Yesterday the story came out that in July, George Bush secretly approved orders to allow US Special Forces to carry out ground assaults in Pakistan without informing the Pakistani government. This is a problematic bit of foreign policy, but then Pakistan is a problematic ally. On one hand, it's great to have their support because they're geographically well-positioned for our bases, being close to Afghanistan and Iraq and (shhhhh!) Iran.
On the other hand, they fuckin' hate us. They hate us so much that they forced the one guy in the country who had a nice thing to say about George Bush out of public office. So this stunt isn't likely to make them like us any more. So do we still need their cooperation? Or is Bush kind of running a fire sale here?
I think it's the latter. I think Bush came to the conclusion that Musharraf was never going to give up Bin Laden and decided that he had to go in himself. (The extended commander-in-chief self, of course.) Still you wonder, why now? Why not, say, just AFTER an election? See where I'm going with this?
Bush is doing the party a favor by finally knuckling down and catching Bin Laden. Ideally a couple of weeks before Halloween, to give McCain something to run on. If they already HAVE Bin Laden, I hope he has the smarts and bile to commit suicide while waiting to be presented to us.
It could also be timed this way as a desperate last-ditch attempt to salvage a troubled legacy, but given the way the terror alerts always spiked around elections (or when a distraction was needed) and the timing of Saddam Hussein's trial, this looks like the action of a man who can't be troubled to fight terror unless there are bonus points for Republicans in the deal.
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