2008 Woodie Awards
Media questions suicide bombing as assassination attempt
Daniel Black
Issue date: 3/1/07 Section: Opinion
- Page 1 of 1
Something newsworthy happened in Afghanistan this past Tuesday, but it's unclear precisely what. Did a suicide bomber miss his target, or did the American people miss the point?
At 10 a.m. that morning, at the gate of an Air Force base in Bagram, Afghanistan, a suicide bomber killed 23 people; Vice President Dick Cheney was on premise, having spent the night there on account of inclement weather. Depending on whom you ask, the perpetrator's intent, his origin and identity, and other particulars of the occurrence are, to some degree, variable. The consensus I've deduced from looking at several news sources are basically as follows:
An assassination was attempted on our vice president, Dick Cheney; although 23 people were killed, the target of the attack was not harmed. This attempt on Cheney's life was planned and executed by the Taliban. The central Afghani government is unable to satisfactorily maintain security and order within its own borders. The necessity for armed presence in the Middle East is as pressing today as it was over five years ago, and more intensive action must be taken in the global war on terror.
These conclusions are simple enough for all readers to grasp, and if not, they're spelled out in exceptional clarity in practically every article I've read. Appropriate responsive action, then, is an issue on which all will agree. All will agree, that is, that see nothing wrong or contradictory about the evidence as it's been presented.
When considered with a clear and open mind, glaring inconsistencies become difficult to ignore, notwithstanding their flat omission from mainstream news media. That the attack's principal objective was to kill Dick Cheney is, for the majority of correspondents, understood and stands beyond scrutiny; most news sources indicate this in their first sentence. Their proof includes information pulled off of a Taliban website and a quote taken from an anonymous phone call by a self-reported "spokesman" for the Taliban (my what rigorous standards these reporters have). This suggests that one of the preeminent terrorist organizations in the world thought they'd succeed in murdering the second highest U.S. official, the single most influential player in U.S. foreign policy, by detonating a bomb outside the gate of a tightly secured Air Force base, about a mile from where he was located. This chain of reasoning is largely taken for granted, without argument; seldom anyone sees fit to offer alternative explanations.
It is of further interest that it takes the proximity of a high U.S. official to attract media attention toward violence in Afghanistan. A five fold increase in Afghani suicide bombing attacks between 2005 and 2006 could not possibly mean that the concurrence of a bombing at Bagram Air Force Base and the Vice President's presence there was masterminded by the agents of random chance; it simply must be interpreted as another call to arms. Despite a bitter dearth of substantive evidence, various media are in agreement that the only valuable wisdom one can glean from Tuesday's tragedy is that we should continue support for unsustainable campaigns, which are failing their objectives, killing unnumbered masses, and agitating vigorously an already highly unstable and fragile geopolitical house of cards.
At 10 a.m. that morning, at the gate of an Air Force base in Bagram, Afghanistan, a suicide bomber killed 23 people; Vice President Dick Cheney was on premise, having spent the night there on account of inclement weather. Depending on whom you ask, the perpetrator's intent, his origin and identity, and other particulars of the occurrence are, to some degree, variable. The consensus I've deduced from looking at several news sources are basically as follows:
An assassination was attempted on our vice president, Dick Cheney; although 23 people were killed, the target of the attack was not harmed. This attempt on Cheney's life was planned and executed by the Taliban. The central Afghani government is unable to satisfactorily maintain security and order within its own borders. The necessity for armed presence in the Middle East is as pressing today as it was over five years ago, and more intensive action must be taken in the global war on terror.
These conclusions are simple enough for all readers to grasp, and if not, they're spelled out in exceptional clarity in practically every article I've read. Appropriate responsive action, then, is an issue on which all will agree. All will agree, that is, that see nothing wrong or contradictory about the evidence as it's been presented.
When considered with a clear and open mind, glaring inconsistencies become difficult to ignore, notwithstanding their flat omission from mainstream news media. That the attack's principal objective was to kill Dick Cheney is, for the majority of correspondents, understood and stands beyond scrutiny; most news sources indicate this in their first sentence. Their proof includes information pulled off of a Taliban website and a quote taken from an anonymous phone call by a self-reported "spokesman" for the Taliban (my what rigorous standards these reporters have). This suggests that one of the preeminent terrorist organizations in the world thought they'd succeed in murdering the second highest U.S. official, the single most influential player in U.S. foreign policy, by detonating a bomb outside the gate of a tightly secured Air Force base, about a mile from where he was located. This chain of reasoning is largely taken for granted, without argument; seldom anyone sees fit to offer alternative explanations.
It is of further interest that it takes the proximity of a high U.S. official to attract media attention toward violence in Afghanistan. A five fold increase in Afghani suicide bombing attacks between 2005 and 2006 could not possibly mean that the concurrence of a bombing at Bagram Air Force Base and the Vice President's presence there was masterminded by the agents of random chance; it simply must be interpreted as another call to arms. Despite a bitter dearth of substantive evidence, various media are in agreement that the only valuable wisdom one can glean from Tuesday's tragedy is that we should continue support for unsustainable campaigns, which are failing their objectives, killing unnumbered masses, and agitating vigorously an already highly unstable and fragile geopolitical house of cards.
Be the first to comment on this story