McCain’s Secret Plan to Capture Bin Laden (Updated)
Apparently, John McCain has confided to reporters that he has a secret plan to capture Osama bin Laden.
So Washington Wire was wondering, what does McCain know that President Bush and the Pentagon don’t about how to sweep up America’s most elusive enemy.
“One thing I will not do is telegraph my punches. Osama bin Laden will be the last to know,” he said today while riding on the back of his bus between Florida events. In other words: he’s not telling. Why not share his strategy with the current occupant of the White House? “Because I have my own ideas and it would require implementation of certain policies and procedures that only as the president of the United States can be taken.”
Honestly, when I first read this I thought it was a joke, but that does not seem to be the case. Frankly, this is just absurd posturing on McCain’s part. If he actually had a strategy to capture bin Laden, one would think that all of his “straight talk” about duty and honor would lead him to share this strategy with the folks in charge now.
At any rate, feel free to speculate what the “secret plan” is in the comments below. Personally, I think that Sylvester Stallone’s endorsement of McCain is no coincidence. Clearly, McCain simply plans to hypnotize Stallone into thinking that Stallone really is John Rambo, whereupon Stallone will be dropped into Afghanistan to get bin Laden once and for all.
Any other speculations?
Update (Dave Schuler)
I hope this isn’t taken as undue disrespect for Sen. McCain but all I could think of after reading Alex’s post was the following:
I think the resemblance is startling.
Um, that makes no sense. If Osama is the last to know, then the rest of the world would know before him, wouldn’t that be telegraphing?* If it was a secret strike, wouldn’t Osama be among the first ouside of the planned operation to know? Maybe this was supposed to be along the line of “It will be the last thing he knows”, in which case we don’t need another President screwing up the English language.
Here’s my secret plan: Look for him!
I’ll even give the current administration a hint: He’s not in Iraq (or Iran).
* Seriously, telegraphing? I knew McCain was old and all, but damn man, we have newer technology now.
IF he’s still alive, OBL is stuck in a cave and reduced to communicating with his followers through audio tapes once every six or seven months. He is weak and inconsequential which, in Arab society, is worse than dead for a leader.
But for the sake of argument, let’s ignore the fact that capturing him would then make him a live martyr and a rally point for jhidadists. McCain’s doesn’t think waterboarding should be allowed…so there’s little chance that we’d get any information from OBL. McCain’s also indicated that Gitmo should be closed, so I guess we’d keep OBL in some Federal prison in the states. McCain’s also spoken against the Military Tribunals so OBL would probably get a pro-bono ACLU hot shot to defend him. So even if this wasn’t utter bull$#!+ and he really did succeed in capturing OBL, what would happen? OBL would be in front of Judge Ito, on Court TV, with people in front of the courthouse holding both “Free Mumia” and “Free OBL” signs and might get 10 years and paroled in 3.
Michael:
I LOL-ed.
FH:
Don’t be ridiculous. OBL attacked the most powerful country on earth, killed a few thousand civilians, trashed the economy and he’s still free and pushing air past his teeth. Calling that anything but a huge victory for AQ is disingenuous in the extreme.
They’ve proven that they can hit us with virtual impunity because we’ll over react, raging off like a bull on PCP and completely missing our actual enemies.
“Live martyr” is a contradiction in terms. It is nonsense.
Of course, considering recent reports on their cooperation (or lack of same), we’ll have to invade Pakistan to actually get OBL. Perhaps that’s the surprise McCain’s talking about…
“We’ve replaced John McCain’s promised invasion of Iran with new Mussharraf Crystals. Let’s see if he notices!”
This is campaign noise to me. If I really thought that McCain had a plan to capture OBL and wasn’t sharing it with the current administration it would make me much less likely to vote for him than to not vote for him.
But playing the “what if” speculation game. OBL is most likely in Iran/Afghanistan, Tajikistan/Afghanistan or Iran/Pakistan region. Iran because of security against US action (but the geography is against it being Iran). Pakistan for all the reasons given before. Tajikistan for a lot of the similar reasons as Pakistan including similar geography. So the idea is similar to the surge strategy that large numbers of US troops go in from both sides of the border (pick your border or go to all three). Assuming this is the plan, then I can see that he could have taken this to Bush and Bush passed on it (there are a lot more moving parts in this than capturing OBL), so McCain would have to be president to make the policy changes needed to do this. Of course with out knowing more details of the plan (even assuming I have the broad outline of the plan right), you don’t know if this is as brilliant a strategy as the surge was or couch quarterback fantasy.
Why would McCain waste a good plan on someone that has screwed up everything he has touched. We had a brilliant war in Afghanistan then messed that up by quitting before we were done to attack Iraq. In spite of the good council of his advisers ( like Colin Powell) he messed up the invasion of Iraq so badly that almost five years later just slowing down the growth of the death rate is now considered success. We started with a budget surplus and he cut taxes at the same time he started an expensive war — something no fiscally responsible conservative would ever do — and while you think the cuts was a stimulus, combined with war spending it puts us in the credit bind we are in now; we had to sell the war debt as an investment to China and the Persian Gulf, the mortgage excesses just tagged along for the ride. (BTW didn’t Bush take credit for sub-prime lending in last years “State of the Union†?)
If I had a good plan to get Bin Laden, I wouldn’t waste it on the idiot in the white house either. I would wait for the next guy and hope for the best.
we’ll have to invade Pakistan to actually get OBL. Perhaps that’s the surprise McCain’s talking about…
That’s my guess as well, if “invade” applies to dropping in some Special Forces ninjas.
What if UBL is in the western China or India area? Are we going invade China and/or India? What if our Intel is off that he is in Pakistan? Invade a country and get zip except an international crisis.
Trashed the economy? Nope, it was already heading into a recession when GW took office. What’s amazing is that our economy DIDN’T tank after 9-11. I’ll grant that, if alive, OBL is indeed free…so what? A criminal who’s running from the law is “free” but that doesn’t mean much when he lives looking over his shoulder 24-7.
Riiiight. Virtual impunity…just look at all the attacks on U.S. soil that they pulled off after 9-11. And yes, we overreacted and barely waited months before we retaliated.
I’ll give you one point though. “Living martyr” is indeed a contradiction. I should have said a cause celeb.
Just add gwasses, it wooks more wike Cheney!