Time magazine unveils more details of the atrocity that a group of despicable, subhuman terrorist scumbags planned to carry out “within days” if they hadn’t been thwarted last night:
Senior U.S officials have confirmed to TIME details of the plot that led the secretary to ratchet up the color-coded security alert for British-U.S. flights to an unprecedented red for “Severe.” A total of 24 individuals were arrested in Britain overnight and, says one senior U.S. official who was briefed on the plot, five still remain at large. Their plan was to smuggle the peroxide-based liquid explosive TATP and detonators onto nine different planes from four carriers — British Airways, Continental, United and American — that fly direct routes between the U.K and the U.S. and blow them up mid-air. Intelligence officials estimate that about 2,700 people would have perished, according to the official.
Britain’s MI-5 intelligence service and Scotland Yard had been tracking the plot for several months, but only in the past two weeks had the plotters’ planning begun to crystallize, senior U.S. officials tell TIME. In the two or three days before the arrests, the cell was going operational, and authorities were pressed into action. MI5 and Scotland Yard agents tracked the plotters from the ground, while a knowledgeable American official says U.S. intelligence provided London authorities with intercepts of the group’s communications. Most of the suspects are second or third generation British citizens of Pakistani descent whose families hailed from war-torn Kashmir. U.S. officials believe the 29 members were divided into multiple cells and planned to break into small groups to board the nine planes.
During the past few months the plotters’ attack plans had changed, said Deputy Secretary for Homeland Security Michael Jackson. “There were different data sets about their interests over time that evolved,” he said. It was only in recent days, said Jackson, that the plans began to focus on British-U.S. flights. The plot was “very near execution” but not imminent, Jackson said. “We didn’t pull people off of airplanes.” …
Though the plot has all the hallmarks of an al Qaeda operation, U.S. officials cautioned that there isn’t yet evidence of a direct link between the plotters and the organization’s top leaders. “We’re not convinced this particular operation is connected to the al Qaeda chain of command,” Charles Allen, Chief of Intelligence for the Department of Homeland Security, told reporters on Thursday afternoon. As for whether the attack was being timed for the fifth anniversary of Sept. 11, Allen said he thought the attack would simply be launched when it was ready. “I am a long standing believer that terrorist plotters or planners execute when they have all of the plot together,” said Allen. “We have no evidence this was timed to any particular holiday or special event.” …
With five members of the cell believed to be at large, the threat still looms and intelligence officials are still working to unravel the full extent of the plot. “I don’t believe we know all the dimensions of this plot. Time has to pass to determine that a network was disrupted,” said Allen. Worries another U.S. official: “Plan A has been stopped, but the concern: Is there a Plan B?”
There’s also this, from the Financial Times:
British security officials suspected the innovative use of liquid explosives smuggled on board could have evaded airport detection devices. They said the method of attack, if used to blow up an aircraft over the ocean on a flight from the US to the UK, could potentially have been used repeatedly because its detection would have been all but impossible after the event.
One official said: “We were very lucky to have acquired the intelligence about the modus operandi of the attacks. If we hadn’t got the intelligence, they probably would have succeeded and there would have been little or no forensic evidence showing how they had done it. The modus operandi could have made waves of attacks feasible.�
More here, in excerpts from the British papers, including some conflicting versions of the story:
The Guardian fills out details of the plot, starting with the fact that surveillance allegedly began almost a year ago “on a scale never before undertaken.� Quote:
When the jets were in midair over American cities, they planned to combine the explosives and detonate them using an electric charge from an iPod, the security services believe. [British Airways] flights were among the targets. US officials said the bombers had been seeking to hit New York, Washington, San Francisco, Boston and Los Angeles. Other airlines targeted were thought to be United, American and Continental.
An attack on American cities? Not so fast. That’s not what the Independent is hearing:
The suicide bombers allegedly intended to carry out three “phased� attacks on nine or 10 jets over a period of several months. The plan, it is understood, was to blow up the aircraft over the sea so that investigators would be unable to discover how the explosive - possibly a peroxide-based liquid explosive - was taken through the airport security without being detected.
I read another report about “phasedâ€? attacks this morning, but the phases there were all supposed come on the same day, only an hour apart. [And I read one about “phased” attacks over the course of three days. The fog of war. -ed.] Imagine the terror if three airliners went down over the Atlantic — followed by three more airliners a few weeks later. Followed by three more airliners a few weeks later.
