role as president of the Senate, appeared in the chamber for a photo session. A chance meeting with Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (Vt.), the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, became an argument about Cheney’s ties to Halliburton Co., an international energy services corporation, and President Bush’s judicial nominees. The exchange ended when Cheney offered some crass advice.
“Fuck yourself,” said the man who is a heartbeat from the presidency.

Forget, for the moment, the breathless reporting from the Washington Post. Forget the fact that just about everyone I know says this word from time to time. We are talking about one of our nation’s leaders speaking to a representative from Vermont on the floor of what has been called the shrine of democracy. It’s absurd, it’s unimaginative, and it’s completely inappropriate — even more so than when John Kerry slipped the ol’ effenheimer into a Rolling Stone interview to look hip. I didn’t like it then, and I sure as hell don’t like it now.
Mr. Cheney, you are the Vice President. We expect you to act with proper decorum during official business in our capitol. You owe Senator Leahy an apology.
UPDATE: People seem to be misinterpreting what I wrote, or I didn’t make myself clear enough. I have no problem with Cheney getting ticked off at Leahy et al for their slanderous falsehoods. I have no problem with him dressing down the little weasel on the floor of the Senate. What I have a problem with is the foul, uneloquent, and unimaginative manner in which he conducted himself doing it.
Michelle Malkin says much the same thing, and her readers offer suggestions as to how Cheney could have cut Leahy into little pissant ribbons, as he deserved. Hugh Hewitt disagrees with me, and suggests a donation to the NRSC to help unseat Leahy, a cause I enthusiastically support. But he’s still wrong to have used that language.

Democrat To Address Republican Nominating Convention

Every Republican’s favorite Democrat, Georgia Senator Zell Miller, will speak to the Republican Nominating Convention in order to formally endorse George Bush’s candidacy. Miller, who’s hardly been shy about his disenchantment with his own party’s direction, provides the “unity” campaign that John Kerry tried to build with John McCain, and failed:

According to the aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity, Miller will give his address on Wednesday night of the four-day convention in New York that begins Aug. 30. The Bush-Cheney campaign was expected to make an official announcement later in the day.
The speech by Miller, a former two-term governor, comes 12 years after he delivered the keynote address for Bill Clinton at the 1992 Democratic National Convention, also held in New York.
Miller, who is retiring in January, has voted with Republicans more often than his own party and has been a key sponsor of many of Bush’s top legislative priorities, including the Republican’s tax cuts and education plan.

Since last year, when Miller began writing op-eds in the Wall Street Journal decrying the choices of candidates from his party, Miller has made his preference for Bush clear:

This is a president who understands the price of freedom. He understands that leaders throughout history often have had to choose between good and evil, tyranny and freedom. And the choice they make can reverberate for generations to come. This is a president who has some Churchill in him and who does not flinch when the going gets tough. This is a president who can make a decision and does not suffer from “paralysis analysis.” This is a president who can look America in the eye and say on Iraq, “We’re not leaving.” And you know he means it. …
Believe me, I looked hard at the other choices. And what I saw was that the Democratic candidates who want to be president in the worst way are running for office in the worst way. Look closely, there’s not much difference among them. I can’t say there’s “not a dime’s worth of difference” because there’s actually billions of dollars’ worth of difference among them. Some want to raise our taxes a trillion, while the others want to raise our taxes by several hundred billion. But, make no mistake, they all want to raise our taxes. They also, to varying degrees, want us to quit and get out of Iraq. They don’t want us to stay the course in this fight between tyranny and freedom. This is our best chance to change the course of history in the Middle East. So I cannot vote for a candidate who wants us to cut and run with our shirttails at half-mast.
I find it hard to believe, but these naive nine have managed to combine the worst feature of the McGovern campaign–the president is a liar and we must have peace at any cost–with the worst feature of the Mondale campaign–watch your wallet, we’re going to raise your taxes. George McGovern carried one state in 1972. Walter Mondale carried one state in 1984. Not exactly role models when it comes to how to get elected or, for that matter, how to run a country.
So, as I have said, my choice for president was an easy decision. And my own party’s candidates made it even easier.

Discovering that Miller would speak at the convention may provide mild surprise, since it is such an overt renunciation of his own party, but his book has already made that renunciation clear for everyone. However, the news apparently caught some members of Miller’s party unaware, as the reaction from the state Democratic machine makes clear:

Miller drew a sharp rebuke from the dean of Georgia’s congressional delegation, Democratic Rep. John Lewis, who called the senator’s decision “a shame and a disgrace.” … “I think he has sold his soul for a mess of pottage,” Lewis said, a reference to a speech Miller gave 40 years ago in which he argued that President Johnson was abandoning his Southern roots by pushing some civil rights issues. Pottage is defined as a thick soup or stew of vegetables.

