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Campagne Bush rekent op aanslagen
linking#2 - 19.05.2004 16:59
Amerikaanse krant US News and World Report schrijft dat Witte Huis-officials voor de aanloop naar de verkiezingen een "working premise" van terroristische aanslagen hebben, ofwel dat de tactiek voor de herverkiezing van G.W.B. op zulke gebeurtenissen is aangepast... Hold on to your hats, ladies and gentlemen!
 http://info.interactivist.net/article.pl?sid=04/05/18/152234&mode=nested&tid=13
The new Useless News and World Distort has this revealing tidbit:
"Washington Whispers"
US News and World Report, May 24, 2004
From the White House, a nightmare scenario
White House officials say they've got a "working premise" about terrorism and the presidential election: It's going to happen. "We assume," says a top administration official, "an attack will happen leading up to the election." And, he added, "it will happen here."
There are two worst-case scenarios, the official says. The first posits an attack on Washington, possibly the Capitol, which was believed to be the target of the 9/11 jet that crashed in Pennsylvania.
Theory 2: smaller but more frequent attacks in Washington and other major cities leading up to the election. To prepare, the administration has been holding secret antiterrorism drills to make sure top officials know what to do. "There was a sense," says one official involved in the drills, "of mass confusion on 9/11. Now we have a sense of order."
Unclear is the political impact, though most Bushies think the nation would rally around the president. "I can tell you one thing," adds the official sternly, "we won't be like Spain," which tossed its government days after the Madrid train bombings.
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| aanvullingen | | | Who Wins the October Surprise? | jim (on interactivist) - 19.05.2004 17:03
Somebody (I've anonymized them) on a list I frequent offers this comment to the above news brief:
I completely reject the conspiracy theories that claim Washington organized 9/ll or is "planning" or "planning to allow" another one.
I think it is legitimate, however, to ask whether a ruling party and an administration that is in the state of mind described here is likely to be mobilized to capacity to prevent one — even within the inherent limits. Especially an administration that is primarily poised to defend itself in the face of electoral, political, economic, and military setbacks. An administration that imagines that, even if they fail to prevent the attack, it will have the fringe benefit of turning the electoral tide in their favor.
The main reason why new attacks are likely are (1) the difficulties of preventing such attacks in general, superadded to the incompetence and organizational incoherence of this administration, and its predecessors and likely successors; and (2) the fact that the administration is not only far from winning the war in Iraq, but is losing the so-called war against Al Qaeda.
I disagree with Stan Goff that Al Qaeda is basically nonexistent except as a name. I believe they have actual combat forces ready to defend the organization. They had them in Afghanistan, where the fight was quite bitter, and they had them in Pakistan, where the Pakistani government has so far lost the conflict. I think they have tribal links in Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Jordan, and Iraq. I think it is an organization, with a following presenting a particular political line — one which is dangerous to the working people of the world. And it has grown stronger POLITICALLY because of the way the government has used it and its reactionary, antihuman mass killings. Most of Stan Goff's associated points are, however, right on.
The small currents who favor actions of the 9/11 type, along with all other forms of opposition to the US course, are being strengthened today as the administration reels from defeats, exposure, and growing resistance and opposition. Their appeal, though far from massive, was heightened as the "war against terrorism" was revealed clearly as a war against the masses of the Middle East and South Asia.
The item above comes from USNews and World Report, the mass-circulation weekly newsmagazine that is or has been the most supportive of the Bush administration. Although I suspect that this item was not published to help Bush, unless it was to warn them about what this attitude looks like in cold print.
Basically, the official expresses virtual certainty that new attacks will come before the election, creating massive destruction. The official assumes that nothing can be done to prevent the attacks from happening.
But every cloud has a silver lining! "Most Bushies think the nation would rally around the president. 'I can tell you one thing,' adds the official sternly, 'we won't be like Spain,' which tossed its government days after the Madrid train bombings."
This has the ring of a classic Bush-era grossly overconfident miscalculation. The assumption that they will win the election if there is another — tragic, of course — 9/11 is based on two fundamental convictions:
(1) The people of Spain, like the denizens of decadent "old Europe" in general, are gutless cowards. Yes, they have no cojones, they have no cojones today.
And (2), the most important, the one that bureaucrats and politicians recite into the mirror every morning before starting work:
The people of the United States are complete imbeciles.
It would be sad if thousands more died in part because of yet another complacent misreading of the political situation at home and abroad by the Bush administration.
| | Aznar zegt dit ook | Guido - 19.05.2004 17:43
17 mei
" Terrorists will seek to affect the outcome of the U.S. presidential election, as they affected an election in Spain with the Madrid train attacks, the former Spanish prime minister has warned.
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José María Aznar, making his first U.S. visit since voters overturned his conservative party days after the March 11 train bombings, did not say where terrorists were likely to strike, nor did he specify what outcome they would desire in the presidential election, but he described the attempt as a certainty.
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"It's important to realize that the terrorists will do all they can to disrupt the upcoming U.S. election," Aznar said Saturday on the second day of a visit to California. "They are going to do everything in their power to have the United States fail."
http://www.iht.com/articles/520183.html
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