We heard this on the news last night and couldn’t make any sense out of it. They announce a secret plan to find al Zarkawi? Doesn’t that make it not secret anymore? Should we all just keep quiet about it, and hope nobody blabs?
“Be Vewwy, vewwy quiet. We’re hunting tewwowists!”
Not to belittle anyone’s efforts, or to minimize the potential danger, but what the hell is that broadcast about? If you’ve got a secret effort to find someone, why broadcast it? If you’ve got a well-publicized effort to find him, why call it “Secret”?
I should make it clear that I’m not (yet) blaming anyone in particular for the phrasing. I don’t know if the Army announced that the plan was “secret” or the new did, or even the anchorman. Or maybe there’s a good reason for calling it “secret” – but it sure didn’t make it into the broadcast.
But the bald announcement that there was a “secret” effort to find him was announced on mass communication media last night, without anything to explain the discrepancy, and that bugs me.
Umm, many people (myself included) already have aZ listed as their #1 “October Surprise” terrorist for a long time. I.e., he’s been in custody for a year or more. Note how a very minor figure has been blamed for everything bad all over the globe lately.
There’s a lot of disputes going on now over Iraq. The Army, CIA, FBI, DoD, etc. are all trying to make Someone Else take the blame. At the heart of matters are the “private security forces” (that’s Bush-speak for “mercenaries”) that are behind the troubles at Fallujah, the prisons (note: plural) and who held, interrogated and possibly set up Nick Berg. (When the DoD “confirmed” that aZ killed Nick Berg, my stomach turned. That told me who really did it.)
The Army hates, and then some, the mercenaries. The Army wants the mercenaries exposed and who probably have aZ. This is a “coded message” from The Army to the mercenaries.