Apparently the AP is unfamiliar with the original reference from the Old Testament about the “mess of pottage,” or insists on avoiding biblical references.
Another member of the Georgia party says he’s not surprised, and offers a glimpse as to why the senior Senator feels that his party has betrayed him and not the other way around. Bobby Kahn, the party’s state chair, had this to say:

“Maybe I’ll switch to the Republican Party so I can speak at the Democratic Convention and bash Bush,” Kahn said. “It makes about as much sense.”

Only to Kahn. Zell Miller has repeatedly attempted to convince his fellow Democrats to look beyond partisan squabbling and focus on the security of the nation and the survival of Western civilization. He’s written essays, made speeches, and finally published a book explaining his philosophical issues with the Democratic Party. Kahn, on the other hand, applies his own small-minded thinking to Miller and comes up with nothing except a spiteful, and wholly inaccurate, characterization of Miller’s actions.
This small-mindedness of the Democrats continues to be displayed in their wholesale embrace of the conspiracy-theory lunatics such as Michael Moore and their own Al Gore, where party leaders not only tolerate their inclusion but actively participate in their paranoid and inaccurate ravings solely to gain an electoral advantage. Every day, people like Kahn, Gore, Lewis, Tom Daschle, Tom Harkin, and others demonstrate Miller’s assertion that his party has moved away from him, and not the other way around.

Iran Thumbs Its Nose

The Islamic mullahcracy of Iran has thumbed its nose at the international community, announcing it will resume enriching uranium in defiance of its agreement to comply with IAEA requirements for non-proliferation:

Iran has announced a “substantial resumption” of its uranium enrichment program and may have already stockpiled chemical weapons, a State Department official said Thursday.
In testimony before the House International Relations Committee, Undersecretary of State for Arms Control John Bolton said Iran had reneged “on the commitment it made to the United Kingdom, Germany and France” to stop enriching uranium.
Bolton said Iran told the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, that beginning next week the country will restart “the production of uranium centrifuge parts assembly and testing.”

Once again, the titans of Europe have taken us on a rollercoaster ride on WMD, and once again, the trip has been as pointless as an amusement-park ride: we are right back where we started. The New York Times reports that the mullahs decided to tweak the noses of France, Germany, and Britain in its refusal by sending them each diplomatic notes blaming them for their decision, saying that the three Continental powers didn’t do enough to normalize relations. This position seems a bit odd, considering that Iran captured eight British servicement this week and threatened to try them, a diplomatic breach bordering on an act of war, but expecting rational behavior from Iran usually leads to sharp disappointment, as the British themselves note in this instance:

“They’ve sent letters saying we haven’t lived up to our commitments to normalize relations,” said a spokesman for Britain, which received the note, along with France and Germany.
“Among Europeans and the U.S., there will be deep disappointment,” he added. “There is no good reason for it. Europe will be urging them to reverse this decision.”

The Times says that the US will interpret this as an indication that Teheran “has chosen to defy the International Atomic Energy Agency,” an obvious point — how can it be interpreted any other way? The Europeans need to quit stalling and allow this matter to come to the UN Security Council. Either the international community has to act to enforce its treaties and agreements or, once again, risk becoming irrelevant. And if they avoid the UNSC because they know that the US and the UK will force them to actually act upon their decision, then that battle has already been lost, and the French and Germans should just acknowledge that and get out of the way.

Even The NY Times Finds Collaboration, But Hides It From Its Readers

The New York Times, less than a week after demanding apologies from George Bush and Dick Cheney for supposedly misleading Americans on ties between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda, publishes a report detailing even more ties and evidence of collaboration between Saddam and bin Laden (via Power Line):

Contacts between Iraqi intelligence agents and Osama bin Laden when he was in Sudan in the mid-1990’s were part of a broad effort by Baghdad to work with organizations opposing the Saudi ruling family, according to a newly disclosed document obtained by the Americans in Iraq.
American officials described the document as an internal report by the Iraqi intelligence service detailing efforts to seek cooperation with several Saudi opposition groups, including Mr. bin Laden’s organization, before Al Qaeda had become a full-fledged terrorist organization. He was based in Sudan from 1992 to 1996, when that country forced him to leave and he took refuge in Afghanistan. …
At the time of the contacts described in the Iraqi document, Mr. bin Laden was little known beyond the world of national security experts. It is now thought that his associates bombed a hotel in Yemen used by American troops bound for Somalia in 1992. Intelligence officials also believe he played a role in training Somali fighters who battled Army Rangers and Special Operations forces in Mogadishu during the “Black Hawk Down” battle of 1993.

Note the contradiction in those final two passages above. Ten paragraphs separate those last two, and the latter utterly negates the former. The Times wants to eat its cake and have it, too; if bin Laden’s “associates” bombed Yemeni hotels in 1992 and took part in Mogadishu, then they had already become a terrorist group, and Saddam’s contacts with them prove the Administration’s point.
The Times also makes an effort to muddy up the timeline in order to make bin Laden’s status as a terrorist more ambiguous at the time of the contacts. In paragraphs 14-16, reporter Thom Shanker writes:

The document details a time before any of the spectacular anti-American terrorist strikes attributed to Al Qaeda: the two American Embassy bombings in East Africa in 1998, the strike on the destroyer Cole in Yemeni waters in 2000, and the Sept. 11 attacks.
The document, which asserts that Mr. bin Laden “was approached by our side,” states that Mr. bin Laden previously “had some reservations about being labeled an Iraqi operative,” but was now willing to meet in Sudan, and that “presidential approval” was granted to the Iraqi security service to proceed.
At the meeting, Mr. bin Laden requested that sermons of an anti-Saudi cleric be rebroadcast in Iraq. That request, the document states, was approved by Baghdad.

