taken from a memo sent to Pakistani Intelligence Officers
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The New Republic has learned that Pakistani security officials have been told they must produce HVTs [high value targets, e.g., Bin Laden] by the election.
-- snip --

... a White House aide told [director of Pakistani intelligence Lt. Gen. Ehsan] ul-Haq last spring that "it would be best if the arrest or killing of [any] HVT were announced on twenty-six, twenty-seven, or twenty-eight July"--the first three days of the Democratic National Convention in Boston.
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Why isn't anyone talking about this stuff? Why does nearly every single important story that actually means something have to come from Independant sources? Why can't the big corporate media actually do it's job and report the news? It's come to the point, where I have little faith in anything that the media actually reports on. If you want the straight scoop these days, you have to go independant, and then hope that they have their information right.

But doesn't this report just sicken you? It does me. First and foremost, this memo makes me think that they could have requested one of these people at an earlier time. Why does the Bush Administration have to put on additional pressures to capture a high level target when it could have been done a long time ago? Isn't the war on terror really about getting this guy and all his cronies? Shouldn't the pressure be on at all times?

But secondly, it just shows that these politicians will stop at nothing to step on the toes of the people across the aisle. The fact that they want to steal the spotlight away from the Democratic National Convention just shows that the Bush administration smells of desperation.

It doesn't really matter though. Bush and crew have so polarized the country, that unity seems like this completely remote thing at the moment.

matt out