WP: Pakistan Strike Looks Like Failed WH Try for October Surprise

[BurtWorm]

They thought they were going to get Zawahiri or even bin Laden. :eyes:


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/30/AR2006103000176.html

Pakistan Strike Called Response To U.S. Reports
Attack on School That Killed 80 Aimed at Al-Qaeda, Officials Say

By Pamela Constable and Kamran Khan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, October 31, 2006; Page A15

A missile strike that killed close to 80 people at an Islamic school in Pakistan early Monday was launched because of U.S. intelligence reports that senior al-Qaeda figures were hiding there, Pakistani intelligence officials said. The strike generated angry protests by religious and tribal leaders, who accused the government of doing Washington's bidding at the cost of Pakistani lives.

The country's major Islamic party charged that U.S. military planes carried out the attack, which demolished the school, located near the border with Afghanistan. Pakistani and U.S. military officials denied that, saying the raid was the work of Pakistani helicopter gunships and forces, though U.S. intelligence had prompted it.

"This was a training camp, and they had been warned to stop their activities," said Gen. Mahmud Ali Durrani, Pakistan's ambassador in Washington. "They did not pay heed, so they were hit by our gunships and all the people there were killed. There will be a lot of unhappy or misguided people saying we are killing our own people for the sake of the Americans, but we had a commitment to fight terrorism on our soil, and we made a decision."

Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, are widely believed to be hiding in the rugged Afghan-Pakistani border region, home to fiercely independent tribal peoples. Afghan officials also contend that Pakistan's side of the border is serving as a sanctuary for newly aggressive Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan.


...

"What a stupid operation, <BW: My sentiments exactly.> just one day before an accord between the local Taliban and the government. It has killed the entire spirit and the peaceful atmosphere in the tribal areas," said Maulana Fazlur Rehman Khan, who heads one of two major religious parties in parliament. Protesters who turned out in many towns Monday pledged to return to the streets Tuesday.

[BurtWorm]

1. Make that "Miserably failed try"

[tblue]

2. You mean they were waiting to hit OBL to coincide with the election?

In the meantime, Osama's freer than WE are!


I hear those silent, politically timed war drums....

[BurtWorm]

3. Is it just me, or is this an outrage?

:wtf:

[ContraBass Black]

6. What, killing 80 people who may or may not have been guilty

For domestic political benefit doesn't sit well with you?

[BurtWorm]

10. I just wonder what the Waco wackos think of this.

Of course these murder victims were just Muslim Pakistanis, but doesn't it make you wonder if a totally unprovoked attack on unarmed religious students before they're even awake just might be...what's the word...a crime against humanity? I don't know. Maybe it's just me. :shrug:

[elehhhhna]

16. FYI Koresh's compound was closer the Crawford than to Waco.

[JCMach1]

8. 80 teenage boys... the vast majority would be children...

:(

[endarkenment]

13. It was an atrocity. See my other post.

Find a copy of the NYT for today. The picture on the front page tells it all.

[BurtWorm]

24. I'm pessimistic about whether Americans will ever get what this bombing

was about. It's difficult enough to get them to care about anyone who isn't American, whether living or dead. Is it too much to ask of them to care about murdered Islamists? US culture is now building a consensus that Islamists are less human than everyone else. You might say, who can blame Americans for not caring too much whether Islamists live or die after 9-11? But this is a deficit in the American soul. We used to be able to pretend to moral superiority because we had a national culture of tolerance. Those days are over. We can't even pretend anymore. Our intolerance is on our sleeve.

[spanone]

14. Our nation is numb to outrage. I hope this upsets Karls' math.

[KittyWampus]

22. The NYTimes has a devastating photo of the dead-they're all laid out together

in an outdoor area. Each victim laid in their own bed.

[leesa]

4. How well we learn the many lessons of bombing to stop terrorism!

Works every time! Has it EVER worked? ONCE?

[elehhhhna]

18. "I'll kill 100 people a day until y'all CHEER UP!"

[Hubert Flottz]

5. It almost seems like a higher power is out to get BushCo...

Almost!

[JCMach1]

7. That's what Pakistani TV and Al Jazeera have been saying

all day...

CIA was provided the info. for this shot in the dark according to sources within the Pakistani government. Also, it was Pakistani helicopters (15) and US predator drones using Hellfire missiles.

At least one Pakistani government member has resigned because of this.