And, to tie together the two stories that have brought my blog so much attention and traffic over the last three days — the Lieberman-Lamont race and the U.K.-U.S. terrorist plot — these idiots are making me really glad I’m no longer a Democrat, as they react with the predictable “it’s a conspiracy” crap.
This is why my problem with the Left is so serious, so deep and abiding. It’s not just about Iraq. It’s about the whole war on terrorism. I sometimes find myself doubting that, but I shouldn’t. THESE PEOPLE DO NOT TAKE THE THREAT OF TERRORISM SERIOUSLY. They simply refuse to understand that we are at war. The notion of such people ever running the country is absolutely terrifying.
Look, I support a healthy skepticism (not to be confused with an unhealthy cynicism) toward the government. Not everything that the White House or Scotland Yard says should be automatically treated as gospel. But you should trust the government unless there is some reason not to. And objectively, there is absolutely nothing — nothing — about today’s developments that even remotely hints at conspiracy, fabrication or exaggeration. The lefties “question the timing,” as always, claiming that there are political circumstances which make today’s announcement oh-so-convenient. Oh, grow up! An argument can always be made that such circumstances exist. (And when your best argument is that the Brits concocted or exaggerated this plot to help Bush distract Americans from… Ned Lamont’s Connecticut Senate primary victory?!?… you may want to reconsider your conspiracy theory. I mean, good lord, are these people completely out of their freaking minds?!?)
Alleging that an ulterior motive could hypothetically exist is not enough. You need to allege facts, or at least poke some serious holes in the official story, if you’re going to claim that the government is lying about something this serious. And every single detail that has emerged strongly suggests that this was a very, very serious plot, and that officials have acted in precisely the manner that they should. There is nothing at all “suspicious” about waiting to reveal a plot until arrests have been made, and in turn, waiting to make arrests until law enforcement believes the moment is right. Indeed, that’s exactly how these investigations should be conducted. But the lefties — and these are mainstream liberal bloggers, not wingnut extremists culled from the depths of the Kos diaries — don’t care about that, because they view George W. Bush as a greater threat than the 29 terrorists who wanted to kill 2,700 innocent civilians for sport. When presented with two alternative explanations for a set of facts — either Bush & Blair and their entire governments are willfully deceiving and manipulating the public in an utterly reprehensible and indefensible manner, or a group of 29 jihadis really did plot to kill several thousand of us — they find the latter less plausible than the former. Un-freaking-believeable.
This has been a watershed week for me. First the Dems purge one of their most honorable, decent, principled members, in the process demonstrating to me that I no longer belong in their party. Then the liberal blogosphere shows its true colors by responding to manifestly the gravest mass terrorism threat since 9/11 with a mixture of juvenile temper tantrum and raving-lunatic conspiracy theory. The next time I hestitate to say that “many liberals don’t take the war on terrorism seriously” because I want to be P.C. and give ‘em the benefit of the doubt and avoid seeming to question anyone’s patriotism, I’ll look back on this day and remember how the Left reacted when the forces of civilization thwarted an attempt by the forces of evil, Islamonihilist terror to commit an unprecedented crime against humanity in the skies over the Atlantic Ocean.
Pathetic.
|
Categories: Terrorism & Homeland Security
|
August 10th, 2006 at 8:26:00 pm
Whatever. None of this would be happening if Bush hadn’t invaded Iraq.
August 10th, 2006 at 8:45:58 pm
The modern war between the Muslim world and western civilization has been going on for decades. Perhaps you are too young to remember who bombed the Marines in Lebanon or who captured hostages in Iran. (not to mention WTC’93, USS Cole, Somalia, yada-yada-yada) If you are over 30, these are familiar names that bring to mind a very old war that was ignored for far too long in our government. More’s the pity, for the enemy gathered strength.
It is naive to blame western civilization for trying to go in and establish a base in this long-standing war in Iraq, which was frankly and demonstrable an easy to topple regime.
The fact that toppling that corrupt regime only exposed to naive-us how difficult this decades-old war is going to be win, is a lesson to pay attention to.
August 10th, 2006 at 8:57:03 pm
I was completely surprised by the scope of the would-be attack. These guys were not fooling around, that’s for sure. British Intelligence deserves all kinds of credit for putting a stop to this.
August 10th, 2006 at 9:21:05 pm
Enter Nun Mouse with some Moonbat shit.