Shanker says that this meeting took place before any of the “spectacular” attacks on American assets, an important and misleading qualification, which I’ll explain momentarily. Shanker then reports that the meeting was initiated by the Iraqis, with “presidential approval” — meaning Saddam himself initiated the talks with bin Laden. At that meeting, the Iraqis agreed to broadcast anti-Saudi propaganda from Iraq.
Does that not sound like collaboration to you?
The impression you get from Shanker is that this meeting took place in the short period of time between Saddam’s defeat in 1991 at the hands of the American-led coalition and the point in 1992 when bin Laden conducted bombings in Yemen and got involved in Somalian efforts against the US in 1993. Shanker reveals only in the last two paragraphs that the Iraqis reached out to bin Laden in 1994 and met with him in 1994 and February 1995.
Before then, however, the Times notes that bin Laden requested coordination on attacks against foreign forces in Saudi Arabia — American forces — and that there is “no indication” that the Iraqis agreed to the proposal. Apparently, there is no indication they refused, either; otherwise, the Times would have trumpeted that in the lead paragraph. However, in 1999, Saddam felt close enough to bin Laden, a man that the Times has maintained considered Hussein an infidel unworthy of association, to offer him asylum in the face of American opposition, according to this CNN report from February 1999.
So we have evidence that Saddam himself approved approaching bin Laden and his terrorist organization — not the other way around, as some have reported — and agreed to collaborate on propaganda designed to create unrest in Saudi Arabia. At least two meetings between the IIS and al-Qaeda took place in the Sudan, where discussion of the means of conducting attacks on American assets in the region took place and specific proposals for such brought back to Baghdad. While these efforts took place before most civilians had heard of Osama and al-Qaeda, security experts certainly knew that AQ was a terrorist organization responsible for attacks on Americans, and Saddam sought OBL out specifically for that reason.
Under these circumstances, not only would it be reasonable to conclude that Saddam and al-Qaeda had a collaborative relationship, but that the more pressure the West put on Saddam to knuckle under, the more likely that collaboration would blossom into proxy attacks on the US and its allies. With the vast fortune and resources of Saddam supporting al-Qaeda, reasonable and prudent people would conclude that resolving the twelve-year quagmire in Iraq had to be a top priority after Afghanistan.
The Times makes this curious statement a few paragraphs into the story:

The new document, which appears to have circulated only since April, was provided to The New York Times several weeks ago, before the commission’s report was released. Since obtaining the document, The Times has interviewed several military, intelligence and United States government officials in Washington and Baghdad to determine that the government considered it authentic.

So the Times has had in its possession a document that details contacts and collaboration which it determined that the government found authentic, and still editorialized about the purported dishonesty of Bush and Cheney? Obviously, someone’s being dishonest, but more and more it looks like the supposed defenders of truth at the Gray Lady.
UPDATE: Brant at SWLiP also notices the hypocrisies in the Times article:

The whole article is in this same vein of wanting desperately to bury one’s head in the sand. The writer makes no effort to account for a number of contradictions. For example, there’s this oddity early in the piece:

American officials described the document as an internal report by the Iraqi intelligence service detailing efforts to seek cooperation with several Saudi opposition groups, including Mr. bin Laden’s organization, before Al Qaeda had become a full-fledged terrorist organization.

But the article also asserts that the first key meeting occurred in 1994, which was after the first WTC bombing. Wasn’t Al Qaeda involved in the first WTC bombing, and wasn’t one of the bombers given safe haven in Iraq?
And the article notes, without a trace of irony:

The document details a time before any of the spectacular anti-American terrorist strikes attributed to Al Qaeda: the two American Embassy bombings in East Africa in 1998, the strike on the destroyer Cole in Yemeni waters in 2000, and the Sept. 11 attacks.

I suppose that the writer meant for us to draw the conclusion that, since these contacts occurred in an age of relative innocence (during Clinton’s first term, actually — why hasn’t the Left come up with a theory that Bin Laden only went “bad” after the Republican takeover of Congress?). But a more sensible conclusion is that these contacts marked the early stages of a collaboration.

It depends on the definition of sensible. If one’s ultimate motivation is truth, then Brant is correct. If one’s ultimate motivation is to commit libel in order to keep Bush from being elected, you get the Times’ article.
UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit readers! I’ve also cross-posted this at Oh, That Liberal Media. Be sure to bookmark and/or blogroll both of our sites.