Saturday, February 28, 2004
The New York Times reports U.S. Steps Up Hunt for bin Laden. It's entirely possible that he will be caught. A couple of assassination attempts seem to have motivated Musharraf to up the ante in Pakistan's hunt for Al Qaeda. And the US has developed new techniques for hunting individuals down, which have been constantly refined by the effort in Iraq - and paid off decisively with Saddam's apprehension.
I've noticed a tendency among some liberals or folks further left to wring their hands and worry that Bush will present a captured bin Laden as an "October Surprise" of some sort. This is entirely screwy and wrongheaded. One variant is to think that the US has him imprisoned somewhere and that we'll bring him forward at a moment of electoral convenience for Dubya. This belief seems to rest only on thinking the White House villainous enough to do it (and the classic tenet of a conspiracy theorist: the absence of evidence means that the conspiracy is really working). Perhaps worse is the notion that, if bin Laden is seized sometime this spring, summer or fall it would be a bad thing for this country. What an idiotic notion. Rooting for bin Laden to evade capture would be a disgusting way of placing partisan or sectarian preference over national good. I want to see bin Laden captured or killed, period. If it happens during this administration, fine. Maybe it would even allow Democrats to say, "What's next?" - an argument they can win.
I've noticed a tendency among some liberals or folks further left to wring their hands and worry that Bush will present a captured bin Laden as an "October Surprise" of some sort. This is entirely screwy and wrongheaded. One variant is to think that the US has him imprisoned somewhere and that we'll bring him forward at a moment of electoral convenience for Dubya. This belief seems to rest only on thinking the White House villainous enough to do it (and the classic tenet of a conspiracy theorist: the absence of evidence means that the conspiracy is really working). Perhaps worse is the notion that, if bin Laden is seized sometime this spring, summer or fall it would be a bad thing for this country. What an idiotic notion. Rooting for bin Laden to evade capture would be a disgusting way of placing partisan or sectarian preference over national good. I want to see bin Laden captured or killed, period. If it happens during this administration, fine. Maybe it would even allow Democrats to say, "What's next?" - an argument they can win.
