Another New York Times headline that makes no sense

Unless, of course, you consider the political context.

I refer to today's article entitled, "Bush Distorts Qaeda Links, Critics Assert." The Times writes:

But while American intelligence agencies have pointed to links between leaders of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia and the top leadership of the broader Qaeda group, the militant group is in many respects an Iraqi phenomenon.

Now try and reconcile these two paragraphs with the headline:

Just last week, Mr. Zawahri [Al Qaeda's second-in-command after bin Laden] called on Muslims to travel to Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia to carry out their fight against the Americans and appealed for Muslims to support the Islamic State in Iraq, an umbrella group that Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia has established to attract broader Sunni support.

The broader issue is whether Iraq is a central front in the war against Al Qaeda, as Mr. Bush maintains, or a distraction that has diverted the United States from focusing on the Qaeda sanctuaries in Pakistan while providing Qaeda leaders with a cause for rallying support.

Maybe a more accurate headline would have read: "Bush and the Al Qaeda Leadership Distort Qaeda Links."

I do give the Times credit for including this statement:

War critics have often played down the significance of the group despite its gruesome record of suicide attacks and its widely suspected role in destroying a Shiite shrine in Samarra in February 2006 that set Iraq on the road to civil war.