What most of the people who comment on this story haven't noticed is that the report was done by the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee Democratic majority staff. It was
done at the request of its chairman. Guess who is the chairman. Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.). As the story notes:
The Massachusetts senator and 2004 Democratic presidential candidate has long argued the Bush administration
missed a chance to get the al-Qaida leader and top deputies when they
were holed up in the forbidding mountainous area of eastern Afghanistan
only three months after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Do you think that there are any partisan motivations in the report?J
Filed under: Uncategorized
Tags: Afghanistan, George W. Bush, John Kerry, Osama bin Laden, Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Tora Bora
Sure, the timing of the report is political. Do you think it would be difficult to find similar cases where political considerations drove events, statements, reports or policy during the Bush years? Surely you are aware that the Clinton impeachment nonsense was purely political. Is this supposed to surprise your readers?
The reason that Kerry has "long argued the Bush administration missed a chance to get the al-Qaida leader and top deputies" is because the Bush administration missed a chance to get the al-Qaida leader and top deputies.
But because you ignore the substance of the report and concentrate on the politics, most people who read your blog post will not know that this is old news.
CNN and USA Today reported on this in March, 2005:
"A document from the U.S. military appears to contradict the Pentagon's previous statements that it does not know whether al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden escaped U.S. forces at Tora Bora in Afghanistan in December 2001. The legal document, which summarizes evidence against a terror suspect in U.S. custody at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, states the prisoner "assisted in the escape of Usama Bin Laden from Tora Bora."
Sources:
http://edition.cnn.com/2005/US/03/24/pentagon.binladen/
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-03-22-bin-laden-report_x.htm
The San Francisco Chronicle told a similar story more than two years earlier, in January, 2003:
"With U.S. forces closing in on him, Osama bin Laden deceived U.S. spy technology and vanished into the mountains that led to Pakistan in late 2001, according to senior Moroccan officials. A Moroccan who was one of bin Laden's longtime bodyguards took possession of the al Qaeda leader's satellite phone on the assumption that U.S. intelligence agencies were monitoring it to get a fix on their position, said the officials, who have interviewed the bodyguard, Abdallah Tabarak."
Source: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/chronicle/a/2003/01/21/MN149833.DTL
Sure, the timing of the report is political. This shouldn't be surprising. Do you think it would be difficult to find similar cases where political considerations drove events and even policy during the Bush years?
But there are no partisan motivations in the substance of the report. What most people who read your blog post will not know is that this is old news. The reason that Kerry has "long argued the Bush administration missed a chance to get the al-Qaida leader and top deputies" is because the Bush administration missed a chance to get the al-Qaida leader and top deputies.
CNN and USA Today reported on this in March, 2005:
"A document from the U.S. military appears to contradict the Pentagon's previous statements that it does not know whether al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden escaped U.S. forces at Tora Bora in Afghanistan in December 2001. The legal document, which summarizes evidence against a terror suspect in U.S. custody at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, states the prisoner "assisted in the escape of Usama Bin Laden from Tora Bora."
Sources:
http://edition.cnn.com/2005/US/03/24/pentagon.binladen/
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-03-22-bin-laden-report_x.htm
The San Francisco Chronicle told a simliar story more than two years earlier, in January, 2003:
"With U.S. forces closing in on him, Osama bin Laden deceived U.S. spy technology and vanished into the mountains that led to Pakistan in late 2001, according to senior Moroccan officials. A Moroccan who was one of bin Laden's longtime bodyguards took possession of the al Qaeda leader's satellite phone on the assumption that U.S. intelligence agencies were monitoring it to get a fix on their position, said the officials, who have interviewed the bodyguard, Abdallah Tabarak."
Source: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/chronicle/a/2003/01/21/MN149833.DTL
Of course, it's old news. I never said that it wasn't. The point is that even though it's old news, Kerry made sure that it was news and the mainstream media gladly obliged by giving it more coverage than it deserved.
There seemed to be an implication in your post that the claims made in the report were not accurate because of some political motivation. Sorry if I inferred something you didn't intend.
Still, I'm not surprised that the mainstream media gave it more coverage than some might think it deserved. After all, they did the same thing with the birthers, death panels, swift boaters, and those claiming that Obama was a Muslim (among other partisan hackery).
A big difference, however, is that in the other cases I listed the media was giving publicity to lies. In the case of the Senate report, the underlying claims are accurate even if the timing was political.