Gates

by Jeff Huber It sounds like the world's worst army once again took on the world's best army and lived to fight another day. The BBC reports that on September 25 Pakistani forces opened fire on two U.S. helicopters as they crossed the border from Afghanistan. Chief Pakistani military spokesman Major General Athar Abbas said the helicopters had "crossed into our territory in Ghulam Khan area." Pentagon bull feather merchant Bryan Whitman said that, "The flight path of the helicopters at no point took them over Pakistan." General Abbas said, "They passed over our check post so our troops fired warning shots." Bryan Whitman said, "The Pakistanis have to provide us with a better understanding of why this took place." Um, Bryan, they just told you: your helicopter passed over their check post and they fired warning shots at it. What's not to understand? This incident is yet another prime illustration of what America's biggest casualty has been in our woebegone war on terror: the truth. At this point, when presented with a choice of believing a Pentagon spokesman or a tinhorn two-star general of an army that lost every war it fought for a Bananastan country with imaginary borders and brooms don't even have handles, the decision is obvious: the Pentagon guy is lying.

U.S. special forces attacked militants in a Pakistani village near the Afghan border on Wednesday, according to a September 3 New York Times article by Pir Zubair Shah, Eric Schmitt and Jane Perlez. The militants undergo a remarkable transformation in the course of the story. In the headline they're "Militants." In the lead sentence they're "Qaeda militants." Three paragraphs in the bad guys are "Taliban and Al Qaeda." Several paragraphs later they're just "Qaeda" again, then they become just "Taliban," then "Taliban and Qaeda." In the last three paragraphs they're plain old "Taliban" and "Taliban" and "Taliban." I don't buy for a second that all this name changing is merely sloppy writing on the part of NYT reporters. It has all the earmarks of being part of the long term, ongoing information operation designed to give the American public the perception that everyone Mr. Bush attacks in his woebegone war on terror had something to do with 9/11. If "Qaeda" attacked New York and Washington and every A-rab and A-rab wannabe Persian from Iran who we don't like is part of "Qaeda," then every A-rab and A-rab wannabe we don't like is responsible for 9/11.