War of Attrition
As reported in Newsweek, the Bush administration is testing the waters as to whether the presidential election could be postponed in the case of an al Qaeda attack within the United States.
Followup news reports have cited as precedents/justifications the postponement of the New York City primary following September 11, and the apparent electoral turnaround in Spain in their national elections immediately after the Madrid attacks.
Dealing with the New York City precedent first: if a terrorist strike engenders so profound a state of national chaos that elections cannot proceed without disenfranchising unprecedented numbers of voters, then I guess they have to be postponed on technical grounds.
But American elections have been held during wars (including our Civil War), hurricanes, and civil disturbances. An al Qaeda outrage even in multiple localities is unlikely to cause serious get out the vote disruptions.
We probably have more to fear from Diebold voting machines perverting the election process than we do from al Qaeda.
The second pretext is, of course, the one closest to the hearts of the Bush administration.
Let’s leave aside the barely-veiled insult to the Spanish: that the bombings stampeded them into a hysterical, cowardly rejection of the fine Bush-loving administration that had done such a good job of steering Spain into the Iraq ditch.
I haven’t noticed a lot of buyer’s remorse from Spanish voters since they brought their troops home, dodged Bush administration attempts to force them into the front lines of the effort to subdue al Sadr, and got to enjoy the luxury of observing the Abu Ghraib scandal from the high moral ground of Old Europe instead of from knee and elbow deep in the Iraq quagmire.
But apparently the Bush administration feels that a few days of manly saber rattling by the Aznar - after he got over his hysterical and cowardly attempt to blame the carnage on Basque separatists — would have delivered the right-wing outcome that the Bush version of justice and democracy expects.
So now Bush and company believe that America, if confronted by an odious act of terrorist violence, would sink to the same contemptible level as the Spanish if the elections were not postponed long enough to engineer the insertion of some righteous Republican backbone.
What happened?
The previous assumption was always that Bush, as our self-styled Great Helmsman in the War on Terror, would reap immense political benefits from a foolhardy al Qaeda attack on American soil.
But now, with the shocking discovery that Bush is no longer America’s overwhelming choice as the leader of the war on terror, the GOP is apparently afraid that a terrorist attack might be the last straw for an electorate disgusted with Bush’s disastrous policies in Iraq and at home.
Maybe an al Qaeda attack turns the election into a Kerry landslide.
So if there’s a terrorist attack, Bush is basically asking for a do-over: some extra time to check the polls, push the suitable propaganda buttons, yank the well-stretched chain of the media and Congress, pull a few rabbits out of his hat…
…which brings me to the subject of the “July surprise” scenario described in The New Republic: that the Pakistan government has been subjected to enormous pressure to produce an al Qaeda “HVT” (high value target) end-July to steal Kerry’s thunder at the Democratic convention.
The investigative zeal of the mainstream press has been pretty much exhausted in the frenzy over Abu Ghraib and Ahmed Chalabi, so it’s taking a well-deserved rest instead of jumping on this story.
Here’s a helpful gloss:
Pakistan’s intelligence and military apparatus is riddled with al Qaeda sympathizers and individuals loyal to the Taliban regime they fostered over the decades under U.S. direction.
With this background, the Bush team probably believes that Pakistan already knows where some “HVTs” - High Value Targets — are, either in accessible havens or perhaps even in Pakistani custody.
Call these HVTs Pakistan’s Inventory of the Damned.
By Bush reasoning, what is needed to obtain them is not boring, old-fashioned detective work or applying a little search and destroy elbow grease in the tribal border areas.
Only some ferocious, Rove-style nut twisting is required.
I have this suspicion because of what happened with the announced capture of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
KSM’s apprehension was announced with great fanfare in March 2003, just as Bush was struggling with the humiliating collapse of his attempts to obtain UN endorsement and international support for his invasion of Iraq and needed to solidify American support for what was going to be a defiant, rank slice of Yankee unilateralism.
Khalid was captured in murky circumstances by Pakistani intelligence, perhaps as early as 2002.
Tthe where and when were never pinned down and even then there was a suspicion that the Pakistanis had him on ice all along, until Bush decided to pull that rabbit out his hat for some immediate political advantage. See a detailed analysis at the Center for Cooperative Research website, complete with a panoply of quotes from disbelieving observers about the fortuitous and suspicious emergence of KSM just when GWB needed him the most.
This election year, Bush desperately needs another hit off the War on Terror crackpipe.
So Powell goes over to Pakistan and, Godfather-style, drops a horsehead in Sharif’s bed: the threat that Pakistan gets no F-16s and is no longer our good friend unless it does something meaningful to promote Bush’s election.
I think every Bush buddy is feeling the pressure.
Vladimir Putin obliged our increasingly desperate George by dispensing the highly dubious and politically inert nugget that his intelligence services warned the U.S. that Saddam was planning anti-American attacks post 9/11.
Tony Blair has too many problems of his own right now to try to give George a meaningful boost.
But Pakistan may yet rise to the occasion.
What is interesting to me is that the Pakistani intelligence services leaked the story to The New Republic.
I see it as an advance mea culpa to John Kerry, saying Don’t blame us for what happened at the end of July; Bush made us do it!
So the Pakistanis also think that maybe Kerry can win!
But here’s the point:
If we can cancel an election because al Qaeda is playing politics, then what about the Bush administration playing politics?
Can Kerry ask for an electoral do-over because Bush sprang some bogus October Surprise BS in the last weeks of the campaign?
Of course not.
Either we trust the American people and accept the decisions they make in a time of crisis and the heat of the moment, or we’re not a democracy.
Bush obviously believes we aren’t a democracy.
But come November 2 - and maybe for a few weeks or even months afterwards — we’ll have the opportunity to prove that we are.
Copyright 2004 Peter Lee
Peter Lee is the creator of the anti-war satire and commentary website Halcyon Days. He can be reached at peter@halcyondays.info.