August 10th, 2006 at 9:22:21 pm
Brendan, this a result of the trust gap with the Bush administration. If this was only coming about of the Bush administration I would be of the skeptical probably bogus camp. As it has come out of Scotland Yard and British intelligence, I’m going with skeptical but strong preponderance suggest accuracy and truthfulness. The fact remans that Bush has lied and cried wolf so many times he is simply untrustworthy. The trust gap is a serious problem for any leader that is attempting to lead an entire nation.
August 10th, 2006 at 9:31:04 pm
Or him…
August 10th, 2006 at 10:25:49 pm
So dcl, can you give examples of the crying wolf and the lies? You’re proving Brendan’s point, which is that people like you don’t take this stuff seriously. You’d really believe that this report was bogus if the Bush administration was the only authority reporting it? Wow. You are a nut. What the hell kind of person do you think Bush is to play games like this? Grow up and get real. Try to figure out who the bad guys are.
August 10th, 2006 at 10:42:51 pm
[…] orld daring it to take a swipe at us. Read the whole thing. Then go read why Brendan Loy has just about had enough, thanks. H/T Melissa.
[…]
August 10th, 2006 at 10:46:52 pm
mike and Brendan, have you ever stopped to think for a minute that one can both think terrorism is a serious threat AND so is the current administration? Apparently not from what you are writing.
I was willing to accept that you had legitimate concerns with the democratic party, but honestly Brendan you are begining to sound just as hysterical as some, key word SOME of the liberals on the left. And if you think that SOME vocal bloggers somehow represent the enitrety of a political party then you have completely lost your grip on reality. What am I talking about? how about this:
First the Dems purge one of their most honorable, decent, principled members, in the process demonstrating to me that I no longer belong in their party.
Purge?? PURGE?!? What is this soviet freaking russia? Decent and principled? Perhaps, but if those principles don’t jive with the principles that you have then um, why should they elect him? Becuase YOU like him? Because his principles are YOUR principles? I have tried to say it and others have tried to say it to, and they are people who are on a far different end of the politcal spectrum than I, but you refuse to see it.
Does the Democratic party have legitimate problems from SOME repeat SOME members of the over all group? Your damn right they do, and if they don’t fix some of them the GOP and the Rove/Cheny cadre are going to be able to continue to take advantage of it. And that is a terrible thing for our country.
But if you honestly believe they are PURGING people then you are nuts. Just as nuts at the people who think this is all some Bush plot. I am dissapointed not because I disagre with you about Lieberman, but because you seem to only be able to see the world in blacks and whites, in absolutes ever since his loss. You are smarter than that. We may not agree on all political issues but i have always atleast respected your ability to accept that there are far more than two sides to an issue. Don’t let your dissapointment over libermans loss overshadow an otherwise intelligent and rational mind.
Again I have no problem if you feel that the Dems don’t rightly represent your views on issues any more, but the hyperbole and extremism you seem to be attributing to an entire major party due to the postings of a few in the blogosphere? Does that mean I am right for criticizing the right based on the postings of a few extremeist right bloggers? Should I know regard the words of Falwell, Robertson and Coulter as representative of the entire right? Is that honestly and truely fair? Or should I realize that for every extreme right wing Alasdair there is out there, that there can also be a reasonable and rational Bea?
Again I say, I think you are smarter than this, I think you are better than this, and I hope that once you get over your initial dissapointment with Lieberman’s loss you will realize that while they aren’t perfect that the Democrats aren’t exactly filled with Nun Mouses anymore than the right is filled with Alasdairs.
August 10th, 2006 at 10:53:00 pm
BTW, i think this is a ridiculous argument:
they view George W. Bush as a greater threat than the 29 terrorists who wanted to kill 2,700 innocent civilians for sport
Um yes, if Bush is as bad or close to it as some people think he is then yes he is MORE dangerous than those 29 terrorists. In fact even if you don’t think that Bush is as bad as some think he is, the potential that he has to do damage IF he (or any other president) became that bad is entirely more potent than what a small group of terrorists can do. Now, that doesn’t in any way, shape or form diminish the danger or depravity that these men represent, or what their movement represents to those of us who truly believe in freedom. But one can view two things as viable threats to this country and our freedom. Threats can and will come from both without and within.
The biggest damage that the Neo-Cons have done to this country is getting people to buy in to the idea that there are only two legitimate choices, supporting terrorism or supporting Bush. Don’t give in to that same limited way of thinking yourself, because that is just as big a threat to freedom and democracy as asshole terrorists out to destroy the lives of people who have done them no harm.
