[DEBATE] : An Afghan 'October surprise'? - New technology used in Iraq and Afghanistan to hunt

[Riaz K Tayob]

An Afghan 'October surprise'?


New technology used in Iraq and Afghanistan to hunt down and kill 
terrorists may inject itself into the presidential race. Tim Rutten

September 13, 2008

Friday, The Times' Greg Miller and Julian E. Barnes reported that the 
United States has escalated its war against Al Qaeda and its Taliban 
allies by "deploying Predator aircraft equipped with sophisticated new 
surveillance systems that were instrumental in crippling the insurgency 
in Iraq."

It's a story whose significance may extend well beyond the benighted 
hills and valleys of Pakistan's violent Pashtun hinterlands and onto the 
hustings of our current presidential campaign. Coupled with Thursday's 
report in the New York Times that President Bush has signed a secret 
order permitting Afghanistan-based U.S. special operations forces to 
cross into Pakistan without Islamabad's permission, the odds of an 
"October surprise" that could influence the general election have risen 
appreciably.

U.S. officials also told The Times that the new surveillance systems 
allow the operators of the unmanned Predators to locate and identify 
individual human targets "even when they are inside buildings. ... The 
technology gives remote pilots a means beyond images from the Predator's 
lens of confirming a target's identity and precise location."

The Times' story confirms the most sensational revelation contained in 
Bob Woodward's new book, "The War Within: A Secret White House History 
2006-2007," which was published this week. Woodward revealed the 
technology's existence but, heeding requests from intelligence 
officials, declined to describe its operations except to say that it had 
allowed U.S. forces to locate and kill decisive numbers of senior Al 
Qaeda operatives and Iraqi insurgents. In what may be the book's most 
controversial claim, Woodward argues that the secret technology and the 
so-called Anbar Awakening -- in which counterinsurgency techniques 
developed by the Marines won over tribal leaders in that crucial 
Sunni-dominated province -- had as much or more to do with stabilizing 
Iraq as the "surge" in U.S. troop numbers.

Beyond the purely military considerations, there are potentially 
significant political implications. First and most obvious is the 
question of the surge's efficacy. The answer matters, particularly to 
John McCain, who has been one of the surge's most resolute supporters. 
If it turns out that it was only one -- and, perhaps, the least 
consequential -- in a confluence of successful American initiatives, 
then McCain could go from steadfast to stubborn in voters' minds.

The real wild card pops up if this new surveillance technology allows 
U.S. forces to find and kill Osama bin Laden. Bush wouldn't be human if 
he didn't desperately want to see the Al Qaeda warlord dealt with before 
inauguration day 2009. Moreover, as Woodward writes, the president 
frequently relishes the death of individual extremists and insurgents in 
a way that even our professional soldiers find striking. Then-American 
commander in Iraq Gen. George W. Casey Jr. "told a colleague in private 
that he had the impression that Bush reflected the 'radical wing of the 
Republican Party that kept saying, "Kill the bastards! Kill the 
bastards! And you'll succeed." ' Since the beginning, the president had 
viewed the war in conventional terms, repeatedly asking how many of the 
various enemies had been captured or killed."

If U.S. special operations forces capture or kill Bin Laden, or if a CIA 
technician pushes a button and puts a Hellfire missile between his eyes, 
Bush will have made good on the vows he made seven years ago to bring 
the Al Qaeda leader to some sort of justice. In the eyes of many who 
supported him over the years, that would allow the president to leave 
office with at least part of his historical reputation intact.

There also are many Republican activists who must hope that an October 
surprise involving Bin Laden would give McCain -- unswerving supporter 
of the war and advocate of a muscular, hard-line foreign policy -- a 
boost by association. At the very least, anything that makes his 
connection to his party's now dismally unpopular president less of a 
stigma helps the GOP candidate.

Still, it's also possible that this particular October surprise might 
also help Barack Obama, at least at the margins, which is where this 
election increasingly looks to be decided. The Democratic nominee, after 
all, opposed going to war in Iraq, in part because it was a distraction 
from the conflict with the Afghan Taliban and Al Qaeda, which had, after 
all, committed the 9/11 atrocities. If a military technology heretofore 
monopolized by operations in Iraq finally brings Bin Laden to answer for 
his crimes, Obama and his supporters can argue that the war in Iraq 
delayed the day of reckoning in Afghanistan.

That's the thing about surprises, no matter what the month: The 
consequences frequently are as unlooked-for as the event.

timothy.rutten at latimes.com Copyright 2008 Los Angeles Times |

This email was cleaned by emailStripper, available for free from 
http://www.papercut.biz/emailStripper.htm