Escalation

The Times Square bomber blew it. He failed; he was thwarted, not by law enforcement, but by his own incompetence.

Note what the NY Post reports this morning about the motive behind the failed bombing:

It was payback.

The Connecticut man charged yesterday with the botched Times Square car bombing confessed to trying to slaughter innocent people in retaliation for US drone attacks that wiped out the leadership of his beloved Taliban, The Post has learned.

Admitted terrorist Faisal Shahzad -- who copped to training in explosives in the past year with Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, the leading extremist Islamic group in his native Pakistan -- said he was driven to evil by the slew of deaths among leaders of the terror group, law-enforcement sources revealed yesterday.

Now read what one Congressman and former Democratic presidential candidate had to say two weeks ago about drone attacks in Pakistan:

Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) forcefully criticized President Obama’s drone strikes in Pakistan as inspiring the anti-American sentiments they seek to quell, touching upon a consequence of the policy rarely discussed in the media but well-recognized in the region.

“I do not support the drone attacks,” Kucinich told Raw Story, arguing that they are pushing the United States “into an area of unaccountability that would lead to blowback, where we actually lose friends, where we help inspire anti-American sentiments and fanaticism and radicalism.”

Note the date of Rep. Kucinich's remarks -- April 19, 2010. But there's more from the same report:

President George W. Bush initiated the policy in 2005 with the intention of wiping out spillover militant activity from the Afghanistan war into western Pakistan. The attacks have been used with greater frequency under his successor, according to The Associated Press.

The policy’s unintended consequence of fueling anti-American sentiments is seldom debated, but Pakistani leaders and citizens are acutely aware of the brewing backlash.

“The Pakistan Government and anti-US elements are condemning the US drone attacks as violation of their sovereignty and innocent tribal people being killed,” remarked D. Suba Chandran, deputy director of the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies, in a recent op-ed. “They argue that these attacks result in increasing anti-American feelings and the Taliban gaining local support.” [bold added for emphasis]

But why refer to these news items? What concern is this of Contratimes? Perhaps it's because the media are roaming about like a roaring lion looking for some reason to blame this all on George W. Bush and, well, domestic issues. Maybe in anticipation of this, we get this from The Wall Street Journal:

Faisal Shahzad was losing his Connecticut home to foreclosure, disliked President George W. Bush, and was an almost invisible presence at the American university where he earned two degrees.

Those are some of the details in the still-emerging portrait of the man who authorities say has implicated himself in the botched Times Square bomb plot.

Barack Obama, according to all sources (really), escalated the drone program; it is the current president who has expanded the "War on Terror," going beyond Iraq and Afghanistan and on into Pakistan. But somehow you will see that the failed attack in Times Square will be explained by pointing out Bush's many alleged failures -- "Bush's War" and "Bush's Recession" -- and his aggressive, Texas cowboy rhetoric and posturing. We won't hear anything, at least from the paper of record -- The New York Times -- that Faisal Shahzad "disliked" Barack Obama. 

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