August 10th, 2006 at 10:56:05 pm
Oh, and in case i haven’t been clear enough, what these 29 men were planning to do is reprehensible and inexcusable. What the authorities were able to do was laudable and encouraging, hopefully it was done within the limits of the law. Claiming this was a plot by Bush is dangerous without some serious evidence to support it, and those who claim such are doing their party only a diservice. I am no fan of the man or his administration, but without evidence skepticism shouldn’t be trumpeted from the rooftops in such a way that it makes you look like a nut.
August 10th, 2006 at 11:13:01 pm
[…] shoulders and shake you and say, “grow up. Grow UP!” Go read why Brendan Loy has just about had enough, thanks. H/T Melissa. And […]
August 11th, 2006 at 12:15:44 am
David - August 10 @ 10:56 - “hopefully it was done within the limits of the law. “ - I’m not going to try to speak for Brendan or anyone else - and I am going to speak for myself and say If the British authorities entirely trample those individuals’ civil rights and legal rights while preventing them from blowing up civilian airplanes filled with civilian passengers, then *I* am all for it ! - and I hope they take those same individuals before a military tribunal and give them full Geneva Convention rights and execute them as spies and saboteurs …
Blunt enough ? Unambiguous enough ?
August 11th, 2006 at 12:32:48 am
Good on you Alasdair. That’s the response of most sensible people concerned about the safety of their families.
At the beginning of WWII some Republicans disdainfully called it “Mr Roosevelt’s war”. Most eventually realized their asses were targets too.
The left seem a lot slower to cath on.
On that point here’s another sensible person I like to read: http://futurist.typepad.com/my_weblog/
August 11th, 2006 at 12:44:55 am
Mindsurfer - any idea who The Futurist is ? At quick scan, seems to have potential …
August 11th, 2006 at 1:54:58 am
dcl: The fact remans that Bush has lied and cried wolf so many times he is simply untrustworthy.
Rubbish. That’s not a fact nor does it “reman.” Man I have done this dance. This is where we corner the leftist and ask “Give us an example.” Said leftist will undoubtedly bring up WMD’s. We’ll counter with pointing out that the entire world - not just our President - believed Hussein had stockpiles of WMD. As did the Clintonistas and every congressional leftist from before Bush got into office.
We will then ask the leftist for another example - a real one. Having wet his or her self, said leftist will invariably bring up Joe Wilson, yellow cake uranium and Niger. Which only Joe Wilson claimed was untrue and which British intelligence first noted and which the 9/11 Commission gave credence to.
David K: The biggest damage that the Neo-Cons have done to this country is getting people to buy in to the idea that there are only two legitimate choices, supporting terrorism or supporting Bush.
Oh boo hoo. If the shoe fits, wear it. Leftists have been perceived as weak on defense ever since Carter - that’s nothing new. That’s no Rovian ‘Neo-Con’ plot. They’ve worked hard to earn that label. It’s the negative side-effect of having bedded with hippies in the 60s.
Maybe more Americans would consider trusting leftists with defense, except every time they turn on their television or radio, there are the leftists - crowing about killing the Patriot Act, celebrating the leak of classified intelligence programs across the headlines of the leftist press, urging our President to enter into negotiations with terrorists, lamenting our country’s strong alliance with Israel, or breathlessly proclaiming that our troops in Iraq are “beaten and broken” as Jack Murtha has done.
Americans still smell the stink of the ‘global test’ on leftists and they realize that liberals are more concerned with winning a global popularity contest than seriously fighting the War on Terrorism. Hell, if Kerry/Edwards had won the election in ‘04 Iran would already have full nuclear power. How do I know that? Because it’s exactly what that jackass Edwards proposed as a means to appease Iran. That dufus actually urged America to give Iran nuclear power and then see if the Islamofascists could use it responsibly.
Alasdair: If the British authorities entirely trample those individuals’ civil rights and legal rights while preventing them from blowing up civilian airplanes filled with civilian passengers, then *I* am all for it !
Someone get that man a beer and put it on my tab.
