Say What?

According to Power Line, the "terrorists" want the Democrats to come out on top tomorrow. They cite a recent piece by Aaron Klein of World Net Daily in which a number of Islamic terrorists operating in the occupied territories purportedly told Klein that a Democratic victory on Tuesday would signify a huge victory in their campaign against Israel and the West. Not surprisingly, the story isn't as simple as Power Line (or Klein) would have one believe. One of the more underreported revelations found in Ron Suskind's The One Percent Doctrine is the fact that bin Laden's 29 October 2004 pre-election videotape, while ostensibly a denoucement of GWB and an endorsement of Kerry, was actually meant to aid Bush in his reelection bid. According to the CIA,

“Their [the CIA’s] assessments, at day’s end, are a distillate of the kind of secret, internal conversations that the American public [was] not sanctioned to hear: strategic analysis. Today’s conclusion: bin-Laden’s message was clearly designed to assist the President’s reelection.

“At the five o’clock meeting, [deputy CIA director] John McLaughlin opened the issue with the consensus view: ‘Bin-Laden certainly did a nice favor today for the President.’”

McLaughlin’s comment drew nods from CIA officers at the table. Jami Miscik, CIA deputy associate director for intelligence, suggested that the al-Qaeda founder may have come to Bush’s aid because bin-Laden felt threatened by the rise in Iraq of Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi; bin-Laden might have thought his leadership would be diminished if Bush lost the White House and their “eye-to-eye struggle” ended.

But the CIA analysts also felt that bin-Laden might have recognized how Bush’s policies – including the Guantanamo prison camp, the Abu Ghraib scandal and the endless bloodshed in Iraq – were serving al-Qaeda’s strategic goals for recruiting a new generation of jihadists.

“Certainly,” the CIA’s Miscik said, “he would want Bush to keep doing what he’s doing for a few more years,” according to Suskind’s account of the meeting.

As their internal assessment sank in, the CIA analysts drifted into silence, troubled by the implications of their own conclusions. “An ocean of hard truths before them – such as what did it say about U.S. policies that bin-Laden would want Bush reelected – remained untouched,” Suskind wrote.

Posted by Kingston