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"July Surprise?" WE NEED TO GET IN FRONT OF THIS

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Bombtrack Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-08-04 03:25 AM
Original message
"July Surprise?" WE NEED TO GET IN FRONT OF THIS
Edited on Thu Jul-08-04 03:27 AM by Bombtrack
E-mail or phone your democratic senators, congressman and state party people. Anyone who might get it through to the Kerry campaign.

Also big liberal groups like Moveon.org and Democracy for America, as well as the big blogs.

Having a political timing for capturing Osama is something that will either sink us(if it works because the dems didn't blast it loud and clear), or sink them, if we expose them in a big way.
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http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20040719&s=aaj071904
PAKISTAN FOR BUSH.
July Surprise?
by John B. Judis, Spencer Ackerman & Massoud Ansari

Late last month, President Bush lost his greatest advantage in his bid for reelection. A poll conducted by ABC News and The Washington Post discovered that challenger John Kerry was running even with the president on the critical question of whom voters trust to handle the war on terrorism. Largely as a result of the deteriorating occupation of Iraq, Bush lost what was, in April, a seemingly prohibitive 21-point advantage on his signature issue. But, even as the president's poll numbers were sliding, his administration was implementing a plan to insure the public's confidence in his hunt for Al Qaeda.

This spring, the administration significantly increased its pressure on Pakistan to kill or capture Osama bin Laden, his deputy, Ayman Al Zawahiri, or the Taliban's Mullah Mohammed Omar, all of whom are believed to be hiding in the lawless tribal areas of Pakistan. A succession of high-level American officials--from outgoing CIA Director George Tenet to Secretary of State Colin Powell to Assistant Secretary of State Christina Rocca to State Department counterterrorism chief Cofer Black to a top CIA South Asia official--have visited Pakistan in recent months to urge General Pervez Musharraf's government to do more in the war on terrorism. In April, Zalmay Khalilzad, the American ambassador to Afghanistan, publicly chided the Pakistanis for providing a "sanctuary" for Al Qaeda and Taliban forces crossing the Afghan border. "The problem has not been solved and needs to be solved, the sooner the better," he said.

This public pressure would be appropriate, even laudable, had it not been accompanied by an unseemly private insistence that the Pakistanis deliver these high-value targets (HVTs) before Americans go to the polls in November. The Bush administration denies it has geared the war on terrorism to the electoral calendar. "Our attitude and actions have been the same since September 11 in terms of getting high-value targets off the street, and that doesn't change because of an election," says National Security Council spokesman Sean McCormack. But The New Republic has learned that Pakistani security officials have been told they must produce HVTs by the election. According to one source in Pakistan's powerful Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), "The Pakistani government is really desperate and wants to flush out bin Laden and his associates after the latest pressures from the U.S. administration to deliver before the U.S. elections." Introducing target dates for Al Qaeda captures is a new twist in U.S.-Pakistani counterterrorism relations--according to a recently departed intelligence official, "no timetables" were discussed in 2002 or 2003--but the November election is apparently bringing a new deadline pressure to the hunt. Another official, this one from the Pakistani Interior Ministry, which is responsible for internal security, explains, "The Musharraf government has a history of rescuing the Bush administration. They now want Musharraf to bail them out when they are facing hard times in the coming elections." (These sources insisted on remaining anonymous. Under Pakistan's Official Secrets Act, an official leaking information to the press can be imprisoned for up to ten years.)

< rest of article snipped > ...
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Killarney Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-08-04 07:01 AM
Response to Original message
1. CNN's Aaron Brown went with it
that's the only one so far, I think.
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fujiyama Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-08-04 07:11 AM
Response to Original message
2. Sy Hersh has an article on it as well
in the New Yorker. I don't have a link to the story but someone else did.
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Bombtrack Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-08-04 11:39 AM
Response to Original message
3. Bump
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quaoar Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-08-04 11:59 AM
Response to Original message
4. A good response
Would be for the Kerry campaign to say, "Well, if that's what it takes to capture OBL, all they had to do was ask and we would have moved our convention up."
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newyawker99 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-08-04 01:11 PM
Response to Reply #4
5. Hi quaoar!!
Welcome to DU!! :toast:
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quaoar Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-08-04 01:26 PM
Response to Reply #5
6. Thanks
Good to be here.
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Padraig18 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-08-04 01:27 PM
Response to Reply #4
7. Welcome to DU, quaoar!
Happy posting!

:hi:
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Name removed Donating Member (0 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-08-04 01:28 PM
Response to Original message
8. Deleted message
Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.
 
Bombtrack Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-08-04 05:12 PM
Response to Original message
9. Does anybody fucking want to respond to the request?
Is anybody going to take action or is DU going to continue to be used for nothing but wasting time?
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demwing Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-08-04 05:32 PM
Response to Reply #9
10. Oh, I think people just want to waste time on DU
Come on.

What kind of a question is that?
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Bombtrack Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jul-10-04 05:24 AM
Response to Reply #10
11. It just sucks
this place has so much wasted potential. We'd have alot more people like Chris Heinz not be afraid to post alot more as well as get this place some national clout if we became more focused, discouraged the looney-bin counterculturalist end times stuff a bit, and committed ourselves to real activism
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mzmolly Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-15-04 01:56 PM
Response to Reply #11
13. I agree Bombtrack, but how do we mobilize?
We really should brainstorm about that. We have an activism section here, but we don't use it?

:shrug:
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Bombtrack Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-15-04 01:33 PM
Response to Original message
12. bump
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mzmolly Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-15-04 03:16 PM
Response to Original message
14. Kick.
:kick:

I have a list of media contacts somewhere. Perhaps we can ask Skinner if we can compile one and pin it? That way we can copy/paste addy's into our email browser and send off emails?
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