August 11th, 2006 at 3:45:27 am
Foiling the Plot
THE WASHINGTON POST has a fascinating article outlining the massive international police and intelligence operation to uncover and thwart a plot to bomb several transatlantic flights. It all began with a tip: In the aftermath of the July 7, 2005,…
August 11th, 2006 at 3:52:39 am
Man, I love reading posts with the words ‘boo-hoo’ in them, they completely, for example, reassure me that American political discussion doesn’t consist of two people shouting at each other ad nauseum with nary a decent point heard or made. *Sigh*
Here’s a Brit with his view on the whole Bush/trust thing, the current state of American politics as he sees it via the internet and regarding this terrorist plot…
First of all the plot…
I’m inclined to believe that this one is true, due to the sheer economic disruption it causes by taking such severe steps as the ones conducted yesterday in the airports. Those who claim its a conspiracy are foolish in this case as the people involved in such an effort are too many to be bought. We’ll be having pen-pushers sifting documentation, police on the ground doing forensics and securing crime scenes, specialised police units doing the hunting and and a big raft of civil officials and politicians minimising economic and travel impact and consider rules and revisions. Amongst this group of thousands, if this was all a tale made up to… erm, do what exactly? … it would be impossible to keep it a secret.
This is too far removed from those early vague statements in the Bush administration post 9/11 of dirty bomb threats, oscillating threat warnings and hysterical ‘it could be a mushroom cloud over New York next time’! (Indeed it could, but that’s your job to stop it. Please stop trying to make us live in fear over something we can’t prevent and the government can, especially when there’s no evidence to back this…)
This is different though. These are concrete arrests and a massive investigation, not just glib statements. Clearly not a conspiracy, and anyone who says that is clearly a little removed from logical reasoning. So I agree with Brendan on this point.
It’s clearly an awful, evil scheme that could have killed several thousand people over several weeks. If bending the laws to stop it was required, then it was right to do so in the last stages, if breaking law is required to secure conviction then I’m against it - it only encourages sloppy intelligence work and snowballs into innocents being arrested. However, unconvicted suspects can rightly be expected to have an eye kept on them for a long, long time.
So I agree with Brendan on these points.
“Hurrah!” - Brendan.
But I disagree with him on others.
“Kill him.” - Brendan
I do have a huge issue of trust with the neocons. This is over four main issues…
1: The debasement of political discussion: Stupid soundbites, Clearwater, absolutist views (”with us or against us”) and scare-mongering. I’m certainly glad that the Democrats see sense and relying on Michael Moore with his stupid soundbites, absolutist… no, hold on. (Read Noam Chomsky, if you read Michael Moore or watch him outside of his TV Nation/corporate crime stuff, you deserve to be punched. What happened to the Corporate stuff Mike? You were good on that!)
Now political discussion is ‘evil neocon!’, ‘bleeding heart liberal!’ and thus nothing is ever actually debated, opposing points are considered invalid because of source and we all skitter-slide to the two minutes hate of George Orwell manifested in Talk Radio rant tracks. Hurrah for people being stupid!
2: The entire lack of forward planning for Iraq. ‘America doesn’t do insurgencies’, were the words spoken by the government and the military in the run up. General Franks had a superb scheme for overthrowing Saddam, but none at all for the aftermath. It was all crippled by hideous wishful thinking caused by the age-old American problem of automatically believing exiles who have everything to gain by painting a rosy picture. Munitions unsecured, the general Iraqi army casually disbanded, hospitals and infrastructure neglected by lack of guards a the infamous ‘mission completed’ statement were all part of a gross mismanagement born of wishful thinking. The continuing lack of counting civilian dead in war also angers me, though alas I’ve yet to see one invading army to do it. This ‘we screwed up in Iraq’ is my biggest bugbear. Why can’t they admit it? (Apart from obvious, y’know, political reasons)
3: Global warming. It’s happening already - not in the mad ‘Day After Tomorrow’ way, but in the insidious climate change way. It’s happy slappy J G Ballard time. Hurrah!
4: They elected a stupid moustache in John Bolton. Look at that moustache! Man, is he stupid or what?
5: Rendition and Guantanemo.
6: Just how many friends have Cheney and Rumsfeld got that they can give contracts to, anyhow? Isn’t this a bit… y’know, dodgy?
That’s a bit of why I’m so fecked off. Of course, the Democrats seemingly being a bit useless doesn’t help either. I’m always amused by the way at people saying ‘the American left’ while at the same time going, “Yay! Go the Brit Labour Party!” (Which is centre left) There is no American left. There’s right and centre when it comes to your parties.
Yours rather depressed, despite hearing he’s got a nice new job today.
Pete
P.S: Lots of kudos to British, Pakistani and American intelligence for helping stop this atrocity, which it almost certainly would have been, and bags of thanks to the ground-troopers of the UK police who are working round the clock on this. Give ‘em a big hand folks.
