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Oct. 28, 2004 Ah, yes indeed, the October Surprise! The Democrats, including the New York Times and CBS, thought they had a good one in the "380 tons" of weapons missing from an ammo dump named, perhaps prophetically, al'QaQaa. But the Democrats stepped in it. Ostensibly, the story was leaked from the UN's weapons inspectors. But I think George W. Bush planted this information for release now. It is a remarkable piece of rope-a-dope, destroying on eenemy, weakening two, and bringing another closer to cooperation. Let me explain. For those of you who have not been paying attention and therefore should not vote, let me recap the situation. A UN official laked info to the Democratic campaign run out of the NY Times and CBS concerning what was essentially an old story, that there was an ammo dump from which munitions were missing. The buildup was that "the UN inspectors had warned us to keep an eye on this site and that the Bush administration had allowed 380 tons of high explosives to be spirited away after the start of the war." The CBS plan was to sit on it until a day or two before the election and spring it on Bush as the October Surprise. However, the NY Times ran with it first, apparently not able to contain their glee. And then subsequent information has shown that the weapons weren't there when our troops arrived and that it appears that Russian special forces troops helped Iraq spirit away the weaons to Syria in the month before the war. It also appears that UN documents noted that Saddam had begun removing the weapons before the war! Meanwhile, before waiting for the actual results of investigation, John Kerry had speeches and TV ads planned to exploit this supposed Bush blunder. And many results of these actions have occurred, all unpleasant for John Kerry. First, he has kicked the political ball back into Bush's court, the court of a wartime president. Second, he has had to admit that Iraq did have massive amounts of weapons and that it was possible to spirit these away to Syria. So just where are the WMD? Third, he has shown himself to be an impulsive opportunist who will do or say anything for his own personal gain. Fourth, the major media have been further revealed to be partisan hacks and unreliable. Take that, NY Times and CBS! Credibility crashing and burning! A corollary is that while shooting themselves in the foot, they are distracted from the domestic issues where Kerry might actually have advantage. And fifth, Russia, already implicated in the oil- for-food scandal, is further revealed as helping Saddam, and now we have a stick and a carrot with which to influence future behavior of the Russians. Hey, George W. Bush, not bad work for a stupid cowboy who doesn't understand international politics! ------------ About the author Brooks A. Mick: 63-yr-old physician, still practicing medicine but retired from the US Army. Write just for the fun of it, but working on novel in the vein of Tom Clancy's politico-military genre. Email: brooks15@cox.net ------------ |
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