Two posts below, Binky expresses her shock that Pakistan suddenly managed to find an al Qaeda operative, and that this news was announced on the same day when the news would otherwise be dominated by John Kerry. She fears she has become too cynical. Well how about this Binky -- apparently the guy was captured last weekend, yet the announcement was delayed until today. Hmmm. Now that's not at all suspicious. And it's just a wild coincidence that this matches an old New Republic story asserting that the White House was strong-arming the Pakistanis into providing just such a timely capture. The whole sordid string of coincidences is summarized here.
This isn't to say that only the Bush team, or even just the Republicans, try to pull "dirty tricks". But that doesn't excuse turning the war on terror into a media event.
Posted by armand at July 29, 2004 09:59 PM | TrackBack | Posted to PoliticsShock indeed (hand over open mouth, eyelashes fluttering). The depressing feeling was especially due to the fact that 1) it was my first reaction and 2) it was apparently not even close to being cynical enough.
Posted by: binky at July 30, 2004 12:42 AM | PERMALINKPoint of information from someone neither shocked nor cynical (more skeptical I guess) re: the Pakistan capture: there is a more innocent explanation for the gap between the capture and the announcement.
It is standard procedure upon capturing a terrorist at any level (though moreso the higher up the food-chain you go) to keep that capture a secret, because the usefulness of any info you get f/ the guy only lasts as long as the secrecy. Once word gets out, his associates scatter and the intell becomes much less actionable. So capturing on Saturday and announcing on Wednesday is empirically and procedurally unremarkable.
As to the idea that the Bushies colluded w/ Pakistan to choreograph the capture/announcement, I have to stifle a laugh. As spectacularly incompetent as the administration is on SO many fronts, it just beggars belief that they've got that kind of control over a foreign intell service which itself appears to be in a state of quasi-civil war.
Great blog y'all-- keep up the cool work.
P.S. $20 says the Simpsons coming-out character is Principal Skinner.
Sure, I agree with you that there is an innocent and extremely valid explanation. However, the timing was awfully perfect, and not in the sense of timing the capture, but of timing the release of information. As I said before, the worst thing is that even knowing all that, my first gut instinct was to think otherwise.
Twenty bucks, eh? How come no one is betting on Santa's Little Helper? Maybe he's been gettin' with the South Park dog voiced by George Clooney.
Posted by: binky at August 2, 2004 12:55 PM | PERMALINK