August 11th, 2006 at 3:55:42 am
Pete says:
“Gosh, I certainly hope no-one will notice me stating ‘four main points’ and then writing six, or me using the words neo-con’s glibly after a big rant stating how I hate such absolutist words being bandied about.”
….
“Aieee!” - He added.
(Brendan! Get a modify button, somehow, please! :D)
August 11th, 2006 at 5:30:04 am
It’s one thing worrying about the hidden hand of the terrorists — but many left-leaning blogs today are absolutely teeming with lunatic conspiracy theorists. The Islamists have spelt it out to us over and over again. Their list of grievances is endless and it includes the reconquest of Spain, just for starters.
There was no Afghan war or Iraq war when the planes hit their targets on 9/11. Bin Laden’s complaints related entirely to matters that were festering on Clinton’s watch. Bush, who it must be remembered had been an isolationist with no interest in foreign adventures, was left to scratch his head, try to find a way to clean up the mess and reassure the public.
I think he did a pretty good job at that stage, however I don’t believe Iraq was the centre of the problem: Saudi and Pakistan are the heartlands of jihad.
Bush failed in the post-war administration of Iraq. It seems forward planning had been totally lacking. That is where I part company with the prosecution of the WOT. Many billions spent shoring up the weak Iraqi government that emerged could have been put towards a massive effort to gather counter-terror intelligence on the ground in the Middle East.
In the meantime, thank God the latest plot was thwarted. Eventually one will succeed and what will the loony left say? It’s all our fault. I despair at the stupidity, malice and ignorance that seems to propel these people.
August 11th, 2006 at 5:56:44 am
David -
The choices between supporting Bush or supporting terrorism is not something the neo-cons did, its what the democrats and the radical left have done. Because they have portrayed themselves as people unconcerned about fighting the War on Terror, considering it a law enforcement issue, complaining about why we don’t negotiate with fanatical killers, and are far more concerned what one groups hatred of the US says about the US.
This is not hyperbole, these are exact positions. Why do you think some moderates are pissed off about the whole Lieberman thing? Because he is a democrat who took the War on Terror seriously. But because he did, the Left tarred him as in Bush’s pocket.
The Left’s argument is that its either you being Bush’s lackey or you’re anti-war.
Neo-cons didn’t do that.
August 11th, 2006 at 6:04:30 am
As for trusting Bush, I can understand if you think a press release from the White House is bullshit. Or if he makes a speech on whatever topic is bunk or anything else directly from him. You don’t trust him and think he is lying his ass off.
dcl:
“If this was only coming about of the Bush administration I would be of the skeptical probably bogus camp.”
With that statement, your not only suggesting that Bush would be lying, but the CIA, TSA, Airport Personnel, FBI, and State Department as well, as they would all be saying the same thing. See where I’m getting at?
Your distrust of BUSH is leading you to think anything from the GOVERNMENT are lies. There are people in the CIA, DOJ, NSA, etc. leaking shit all over the place about Bush’s policies, etc. Do you really think your being skeptical or overly cynical?
I don’t trust Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid as far as I could kick them, but if the Congressional Committees they are on release statements, I’m not going to immediately think the statements are bullshit just because those two are on them.
August 11th, 2006 at 6:55:51 am
Partisan Putz Says: “Whatever. None of this would be happening if Bush hadn’t invaded Iraq.”
So true. And 9/11 never would have happened if Bush wasn’t going to invade Iraq a year and a half later.
Insert rolling eye emoticon here.
August 11th, 2006 at 6:56:34 am
Peter:
As far as Americans taking this threat seriously . . . you have to remember, they aren’t getting the same level of inconvience as you are. While I agree that it is ridiculous to say this was a Bush plot to distract Americans from Lieberman losing, we aren’t trying to fly in England - besides making sure we remember to keep the bottled water at home, we’re not being inconvienced more than normal.
The terror tips hotline has begun gracing the billboards in Maryland again, though. I’m always entertained by that.
August 11th, 2006 at 7:00:26 am
I give up lunatic partisan intellectually dishonest hacks all. Shall we turn the question on it’s head? When has Bush told the American people the unvarnished truth? When have they not tried to obfuscate and cover up? When have they not attempted to play any situation to it’s best political advantage purely for their own purposes?
