Nobody understands the military and the Middle East like John McCain does, because he invented them. He also invented calculus, and the Cleveland Steamer, and the French poetry form known as the villanelle. But today we will be talking about Sunnis and Shias, which John McCain also invented, back when he was a young pup hanging out with Mohammed. It’s been so long that McCain has forgotten which is which! MORE »

How will the terrorists pull off their latest “coup” against American Happiness? By striking at its very symbol: John McCain, President of Bombs. Speaking at a town hall today, McCain told the crowd that he heard, through telephone intercepts, that the Al Qaeda “or another extremist group,” may try glorious bomb attacks in Iraq to tilt the election against him. This is what he said! MORE »

Now another branch of our wonderful government has released a report that concludes, upon thorough review of over 600,000 documents, what many people have sort of figured out anyway: in the months before 9/11, Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was not gently humping al Qaeda mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi on the banks of the Tigris. In fact, there was no connection of any sort between Iraq and al Qaeda, even though the President and his ghoulish cadre of advisors insisted there was. In a clever attempt to keep this shocking information from the American people, the government decided not to write a press release about it. MORE »

Are we sure that John McCain wants to win the election? Like, really, really sure? Because going on Meet the Press and trying to educate the public about Saddam’s evil ways to show why we probably should’ve still gotten into a war (that everyone but Bill Kristol hates) despite the lack of WMDs is probably not the way to get elected. Also, he wants us to know that he recently met with “a high-ranking former al Qaeda operative” in Iraq and, um, I thought we were torturing all those guys in Cuba these days? Or did he just run into him in the market? Whatever. Also, people, “if frogs had wings” then lots of cool stuff might happen, including them not bumping their asses when they hop and McCain getting the nomination.

Two big things are happening today: A shocking political assassination in a tense Middle Eastern (or is it in Asia?) country, and a bunch of old assholes running around in the corn fields of Iowa. Of course, the peoples on the Internets have been trying to jigsaw these two disparate strands for most of the afternoon, especially for the Republicans. Basically, it’s that the assassination of Bhutto and ensuing chaos is the best thing that EVER happened to McCain and Giuliani! MORE »

Reports are already in of Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, al Qaeda’s commander in Afghanistan, taking responsibility for the assassination of Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan today. Al Qaeda already took responsibility for the first unsuccessful attempt on Bhutto’s life back in October. In some slight potential good news, they are claiming they did it just because they disliked her and her desire to root them out of western Pakistan and not as a favor to current PM Uncle Pervy before possibly attacking us (like they did for the Taliban back in 2001). Yeah, no, we’re not really sure that it makes us feel safer, but we’d it like to. [ABC News]

Fox News is reporting on the teevee that Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda’s, um, second in command, is taking questions from readers of a jihadist website somewhere out there on the internets. We’re on the mailing list, obviously, so we sent a few in. You can see them after the jump, and if you think of anything we should have asked, leave them in the comments. MORE »

A private spy company worked for years tracing Al Qaeda’s Internet and video distribution network, and was finally able to grab terrorist propaganda before it was released to the public. So it was a proud moment when the intelligence contractor, SITE Institute, presented the White House with a brand new Al Qaeda video — Bin Laden with his “Just For Men” beard dye job — on the condition that it be kept secret until Al Qaeda made it public.

Within hours, the Bush Administration had leaked it to Fox News, and “ruined years of clandestine work to find and exploit al Qaeda secrets on the Internet.”

Leak Severed Link To Al Qaeda’s Secrets [Washington Post]

In civilized countries, crazy people are sent to special crazy-people homes where they receive quality mental-health care. In our nation’s capital, crazy people are employed as “security guards” and provided with loaded handguns.

Local rent-a-cop Donald Cardwell is in custody tonight after he stripped naked and began shooting at the ground and then firing at his co-workers while repeatedly yelling “Al Qaeda!” Clearly, the man was inspired by years of terror jabbering by the likes of Rick Santorum and Dick Cheney. MORE »

Terrorists across the world still believe in the DIY ideal of jihad, refusing, after years of entreaties, to sell out to monied interests, and still making bombs the old-fashioned way. MORE »

Four years after everyone already knew it (besides Hillary Clinton), the Defense Department has declassified documents that show, once again, that al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein had no relationship. So naturally Dick Cheney went on the radio yesterday to remind us all that al-Qaeda was already in Iraq before we got there, plotting to blow up our county fairs or something. MORE »