NYTrogate by Joe Everyday

This entire NYTimes article on the missing explosives is a big deal. Lots and lots of people have written and talked about it and the political implications. I’d like to throw my $.02 in, since, you know, that is what blogs are for.

This is the perspective of the everyday Joe on this thing. (by the way, thanks PoliPundit for the name).

1. The NYTimes; CBS among others are in bed with the Kerry campaign. That's why CBS was planning on running the story on Oct 31, and why they both decided to repackage old news, already reported, in an attempt to discredit Bush and influence the election. That is how Kerry was able to speak about it and produce a commercial about it so quickly. The story was in serious trouble before the ink was dry.
-They mislead on the amount of explosives by omitting reference. 380 tons seems like a lot except when it’s compared with the figure 400,000 tons dispersed all over Iraq before the invasion.
-They mislead on the timing of the story, conveniently hiding the fact that the story was 19 month old and already reported.
-They mislead on the responsibility, blaming Bush, when if anyone were to be held responsible on the US side, it would be the troops. Kerry and the press is attacking the very military he wants to lead.
-They mislead on previous reports already in existence. CBS, in previous reports; NBC, with embedded reporters; Fox, all reported on how the weapons were not there when we got there.

Hmmmm.. Maybe Saddam did move the weapons in the 6 months or year of warning that war was coming before we actually attacked. Maybe, since he obviously had the capability to move weapons, money, people, etc out of Iraq, maybe he moved other things out of Iraq. I wonder what else everybody thought was there that we haven’t found.

Hell should be breaking loose because if these explosives could have been moved to a location not found by us yet, than clearly the WMD that EVERYBODY knew were there were also moved to a location that we haven’t found yet.

Maybe our President and our military need to have the ability to execute a war plan in order to provide for the safety of our country, without making those plans public for the scrutiny of the U.N., the US public, the Senate and House and the media. Maybe there is a logical reason for keeping information withheld before action. I know our media needs to know everything that is about to happen before it happens; otherwise, the administration is being ‘secretive’ and ‘dishonest’ or ‘misleading’. I know our public wants a discussion and vote on every military action before we take it, but doesn’t that give a little advantage to our enemies? What if Saddam saw war coming? Let’s say, because we want to appease the UN, the public and the media, we negotiate our war plan in front of television cameras for months before we attack. Do you think maybe Saddam would think to get rid of the incriminating evidence?

Let’s let a criminal know months in advance that we are coming to search their house for evidence. I’m sure that criminal wouldn’t, you know, clean things up a bit. I’m all for freedom of the press and public discussion and discourse. I am also for allowing our elected officials the power to execute operations as they see fit, and that may mean that I don’t get to know everything first.