October Surprise

Isn't it funny how the Dimocrats are always ranting about how the Republicans are gonna come up with an "October surprise" to steal the election? This is just another example of what is known in psychology as projection since it's usually the Dimocrats who come up with an "October surprise". Want examples?

Back in 1992 Bush 41 was closing the gap on Clinton when, lo and behold, special prosecutor of the Iran Contra investigation Lawrence Walsh, a Dimocrat, came through and indicted Caspar Weinberger just days before the election. That pretty much sewed up the election for Clinton.

As an example of media bias, Dan Rather throughout the Clinton scandals never failed to identify Kenneth Starr as Republican special prosecutor Kenneth Starr. He never made that distinction with Lawrence Walsh. Media bias? Naaah!

Then, in 2000, just days before the election, news broke that Bush 43 had been convicted of a DWI. For those of you who insist in the belief that Fox News is controlled by the Republican Party, it was Carl Cameron of Fox News who broke the story. Go figger. Without that October surprise, Bush, who was leading in all the polls, would have probably won the popular vote and we would have not had the Florida debacle.

Now we have the aptly named Al-Qaqaa (pronounced al caca) which is turning out to be nothing but caca. Could this be the Dimocrats October surprise for this election? If so, it looks like they shot their wad way too soon.

That bastion of impartial and honest journalism, CBS News (new motto, Fake But Accurate) was planning to break this story the Sunday before the election. Could this have been politically motivated? CBS News? Naaah! Unfortunately for them, leaks abounded and the New York Times (motto, All the news that fits our views) had to break the story earlier than planned. This allowed all the bloggers in pajamas (I'm in sweatpants again) and reliable news organizations (i.e. those organizations that are not propaganda arms of the Dimocrat Party like CBS News and the New York Times) time to investigate the story and find out that it is probably totally bullshit. Premature ejaculation is a bitch isn't it?

We have now heard that the explosives went missing between the last time that the United Nations inspectors saw them and the 101st Airborne arrived. Or we have also heard that it wasn't 380 tons but 3 tons. Or there are satellite photos showing large trucks leaving Al-Qaqaa. Or what?

We've also heard that this was old news. This story dates back to April of last year. Of course, this means nothing to those two bastions of objective journalism the New York Times and CBS News.

Of course the Poodle has to shoot off his mouth about how did all thes WMD's go missing? Wait a minute! I thought there were no WMD's in Iraq. If there were no WMD's how did these WMD's go missing? To a Lurch supporter this makes perfect sense.

I received the following from one of my readers:

Courtesey of Stratfor, a non-partisan intelligence website. The extent the left in this country will go to will never cease to amaze me.

Geopolitical Diary: Wednesday, Oct. 27, 2004

Global media have been reporting ad nauseam about 380 tons of high-grade explosives that have gone missing from Iraq's Al Qaqaa facility, an arms depot sealed by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Specifically, the charge is that U.S. forces, through negligence, allowed the looting of 215 tons of HMX, 156 tons of RDX and 6 tons of PETN explosives.

Normally, this is the sort of thing that makes a Stratfor analyst's hair stand on end. HMX? Tons of it? Missing? In Iraq? This is where we usually hit the panic button.

That was until, after a little bit of poking around, we discovered that the explosives in question did not disappear just this week, but last year. Their absence was not confirmed until several weeks after the fall of Baghdad.

We quickly dialed back. After all, if this were such an old story, certainly it would shrivel up and blow away in short order. But it did not die. If anything, as the hours rolled by, it gathered steam until it began crowding out other far more time-sensitive issues.

The key issue for us -- and we are stunned that this information has not made it into the general discussion of this issue -- is that it is quite possible these explosives were either destroyed or removed before the 2003 Iraq war even began.

The IAEA last visually inspected the materials in January 2003, and although the agency states that it checked the buildings in March 2003 to ensure its seals were still on the buildings, it fully admits to not directly inspecting the explosives at that time.

It is also possible that the U.S. military destroyed the explosives. On April 4, 2003 -- a week before the fall of Baghdad -- U.S. forces reported finding a large quantity of white powder -- initially suspected to be WMD -- at an industrial complex in Latifiyah. When it turned out to be "only" high grade explosives, U.S. forces did what they did with every other arms depot they found: They blew it up. By the way, the Al Qaqaa facility is in -- you guessed it -- Latifiyah. Both RDX and PETN are often stored as white powder.

Details regarding the explicit location of the "powder" that U.S. forces found and destroyed are hardly complete, and the powder is not necessarily the same type or types of explosive, but the point remains that it is rather spurious for this all to be pouring out into the public eye -- and holding it -- some 18 months after the materials supposedly went missing.

There are three leading hypotheses on the explosives' fate.

First, the explosives were removed under the nose of U.S. forces. We find this unlikely if for no reason other than 380 tons of anything requires a bit of effort to move, particularly during wartime when anything that resembles a convoy gets an airstrike. Unsurprisingly, the Bush administration is denouncing this hypothesis for just that reason.

Second, the explosives were removed just before or in the early days of the war before U.S. forces could focus on the area just south of Baghdad. They were then stashed somewhere for later use. This scenario is a bit flimsy because it requires powerful explosives to be in the hands of guerrillas who are not using them. This is clearly the preferred spin of the Kerry campaign.

Third, the bulk of the explosives were removed before U.S. forces thoroughly investigated the area after the fall of Baghdad. In such a scenario the explosives would have either been redirected to military use or relocated someplace beyond the reach of U.S. forces, such as Syria. We are not seeing any discussion about this possibility.

Regardless of what specifically happened to the explosives, the timing of the entire media furor is questionable to say the least. We suspect that it will all die down on or about Nov. 3, the day after it does not matter what actually happened.

Copyrights 2004 - Strategic Forecasting, Inc. All rights reserved.

http://www.stratfor.com

We now have heard that ABC is sitting on a video tape of al Qaeda threatening us with a terrorist attack that will make 9-11 look like a picnic. In the spirit of NBC, which sat on the Lisa Meyers interview with Juanita Brodderick until after the Senate vote on impeachment (Go ahead and tell me if it had been a Republican president NBC would have sat on that interview) ABC is sitting on the tape so "it won't influence the vote". C'mon. Do you really think that if this tape would help Kerry get elected that ABC would not air it? GMAFB!

Exactly when did it happen that the lamestream media decided to put the interests of the Dimocrat Party over that of the interests of the country? OK. I can understand them trying to protect Clinton, but we are now talking about undermining a war. Oh silly me! I forgot. They had no qualms about undermining the Viet Nam War or the Cold War. This is just standard operating procedure.

What really pisses me off is that the evil genius, Karl Rove, does not seem to have an October surprise of his own. I know that a lot of people have been hoping that Bush was gonna produce Osama bin Laden, but that ain't gonna happen. Osama is dead. If they do find him he'll be nailed to the perch. He won't be a Norwegian Blue with beautiful plumage pining for the fiords but a dead terrorist.

C'mon, Osama is dead. If not, this is what he probably looks like now.

Ladies and gentlemen, Osama has left the planet.

Posted by denny at October 28, 2004 09:16 PM