fries with your hvt, mister president?
in june, i talked vaguely about the coming surprises. even earlier, in may, others were talking about july surprises. it seems that while the chain of command in iraq is questionable, afghanistan knows how to deliver on a request.
but that’s just random bloggers talking about wild “left wing conspiracy theories.” is there substance? let’s turn to some “real” journalists (john b. judis, spencer ackerman & massoud ansari)….
July Surprise? [new republic, july 19, 2004 / updated july 29, 2004]But according to this ISI official, a White House aide told ul-Haq last spring that “it would be best if the arrest or killing of [any] HVT [high value targets] were announced on twenty-six, twenty-seven, or twenty-eight July”–the first three days of the Democratic National Convention in Boston.
well, afghanistan almost delivered – instead of the 26-28th of july window, they missed by a day, putting it on kerry nomination acceptance day. but you can’t control the timing of these things. the war on terror is an ongoing effort, operations are continuous, and the capture of crafty terrorist leaders is always a priority.
how you interpret this, of course is going to depend a lot on your personal political leanings. some call it a straw man and even rush had to poke at it – any success in the war on terror is a political move. but then they’ll have to face the question about this person being captured on the 25th, but the capture not announced until the 29th. and that announcement did make interesting news.
in contrast, the saddam capture (that’s another hvt), was reported by fox and announced by the president himself within hours of the capture.
is pakistan supporting the bush administration by delivering a high-value target on schedule, or is pakistan supporting the opposition by playing into a pre-sold conspiracy theory? or is it really just all a coincidence?
sadly, there’s a long trail of breadcrumbs… so i’m pretty sure i didn’t make this whole thing up as some strange dystopian movie script… you couldn’t sell that sort of conspiracy theory to hollywood.