Propaganda Coup

28 February 2007



Taliban Says It Targeted Vice President Cheney on Afghan Trip

American Vice President Dick Cheney was on a secret visit to Afghanistan when a snow storm stranded him there overnight on Monday. At around 10 am local time yesterday, a suicide bomber struck Bagram Air Force Base where Mr. Cheney spent the night, killing a couple dozen people. A spokesman for the Taliban told the Associated Press by phone, “We knew that Dick Cheney would be staying inside the base. The attacker was trying to reach Cheney.” He didn’t get any closer than the front gates, but it is a propaganda point all the same.

Lieutenant Colonel James E. Bonner, the base operations commander, stated, “We maintain a high-level of security here at all times. Our security measures were in place and the killer never had access to the base. When he realized he would not be able to get onto the base he attacked the local population.”

Major William Mitchell, spokesman at the base, briefed the press saying the vice president “was safely within the base at the time of the explosion.” Commenting on the Taliban claim, he remarked, “"I think it’s a far-fetched allegation. The vice president wasn’t even supposed to be here overnight, so this would have been a surprise to everybody.”

Of course, the major is probably under orders to put a shiny, smiley face on this attack. The Taliban had all night to get an attack together, and there are suicide bomber vests sitting around Afghanistan waiting to be used. Undoubtedly, there was some kind of leak that informed the Taliban of the visit. That means the US military needs to investigate, but most assuredly, it wants to do so quietly.

This attack was not meant to hit the vice president. CNN notes, “The base houses 5,100 US troops and 4,000 other coalition forces and contractors. High security areas within the base are blocked by their own checkpoints.” The plan was to strike near Mr. Cheney and convince the world that the Taliban merely missed. The IRA missed Maggie Thatcher years ago at the Brighton Hotel bombing, but the propaganda value of the near-miss was inestimable. Perhaps if 150,000 US troops weren’t misdeployed in Iraq-Nam, this wouldn’t have occurred. This journal, while totally opposed to Mr. Cheney’s entire political philosophy, wishes him a safe journey home.

© Copyright 2007 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.


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