blargblog
An expulsive extension of
Adam Rice speculates (skeptically, mind you) on a rumor going around that the US military has already caught Osama bin Laden, but is keeping him in cold storage until he's most politically useful for Bush's reelection campaign. The right wing Internet news sites specifically blame Rep. Jim McDermott, who made similar speculations regarding Saddam Hussein, and former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright of encouraging the notion of an "October Surprise." (Cf. Talon News and NewsMax—keep in mind that Albright may have been joking—hullo?!).
While no one should ever discount a Bush's inclinations toward an October Surprise, this theory strikes me as a bit fishy. For one thing, when Saddam Hussein was caught, he too could have been stored away until he was more useful than, say, last December, prior to the Democratic primary season, which has served Bush's credibility a powerful blow. Bush received some bipartisan warm fuzzies at the time, but by now all that has rubbed away, exposing a raw wound of uncertainty and anger over White House deceptions about WMD, etc.
For another thing, the theory asserts that bin Laden was caught in late February—just as the Democrats had settled on Their Man. What better time to announce such a capture? That is, politically speaking, with such news the BushAdmin could have seriously taken the air out of Kerry's tires just as his general election campaign was revving up. And, for the sake of mixing our metaphors, it would take a rather large quiver away from Democratic criticism of the BushAdmin's handling of the "War on Terror."
So neither conspiracy theory pans out for me. But then, the BushAdmin does a lot of irrational things for the sake of short term political points, so whadoIknow?
Posted by kevinmoore at March 9, 2004 07:51 AM | TrackBackI find that I'm still interested in the "Saddam was captured by the Kurds & left for US troops after negotiations" conspiracy theory. I saw some reports on this in British papers immediately following the capture, but have seen nothing one way or the other since. I find that to be more interesting than the bin-Laden theories.
Posted by: Jake Squid at March 9, 2004 09:00 AMLet me put it thisway, given the almost total lack of morality and ethics in this administration I would not be the least surprised if it turned out to be true. Having said that I doubt he's been captured - it would be too hard to keep quiet. I do suspect they know exactly where he is and are keeping his capture on ice until late September in order to gain some political leverage out of it. What the Dems need to be doing is put the pressure on Bush by focussing on how it's been almost 3 years and why hasn't he been caught and why were valuable resources that could have been used to catch him wasted on a wart in Iraq that was based on lies.
Posted by: The Dynamic Driveler at March 9, 2004 06:09 PMI doubt they wouldn't capture Bin Laden if they knew where he was. If nothing else, even if they didn't give a shit about the lives of innocent Americans, another Bin Laden led attack on America would be political death for the Bush Administration, especially after that whole Iraq segue. I don't think they would risk that just for some extra momentum come October.
Posted by: Raznor at March 9, 2004 08:32 PMIt wouldn't surprise me that they'd want to do it, and furthermore could rationalize it to themselves six ways from Sunday in strategic terms. They could claim they didn't want to tip their hand about how they caught him, wanted to wring all the intelligence out of him they could before a revelation, etc.
Still, I think they'd worry about an October Surprise backfiring. At this point even the general public is aware of "wag the dog" scenarios and the Republicans themselves suggested that Clinton manipulated military actions for their PR value.
Perhaps if they are playing such tricks they'll unveil him earlier in a September or August Surprise. But personally I think they'd cash in on their find as soon as possible rather than play risky games with it.
Posted by: Prentiss Riddle at March 11, 2004 07:19 AM