CNN’s Jack Cafferty reported President George Bush has enlisted British special forces in a final attempt to capture Osama Bin Laden before he leaves the White House. Defense and Intelligence sources in Washington and London confirmed that a renewed hunt was on for the leader of the September 11 attacks. One source says: “If President Bush can say he killed Saddam Hussein and captured bin Laden, he can claim to have left the world a safer place.”Is this a way to put a positive end to a failed policy or is this a Republican move to help McCain?
Pres. Bush will get some recognition if he catches Bin Laden and this will boost for McCain's campaign for sure. Just imagine how convenient it will be to capture Bin Laden now. After all these years running after him with no success, Pres. Bush gets serious and captures Bin Laden. He can say that all this time in Afghanistan paid off and now the world is a safer place. After catching Osama the Saudis finally agree to Pres. Bush demands to produce more oil and the economy start runnig up hill again.
There hasn't been much coverage on this and I know it has been a long time since 9/11 but this man is the architec of the biggest mass murder commited in this country, one that was intensivaly cover by the media. The Times Online reported Bush has enlisted British Special Forces in a final attempt to capture Osama Bin Laden before he leaves the White House. This article was a bit more informative but the report was very similar then others. They reported That Special Forces have been taking part in the US-led operations to capture Bin Laden in the wild frontier region of northern Pakistan. It is the first time they have operated across the Afghan border on a regular basis. However, the hunt was “completely sanctioned” by the Pakistani government, according to a UK special forces source. The article also reports the involvement of Predator and Reaper unmanned aerial vehicles fitted with Hellfire missiles that can be used to take out specific terrorist targets. One US intelligence source compared the “growing number of clandestine reconnaissance missions” inside Pakistan with those conducted in Laos and Cambodia at the height of the Vietnam War. This is something the government does not want; any similarities with Vietnam usually create negative public opinion.
It's possible that the media don't want to revive the fears of 9/11 or maybe there is something to it and they are cooperating with the government and they are just keeping it low for now.
The truth is that we have other issues to solve, capturing Bin Laden is not going to make this country safer. We didn't capture Bin Laden before when we had less problems in this country and we are not going to get him now. I personally think this is just an effort by the Republicans to keep voters afraid and confused. Rep. Nancy Pelosi recently pointed out, capturing Bin Laden will not necessarily make America safer because it would come five years too late. Yet, capturing or killing the man responsible for 9/11 should remain a high priority. Fighting Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan where Osama is suppose to be hiding has been very difficult, not only for the troublesome terrain but because the Pakistani Govt has it's own problems and they are very limited in the help they can provide to us. Bin Laden will die in a cave before we get to him, if he didn't die already.
In recent speeches McCain vowed to capture Bin Laden and Obama has promised a stronger military force along the border of Afghanistan-Pakistan border. Honestly, is this going to make a difference? McCain will still support a war that most Americans want out and Obama will still be consider weak in national security.
With the demands to the Saudis for more oil, a promise for a peace treaty between Israelis and Palestinians and now a last push to capture Bin Laden before he leaves office, Pres. Bush seems like he’s last minute Christmas shopping. 215 days left.
http://caffertyfile.blogs.cnn.com/2008/06/16/pres-bush-wants-bin-laden-captured-before-leaving-office/
4 comments:
Interesting, it definitely does seem like a last ditch effort to improve his ratings and boost the Republican party. I guess this just goes to show how much of a game politics is.
This is a very interesting topic, and I think that it is very straight forward and so makes for a good blog post. The major issue though is that you need to relate it in some way to our class or class topics, so the media must be brought in to the post in some way. You cited the Cafferty file through CNN as your source here (you should actually make clear from the beginning when you are talking about the story that this is where you read about it, and link there to the article) and so maybe one of the things that you could address is how heavily this story was covered throughout the rest of the media. The Cafferty file is known more as an opinion segment and a point when viewers weigh in on the news and that also might be interesting to discuss, as to the views of average Americans and why they are brought into news coverage on this question as opposed to others, in your view.
I agree that the capture of Bin Laden will not fix our problems. It will settle the score but it will not boost the economy. Interesting post, I like how you pose the question of who benefits from this situation.
I agree with your cynicism of the Bush administration and at this point who can take anything they say seriously. Your blog is very interesting and the only suggestion I can make is perhaps more of an account in regards to how the traditional media outlets reported this issue.
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