Pii's Journal: October Surprise(s)

Let me preface this with two brief points:

• I am growing exceedingly weary with this election cycle.
• This has by far been the dirtiest, most negative presidential campaign of my lifetime, and I doubt it will hold the record for more than 4 years.

Now, I realize that most of the people on Slashdot are either Kerry or Nader supporters, and have liberal leanings. I attribute this primarily to the average age of the Slashdot demographic, which in my estimation, runs from teens to young adults (15 - 26).

I have long been aware of the quote "A young person that isn't a democrat has no heart; an old person that isn't a republican has no brain." Overly generalized perhaps, but I think true for the most part.

For the record, I'm neither a Democrat nor a Republican. I'm a Libertarian, both philisophically, and politically. I voted for Harry Brown in the last election, and I may end up voting for Badnarik in this one (unless it looks like Virginia is in play).

There are a number of reasons not to like President Bush. I am not a supporter, or a fan, by any stretch of the imagination.

If your reasons come down to your personal preferences between the liberal and conservative approach and general philosophy, that's fine, and I hope you go out and vote on Tuesday the same way you always do.

If, however, you've decided to vote against Bush for any of the following reasons:

• Uneccessary war in Iraq
• Bush/Cheney/Powell lied about WMDs
• Saddam Hussein posed no threat
• Alienation of our Foreign Allies
• Failure to adhere to the desires of the UN/World Community

If any or all of those are your reasons not to support this President, there are a couple of news stories that aren't getting a lot of press this week, which should be, and they might have an impact on your decision next Tuesday.

First, the Washington Times is reporting that the 380 tons of high explosives that are missing from an Iraqi ammo depot appear to have been removed from Iraq prior to the US forces invasion. These munitions were moved with the assistance of Russian special forces to Syria, Lebanon, and possibly Iran. In addition the the explosives, components used in the manufacture of chemical weapons may have also been convoyed out with them. In addition to relocating these munitions, Russian forces were also charged with assisting in the destruction of all documentation tying Russia to having provided these munitions to Saddam Hussein and Iraq.

The story can be read here. If it's true, was war in Iraq still the "Wrong War in the Wrong Place at the Wrong Time?" Consider that carefully.

Second, ABCNews has received a video tape from an alleged al Qaeda operative. They turned it over to the CIA and the FBI a couple of days ago so that it could be authenticated, and late last night, it was authenticated. It warns that the next round of attacks will dwarf 9/11, that "the streets will run red with the blood of Americans," and that "America will mourn in silence" because they will be unable to count the many dead.

ABCNews has not reported the story, even though in the past, they've reported about these kind of tapes prior to any kind of government authentication. They claim they don't want to panic people prior to the election. It is equally possible, however, that they don't want people walking into a voting booth with "Terrorism" as the foremost issue in their minds, because if you look at any polling data, you'll see that Bush leads Kerry by a huge margin on the issue of Terrorism.

Information about this story can be found at Drudge, and specifically at this link.

I will conceed readily that the Washington Times is a conservative newspaper, but while you may take issue with their editorial bent, they have never been accused of sloppy reporting, or lying.

Drudge on the other hand is commonly viewed as a Republican shill, but terrorism is not a political issue.

I find ABCNews' actions to be highly irregular. Generally, the battle cry of the press is "the people have a right to know." ABC seems to be saying "the people have no need to know."

I hope these stories find their way into the public consciousness prior to the election, and I hope people can start to realize that the opinions they believe they have formed on their own based on "all" the information, are really the result of having been provded only with the information that can lead to a single conclusion, rather than the whole.

America has been duped.

Stupid mudslinging ads

[nizo]

I think what we should do is if another candidate is pictured or named in your ad, the other candidate should get a short rebuttle at the end of your ad paid for with your nickle. I think that would probably put an end to the this whole crappile of negative ads and perhaps make candidates concentrate on what they stand for instead?

Thanks for the info by the way, but there is no way anything like this would make me vote for Bush. What will he do after the next attack, invade Iran, or some other random countr

Re:Stupid mudslinging ads

[Pii]

If he's actually in Afghanistan, maybe you're right, but that's a pretty big assumption. We have no reason to believe he's in Afghanistan now, and it's very likely that he was not in Afghanistan when we arrived, or that he escaped in the days immediately following our arrival. Our search is confined within that country, so if he's not there, throwing another million troops at the problem isn't going to change the result. (The only time we ever knew where he was for certain was when Sudan offered to pick

Re:Stupid mudslinging ads

[nizo]

See that is the problem, we don't know because we didn't have enough troops on the ground in Afghanistan to check the border area (we are still checking the area right?) If instead of invading Iraq we had put more troops into Afghanistan searching for Bin Laden, we would probably know for sure if he was there or not. Then again this is all moot now.

As far as deciding if Kerry can't defend America based on his past voting, most of those votes were cast before 9/11 right? I would hope a person would change hi

Re:Stupid mudslinging ads

[Pii]

I feel that the Bush administration knew damn well there weren't any WMD and has been lying to the American public since day one, basically using 9/11 as an excuse to terminate the oil contracts that Saadam's regime was planning with Russia/China/Germany (but not us) after the embargos were lifted.

That was the point of my linking the Washington Times article... If it's true, then it proves that Iraq did indeed have all of the makings of chemical weapons.

If the Russians convoyed out all of the materia

Re: October Suprise(s)

[cyranoVR]

Let me preface this comment by writing that I appreciate your thoughtful, introspective approach to these topics. You set a high standard for the Slashdot journal community that I wish a lot of people (including myself) would have the dicipline to maintain.

Missing Explosives
Yesterday, some video tape from an embedded reporter effectively proves that the explosives were still in the bunkers after the US invasion [bloomberg.com]. So there's that.

But what about the satellite images? The Pentagon has conceded that the pho

Re: October Suprise(s)

[Pii]

Fair enough...

And beleive me, I get it. As I mentioned originally, it's not as if I'm a dyed-in-the-wool Bush backer. I didn't vote for him last time, and there's a really good chance I won't be voting for him this time either.

Given America's political realities though, it's a two-horse race, and I'd rather it not be John Kerry.

I'm a fiscal conservative, free-market, small government "mind-your-own-business" guy. I don't think the answer to America's problems lie in new federal agencies, or expensi