Close call for Cheney

If the Kossacks HuffPosters appear to be in a pissy mood today - more than usual, I mean - it's probably because their Antichrist survived an attack by the brave Afghan resistance:

A homicide bomber attacked the entrance to the main U.S. military base in Afghanistan Tuesday during a visit by Vice President Dick Cheney, killing at least 14 people and wounding a dozen more. The Taliban claimed responsibility and said Cheney was the target.

Cheney's spokeswoman said he was fine, and the vice president later met with President Hamid Karzai in the capital, Kabul, before leaving the country.

There were conflicting reports on the death toll. Provincial Gov. Abdul Jabar Taqwa said 20 people were killed, while NATO said initial reports indicated three fatalities, including a U.S. soldier, a South Korean coalition soldier and a U.S. government contractor whose nationality wasn't immediately known. NATO said 27 people also were wounded.

[...]

Maj. William Mitchell said it did not appear the explosion was intended as a threat to the vice president. "He wasn't near the site of the explosion," Mitchell said. "He was safely within the base at the time of the explosion."

However, a purported Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousef Ahmadi, said Cheney was the target of the attack.

"We knew that Dick Cheney would be staying inside the base," Ahmadi told AP telephone from an undisclosed location. "The attacker was trying to reach Cheney."

Strictly speaking, doesn't this mean Cheney can't be called a "chickenhawk" anymore?

Damian P.

Update: told ya.

Update II: Mark Steyn:

If [Cheney is] intending to "destroy constitutional government in this country", shouldn’t you get off your big Huff duff and join in, you lazy old armchair insurgent? What are you, a chickenhawk conspiracist? Why should it be left to a few brave patriots to dress up as a bunch of Pushtun goatherds and go liberate America from the Hitlerburton Reich?

[...]

What did you do in the Great War of Liberation, daddy?

I went to Starbucks and left a comment on Arianna’s blog.

I make a similar point on Shire Network News this week, also citing Shaidle's Theorem. (That is, if you genuinely believed your government was carrying out fake terror attacks in order to set up a totalitarian police state, you'd flee the country or take up arms instead of sitting around whining about it.)

Posted by damian at February 27, 2007 09:04 AM