Candace

Talmadge

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October 27, 2008

Halloween Nightmare: Another Bin Laden Election Surprise

Friday is the spooky holiday. All manner of Halloween ghosties and goblins will be trolling the streets in the annual quest for goodies.

Here’s a late October nightmare for the political neighborhood: Another message from Osama Bin Laden carefully crafted to help one party’s candidate win next Tuesday’s presidential election.

Remember Bin Laden? He’s the mastermind of the September 2001 terrorist attacks. He’s the one President George W. Bush declared the top target – wanted dead or alive – while diverting U.S. military and intelligence resources away from hunting for him to the looming Iraq invasion.

He’s the one Bush let get away.

According to Associated Press, a web site frequented by Al Qaeda partisans is already buzzing about a pre-election terror attack as a way to usher in a John McCain presidency. Translated by SITE Intelligence Corp. in Bethesda, Md., postings to al Hesbah state that McCain is a better choice – for Al Qaeda – because he is more likely to continue the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that are exhausting the U.S. treasury.

A message from Bin Laden himself isn’t all that unlikely, either. Four days before the 2004 presidential election, a videotape of Bin Laden addressing the U.S. public aired on the Al-Jazeera television network. It was quickly translated into English and widely played on U.S. media.

The CIA immediately analyzed bin Laden’s statements and concluded that the tape was designed strategically to help Bush win re-election.

According to Wikipedia, quoting investigative journalist and author Ron Suskind, Deputy CIA director John E. McLaughlin noted at one meeting, "Bin Laden certainly did a nice favor today for the president." The CIA deputy associate director for intelligence reportedly said, "Certainly, he would want Bush to keep doing what he’s doing for a few more years."

Bin Laden wanted Bush to keep doing what he was doing? Our No. 1 terrorist target wanted Bush to stay in office four more years?

That speaks volumes about the Bush/McCain approach to terrorism, and not one word of it is positive. The CIA interpretation of that video received next-to-no media coverage, for obvious reasons.

This election, however, that darn terror card just doesn’t play like it did for Republicans a few short years ago. Voters instead watch their home values tank in the busted housing bubble and their 401(k) plans wither away in the resulting implosion of the financial sector, which is now dragging the rest of the economy into what looks like a prolonged and deep slump.

Even so, it’s not past bin Laden to give political interference another shot. After all, if you were an enterprising terrorist, which party’s presidential offering would you like to have in the White House? The party of the incumbent who downplayed bringing the 9/11 mastermind to justice, and of the contender who vows to continue the Iraq War indefinitely? That would be Bush/McCain and the GOP. Or the party of the candidate who promised: “We will kill bin Laden. We will crush Al-Qaeda. That has to be our biggest national security priority.”? The latter is Democratic aspirant Barack Obama.

Small wonder the Al Qaeda cheering section is already rooting for McCain.

The Iraq War has proved to be Bin Laden’s biggest recruiting tool – along with torture, arbitrary imprisonment at Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, and other locales, CIA rendition, etc. It has also left this nation foundering in an ocean of red ink, its reputation in tatters. Why wouldn’t Bin Laden (or his followers) want the next U.S. president to continue all of these disastrous policies? They do most of his work for him.

My fervent prayer is that any new Bin Laden surprise consists only of a video and not something far worse. But if our top target does toss another missive over the transom, then voters this time must look beyond the surface of his words for what he is actually saying, and who he really supports.

© 2008 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

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