Pakistan captures top al-Qaeda terrorist
One of the top names on the FBI's most wanted terrorists list, Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, has been captured
in central Pakistan today. Ghailini is assumed to have played a leading
role in the terror attack on two US embassies in East-Africa in 1998.
Leftist blogger Joshua Micah Marshall
is fuming that a terrorist is captured during the Democratic party
convention, being absolutely convinced that Bush can make Pakistan
capture top al-Qaeda terrorists on any particular day of the
year at will. Now, I agree that it would be grossly unethical to
do such a thing, and note with some amusement he actually predicted a capture at this time. At least it does away with the alternative criticism,
namely that Bush is incompetent and losing the war on terror. If this recent accusation
is true, Bush has already won the terror war decisively, just waiting for the
perfect time to cash in the prize. Bin Laden's capture will come in
November, two days before the election! PS: So
isn't this timing "suspicious," as the tin foil hat crowd says? Not
really. This is an example of the Texas sharpshooter fallacy
(yes, really!). When
Saddam was captured, there were lots of voices that argued that the
timing was suspicious (every single day would be, since over the last
year Bush has been doing badly in the polls consistently, thus needing
a boost!). Some people argued that Bush had Bin Laden in a
basement somewhere to haul him out just before the election. Now, with
this conspiracy mindset in place, it is no surprise that leftist
commentators are
"predicting" captured terrorists on the few dates known well in
advance: the Democratic convention, the GOP convention, and the
election itself. Since terrorists are captured pretty often — how many
had heard of Ghalani before today?— it is hardly evidence of prophetic
powers to "predict" that one of them would be close to one of the
magical dates. On
the contrary, it can be argued that these
"predictions" are the ultimate cynical ploy to preempt an election
boost for Bush if the US actually captures a top terrorist. There are
only four terrorists "big enough" to make a difference, IMO: Bin Laden
himself, Mullah
Omar (more for his fame than his importance outside Afghanistan),
Al-Zarqawi and Al-Zawahiri. Anyone else will have limited value
politically, no matter how important their capture is in the war on
terror. PS 2: The "NYT" has the real conspiracy scoop today! Thanks Tom.
12:11:12 AM 
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A picture from the torture chamber Uday Hussein had built in the headquarters of the
Iraqi Olympic committee, where he frequently 