It also seems very unlikely now that this was anything to deal with terrorists... just an ordinary border school with students 14-19 yo... :(

[krkaufman]

31. Well, "ordinary border school" wouldn't be the best description ...

... if it was, indeed, a madrassa. The madrassas in the mountains of Pakistan are the factories churning-out the minds focused on, and educated solely for, jihad. The schools are not "ordinary" by any measure.

Of course, the fact that they're the springs of radical Islam doesn't mean it is right, moral or intelligent, to bomb them into rubble.

[Nickster]

9. So let me get this straight. These geniuses thought that they could send

intelligence to the Pakistani military and their intelligence service, ISI, the group that harbored and aided Al-Qaeda, and launch a super-secret strike mission that would catch OBL napping? Color me shocked that OBL and his group were no where to be found. Almost as if they had been tipped off to the impending strike.

[spanone]

11. So, they're not above KILLING for votes, how Compassionate.

They would bomb their own RNC headquarters if they thought it would hand them a victory. Shameless criminals.

[malaise]

15. Bingo n/t

[Wednesdays]

21. Hey!

Quit giving them ideas! :(

[endarkenment]

12. See the front page of the NYT

We have committed another atrocity. The dead are laid out in rows and the mouners, in the thousands, surround them. The blowback from this outrage will be enormous.

[Straight Shooter]

17. Remember the totally fabricated OUTRAGE when Clinton bombed a milk factory?

Clinton did, in fact, have faulty intelligence. Remember how the right wing went nuts because he bombed a frickin' milk factory? Of course that wasn't a good thing, but will we even hear a peep from the right wing about this latest atrocity from the bush administration's continuing disaster on the so-called War on Terror?

I doubt it.

[BurtWorm]

23. It was actually Bush I who bombed an Iraqi infant formula factory

during the Gulf War. Clinton bombed a pharmaceutical factory. But your point is still well taken.

[Straight Shooter]

26. That's what I get for consulting a right-wing source.

It seems the right wing has confabulated the milk factory and pharmaceutical factory to the point where their articles point to Clinton as bombing a milk factory. Jeez, I stepped in right-wing slime and didn't even realize it.

Thanks for the correction. :thumbsup:

[BurtWorm]

27. They actually bombed it twice--on two different days.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/longterm/fogofwar/dbasetargets.htm

Look for #39 on this map of targets hit in Baghdad during that war. Why would they hit a baby milk factory TWICE?

I vaguely remember they also misprepresented who hit the milk factory to Congress or to the American people. They claimed Saddam had bombed it, to fortify their propaganda that Saddam was the Devil incarnate.

[Straight Shooter]

28. They also hit the Amiriyah Shelter on Feb. 13. One strike.

"... Bush the Elder's cruise missile blew up the Al-Amiryah shelter in 1991 killing over 400 people gathered inside."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/longterm/fogofwar/dbasetargets.htm

The Shelter is #38, 5 kilometers from the airport, 5 kilometers from the ammo depot, 3 to 4 kilometers from Baghdad radio.

Weren't we supposed to have "smart bombs" back then? 5 kilometers apart, but our bombs hit a shelter and a milk factory, instead of the ammo dump, which was also hit on Feb. 13. The strikes are also oddly scheduled, to my untrained interpretation.

[BurtWorm]

29. kick

[BurtWorm]

30. kick

[krkaufman]

32. You're probably thinking about the "aspirin factory" in Sudan

http://www.cnn.com/US/9808/20/us.strikes.01/

http://www.slate.com/id/2098102/

[Generic Other]

19. They bombed a school?

Well that October Surprise was a dud! What an awful thing to do.

[truth2power]

20. Bet they tortured somebody

to get that info. See how well torture works?

[PATRICK]

25. Cheney's remarks about Iraqi

insurgents trying to influence our elections can just as easily at least but more likely corrected to say that the rebuffed attempts by the administration through puppet intermediary iraqis ADDED to the aggressive forays by US troops that generally try to calm things down before elections is the magic formula for aggravated casualties in October. In fact, had the US not tried to sneakily negotiate a lull
the usual high profile American raids might have indeed put the lid down temporally as it has on several electoral occasions- at the senseless, cynical cost of American soldiers for votes. And increased longterm destabilization of Iraq. So which musing seems more credible, mine or the esteemed fraudulent, inveterate liar, Coup Veep?