Missed Him By That Much. "A bulletproof LandCruiser at high speed bursting out of a tribal compound in Pakistan's South Waziristan region was just the latest infuriating setback in the US's quest to bring down the top of the al-Qa'ida tree. The car, followed by two armoured vehicles and a phalanx of heavily armed militants ... is believed to have contained Ayman al-Zawahiri, right-hand man to Osama bin Laden." ... So he outraced thousands of US forces and their surveillance capability, aircraft and laser-guided missiles by just stepping on the gas? ... Is this a test to see how stupid we are, if we swallow this crap? ... Now if he was driving Pedro's Aston Martin Vanquish, maybe, but a LandCrisuer? ... I see a pattern:

* bin Laden family members and Saudi royal family members secretly flown out of the US by the Bush White House a few days after 9/11.

* The November 2001 Kunduz airlift. Al-Qaeda and Pakistani military advisers are secretly airlifted out of the country by authorization of the US military. (Go here and read all the orange text for November 2001.)

* With OBL surrounded on three sides at Tora Bora, US special forces are not given the order to capture him. They watch as two helicopters descend into his location, take passengers and fly to Pakistan. A first-hand account from a special forces member is here.

* al-Zawahiri.

Plus: "The official merchandise Web site for ... Bush's re-election campaign has sold clothing made in Burma, whose goods were banned by Bush from the US last year to punish its military dictatorship." ... Bush-Cheney clothing made by slave labor in a military dictatorship? Why, I'm shocked! Shocked, I tell you.

Tomorrow: