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19 June 2004

Bush told he is playing into Bin Laden's hands

This article in the Guardian provided me with yet another example of how "ahead of the curve" a lot of bloggers can be. Less than a month ago, I posted a link to a Philosoraptor post in which he argued very much the same thing. Uncanny almost. Julian Borger quotes from the author of a book called "Imperial Hubris" which bitterly attacks Bush administration policy from the perspective of the professional intelligence community. (The author's name is only given as "Anonymous".)
"Anonymous, who published an analysis of al-Qaida last year called Through Our Enemies' Eyes, thinks it quite possible that another devastating strike against the US could come during the election campaign, not with the intention of changing the administration, as was the case in the Madrid bombing, but of keeping the same one in place.
"'I'm very sure they can't have a better administration for them than the one they have now,' he said.
"'One way to keep the Republicans in power is to mount an attack that would rally the country around the president.'"
Philosoraptor, back on 27 May, said:
"The administration has trotted out its newest sophistry. (Well, it’s been floating around for awhile, but it’s suddenly being pushed hard.) It goes like this: the al Qaeda attack on trains in Madrid affected Spanish elections, causing Spain to elect an administration that is softer on terrorism than the previous one. Therefore it is likely that al Qaeda will try to strike in the U.S. before our elections in order to influence our election, specifically by bringing it about that we elect a Democratic Kerry administration that will be softer on terrorism than a Republican Bush administration."
He then followed with his analysis of why the flaw in this idea is that clearly UbL would prefer Bush to any other president, describing how he let al Qaeda escape at Tora Bora to "save troop strength" only to turn around and attack a man whom bin Laden called "a bad Muslim" and who posed nowehere near the threat to the US that al Qaeda did.
"Imagine bin Laden’s relief—and disbelief. To get a sense for it, I suppose you’d have to contemplate something like the following scenario: you have been wounded and cornered, without hope of escape, by a ravenous tiger. You see it approach your for the kill…but, as you prepare to make peace with your maker, the tiger not only turns and runs away, but runs into the next county and eats somebody you really hate. Greater good fortune bin Laden could not have imagined. But, of course, there’s more. Incredibly, we have yet even to mention the worst of it. Not only did the Bush administration let bin Laden escape, not only did they attack and depose his great enemy, not only did they alienate our allies and anger the rest of the world, but on top of it all they galvanized the Muslim world against us and created a recruiting goldmine for al Qaeda. Greater incompetence and a more resounding failure can hardly be imagined."

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