You’re not the only one.

Posted by Josh Chernila on 21 August 2005 @ 11pm

Jerry Kilgore does have a connection to a radical homosexual agenda: I gave him a campaign contribution during the 1997 AG nomination fight. That’s all it takes for Brad Marrs.

Posted by The Jaded JD on 21 August 2005 @ 11pm

Lol! I hate those dangling prepositions too. People look at you funny when you stick them in the middle, though: “There could be a connection of which we are not aware.”

Posted by Malena on 22 August 2005 @ 12am

To worry about dangling prepositions is an obsession up with which I will not put.

Posted by Jay on 22 August 2005 @ 8am

From this Boston Herald article:

“Attorney General John Ashcroft has publicly said a high-ranking al-Qaeda leader, Adnan El-Shukrijumah, has offered top dollar to infiltrate the United States via the Mexican border.”

Could this be what Kilgore is referring to? (Excuse me — “…to what he is referring?”)

Posted by Jon on 22 August 2005 @ 9am

Waldo: MS-13 and al-Qaeda teaming up is a logical partnership, unlike the ridiculous scenarios you use above.

What Kilgore is saying is that it is something we need to guard against. John Kerry talks in his book, The New War, about the danger of worldwide organized crime and its potential to team up with terrorists. Please note that he doesn’t say that it already has happened, he said if it would happen, it would be a big problem, thus we need to make sure that it doesn’t:

“Absolutely. When they’re contacted by al-Qaeda to…to work in partnership with al-Qaeda, then we have a problem, and we need to fix that problem.”

The spokesman was saying pretty much what I was saying, ““He is not mistaken at all,” Kilgore campaign spokesman Tucker Martin said Friday, producing the pair of newspaper stories. “There could be a connection we are not aware of. Many people have said there could be [a connection]. We need to be proactive.””

Amen!

[emphasis added]

Posted by Hans Mast on 22 August 2005 @ 10am

Kudos to Jon for that research.

Posted by Hans Mast on 22 August 2005 @ 10am

A group of MTV addicted, barely literate, want to be gangtas secretly
alligned with a global terrorism organization right here in the
Commonwealth? Hell why not, I see you working Jerry, keep it up
maybe somthing will stick eventually…

Posted by Will on 22 August 2005 @ 11am

Jon, that was indeed the story to which he was referring — it came out in January, was picked up by a few papers, and was promptly and loudly discredited by the FBI.

Hans, Kilgore was using his usual weird phrasing, but he clearly said “is being,” the present tense. If he was using a hypothetical, then he was clearly attempting to mislead listeners into believing that he was describing an actual scenario. He may well have said “when martians are working with Democrats to eat babies, then we have a problem.” But, again, he used the present tense, so that’s that.

The idea that a radical Catholic gang would work with a radical Islamic terrorism group is bidirectionally ridiculous. It flies in the face of everything that we’ve been told about al-Qaeda.

Posted by Waldo Jaquith on 22 August 2005 @ 11am

MS-13 is much more like a franchised version of the Jets and the Sharks than it is like the Mafia. The danger is that as its members grow older and survive into adulthood, it could take on a different character. But we aren’t there yet, and it seems very out of touch for a pulbic figure to suggest that there is an imminent Al-Quaeda link. No doubt the candidate and/or the campaign quickly scramble to correct the misimpression and to allay public fears that mya have been unwittingly caused by the statement.

Posted by NoVA Scout on 22 August 2005 @ 3pm

Waldo,

I’ll add a little mileage to this one:

MS-13 (aka la Mara Salvatrucha or the Salvadoran Gang) isn’t a radical Catholic gang, nor is it a franchised version of the Jets and Sharks. What distinguishes MS-13 from other gangs is its guerrilla origins prior to its transformation into a gang. As the name implies, MS-13 has its origins in El Salvador, and its original members were “demobilized” members of the FMLN, the Marxist group that sought to overthrow the Salvadoran government in the 1980s. Following the cessation of hostilities, more than a few of them found their way to the US and the US prison system, where they came into contact with the MM (Mexican Mafia) and other gangs. Many of the current crop of MS-13 members are actually the second generation. It’s also worth noting that the FMLN itself still exists in El Salvador, providing a tangible “spiritual home base” so to speak, and that MS-13 maintains contact with the homeland. As to MS-13 being a radical Catholic gang, its members, being Salvadorans, they may have taken on a number of Catholic attributes (praying to a patron saint prior to a hit, etc), but the organization’s origins are decidedly Marxist.

Does MS-13 talk to Al-Qa’ida? Who knows? I’d be willing to bet they’ve exchanged phone numbers at some point, but I doubt they are working together. Bad people tend to talk to other bad people, and sometimes, if they have enough in common, they do business. My own guess is unless there’s a mutual criminal “business interest,” the two organizations don’t have much in common to talk about. Aside from some sensationalist reporting, I don’t recall seeing much to indicate MS-13 and Al-Qa’ida have enough common interests to make them want to work together. This strikes me as just another case of hyping the threat. I personally would be far more concerned about MS-13 making common cause with Mexican drug cartels and maybe Colombian ones to facilitate the passage of coca, opiates and illegal aliens into the U.S. Kilgore is just out to lunch on this one and won’t admit a mistake. It appears to me that whomever he has advising him is very unknowledgeable on the subject of MS-13. He would do well to go to the FBI and actually listen to them, and then if he want to speak on the subject, hire someone with a little more knowledge than what they gather through Google searches.

Were MS-13 to more directly engage in terrorist activity, I’d have to wonder if its leaders/members wouldn’t take direction from their “mother” organization, the FMLN. In that case, when considering possible terrorist roles for MS-13 it might be more appropriate to consider FMLN’s own goals, foreign policies and doctrine. You can read these from FMLN’s own published writings as well as those of various academics both US and foreign, who have studied that former (former at least in name) guerrilla group. One of my own favorite sources of information on the FMLN is José Angel Moroni Bracamonte, author of Strategy and tactics of the Salvadoran FMLN guerrillas : last battle of the Cold War, blueprint for future conflicts.

These guys themselves learned their tradecraft from the North Vietnamese (and let’s not forget the Cubans), themselves no slouches in the art of guerrilla warfare. Guerrilla groups talk to other guerrilla groups, sometimes directly, sometimes through political front organizations and I wouldn’t be surprised to see that they swap “trade secrets” with one another. I think that just because you see a particular tactic associated with one group show up in another part of the world, it doesn’t necessarily mean the two are working together directly with each other. In this day and age, it’s very easy to post and read techniques on websites or even (gasp!) — blogs ;-)

Posted by Annie Mauss on 22 August 2005 @ 8pm

Annie Mauss: There’s a huge difference between asserting the possibility of a connection
and stating flat out that there is a connection. Kilgore can’t go around screaming fire
in a crowded theater.

Kilgore reached the limits of free speech here and he needs to recant.

All joking aside, all conjecture aside, this is criminal and he should be held accountable.

Posted by Josh Chernila on 22 August 2005 @ 10pm

Really interesting stuff, Annie. You should really start a blog. Seriously.

Posted by Waldo Jaquith on 22 August 2005 @ 10pm