A dissenting view from an anonymous TPM Reader …
I think you can push your logic a step further. Sadly, attacks on US bases, even in Kabul, are far from unusual, and rarely deemed newsworthy – there were 139 suicide bombings last year in Afghanistan, and the number has been rising rapidly. This attacker did nothing to suggest he was attempting to
strike a high-value target – he did not, for example, hurtle himself at a passing convoy or manage to infiltrate a secure area. It’s certainly plausible that, as you suggest, his handlers noticed heightened security or preparations, and decided to time their attack to coincide with whatever might be going on, but there’s not particular reason to believe that. But because a Taliban spokesman was clever enough to link the attack to Cheney, a fairly routine bombing is now a leading story around the world, and the
Taliban has been able to turn a partly thwarted attack (the bomber was forced to detonate his load outside the base) into an enormous propoganda coup. I’d note that coalition forces and Cheney’s security folks seem to have reached this conclusion – if they really thought that the attack was
based on a security breach, they likely would have scrapped the rest of the visit, or at least altered his scheduled itinerary.I actually think this is worth saying loudly. The public tends to rally around leaders, however unpopular, when they are attacked. It’s in the Taliban’s interest to convince the world that they’re well-organized enough to have targeted Cheney, and in Cheney’s interest not to expend too much effort rebutting that claim. But it’s in our national interest not to take the Taliban’s claim seriously in the absence of corroborating evidence – buying into this unsubstatiated claim undermines our efforts to reconstruct
the war-torn country, and bolsters Cheney’s reputation at the very moment he was becoming a laughingstock. Coalition forces were the apparent target this morning, and it is they who deserve our sympathy.
