IS THIS THE OCTOBER SURPRISE?
The mostly reliable, yet Bush backer Matt Drudge has broken a story slowly being picked up across the country that claims that ABCNews is holding back an exclusive new disturbing Al-Qaeda tape. The tape, which was verified by the CIA and FBI today, has an American-accented voice who claims to be part of the terrorist group. He warns of an attack that will dwarf 9/11 and that "the streets will run with blood," and "America will mourn in silence" because they will be unable to count the number of the dead. The voice further claims on the video that America has brought this on itself for electing George Bush who has made war on Islam by destroying the Taliban and making war on Al Qaeda.

The Washington Post was one of a handful of papers to report the story today. They say that ABC staffers believe that a Bush administration official leaked the story to Internet gossip Matt Drudge as a way of pressuring the network into airing the tape, which would heighten concerns about terrorism in the final week of the president's reelection campaign. They note that whoever gave the information to Drudge had a transcript of the tape.

This is serious stuff. Releasing the video would obviously significantly raise terrorism fears days before the election, likely helping Bush.... which immediately should make everyone suspicious. The quote about this being payback for electing George Bush seems scripted out of Rove's playbook. However, it could also be the worst fears are about to come true... after the election. A horrible punishment of the American people for electing Bush again.

And a story that should be just as massive, that I only learned about because of the beauty of Google news: The Bush Administration knew of the Pakistani AQ Khan's nuclear bomb making ring prior to 9/11 in 2001 and did nothing about it until 2004. In the meantime, in 2001 and 2002, experts believe that Khan's network delivered tens of thousands of gas centrifuge parts that brought North Korea to the threshold of unlimited bomb production. In 2003, the International Atomic Energy Agency reported that Dr Khan was also supplying Iran. So all the while Bush was talking about stopping the spread of WMDs in Iraq, he actually knew about the biggest proliferation disaster in history happening a couple countries to the East.

It is extremely illustrative to note that the US press, following the Administration, seems to bend over backwards to apologize for the Pakistani's - saying that in no way could the military leadership have known about their chief nuclear scientist's activities. The same goes in South Korea, where supposedly rogue scientists have admitted to unauthorized nuclear experiments. But in Iraq

This adds insult to the fact that most of the players in the Khan network, many of whom retain valuable expertise, are free. Khan himself was pardoned by the Pakistani dictator because the father of the country's nuclear program is more popular than he. Many of the businessmen and global contacts have not been tracked down and the US is not allowed access to Khan or his associates to further the investigation.