Further, it doesn’t even matter if you agree that Bush is a liar or not. The fact is about half the country does. And you can’t fight a flipping war when half the country thinks the leader is a lying horse’s ass. If you can’t get that concept through your head then this whole discussion is a waist of time. There is just no why around it. It is all opinion in this case you can argue and apologize for the guys mistakes until you are blue in the face because it doesn’t matter weather or not you are right or wrong on the merits, what matters is what people believe. It is very simple, with a trust gap as large as Bush’s you can’t lead. And that’s really all there is too it.
Scotland Yard, on the other hand, does not have a major trust gap. And neither does the NYPD.
August 11th, 2006 at 7:09:57 am
Despite the fact that these extremists are out of line and we need to protect ourselves against them, I think we also need to understand that American policies have been strongly provoking these psychos as well. Understanding that doesn’t mean that we have to “let the terrorists win” or make extreme concessions to stop terrorism, but understanding that will help us fill up the picture and give us an understanding of why terrorism is happening.
My line has always been that someone getting murdered is one of the most horrible things that could possibly happen. I’ve also always thought that an innocent person being killed by the government or going to jail for life is even worse. Quoting far left conspiracy theories and then equating those views with the left netroots movement is a pretty shallow and predictable tactic.
This was no conspiracy and Scotland Yard did some great work. Lets just hope the neocons don’t try to use this to further their own political agenda, and try and scare people by essentially saying “vote republican or terrorists will attack us and we’ll all have to convert to islam”.
August 11th, 2006 at 7:26:54 am
First things first: the plot sounds credible. MI-5 has, at the very least, shared quite a bit of information, which for the general public should more or less substantiate the plot’s credibilit.
Second things second: Brendan Loy, you have completely gone over to the dark side with this classic quote:
Alleging that an ulterior motive could hypothetically exist is not enough. You need to allege facts
Actually, this is America, a nation whose greatness, before it descended into madness, was predicated on precisely the opposite of your statement above.
The single biggest reason why you had the unbelievable good luck of being born into the greatest nation in history is:
The Burden of Proof is on ‘The Man’.
No longer though. Remember that famous quote from that evil Fahrenheit 911 where Bush was overheard saying “Dictatorship is easier”?
It won’t be long, Dumbya, it won’t be long.
Third things third. It is ASTONISHING that the Bushophiles point to THIS PARTICULAR INCIDENT as evidence that the Bush response to the WOT is either a) correct or b) better than what his opponents could muster.
You people have lost your minds.
This plot, this grave attempt to take 2,700 lives was deterred how?
Apparently, by excellent intelligence work.
How’s that American intelligence community, Bush-lovers?
How about those 9/11 recommendations for making our intelligence services stronger?
All those heads that rolled after 9/11? How many again?
Neocons: what’s your feeling about intelligence gathering generally?
Stuff like, getting into bed with your enemies to uncover hidden threats? Stuff like, maintaining and nourishing networks to root out terrorism?
Stuff like, well, anything like Kissingerian real-politik?
You fucking hate it. You fucking disdain it. Don’t even pretend for a second that you don’t. The first page of the neocon bible says “If you have a problem with any nation/group, simply bomb the crap out of them and everything will be fine”.
Yeah, the particular type of WOT that saved those 2,700 souls is the one that neocons utterly disdain.
But they point to yesterday’s events as evidence that Bush’s approach is working.
Fucking clueless.
August 11th, 2006 at 7:37:13 am
Jazz, excellent post and pretty close to 100% correct. I really hope people are able to see the big picture here.
August 11th, 2006 at 7:43:41 am
Apparently MI-5 discovered the plot due to a tip from a Muslim who is
a) connected to the Islamofascist community, but
b) somewhat sympathetic to the suffering of Britons, particularly last summer.
Such folks are silver and gold, right? This particular one likely saved thousands of lives!
How do you develop such priceless resources, neocons?
(Putting on my neocon hat)
*uh, you bomb their village*
August 11th, 2006 at 7:53:49 am
Further:
Karl Rove, the spiritual leader of neoconnery, was quite vocal about how important it is to be *tough!* on terror, that there is no place for conversation, negotiation, psycho-babble, blah, blah, blah.
Gotta. use. bombs.
I sure hope that this informant, who out of concern for Britain saved maybe 3,000 lives, gets the living shit kicked out of him by MI-5 when they are through with him.
Anything less would be shameful and mealy mouthed to King Karl.
In fact, perhaps the Neocon regulars on this blog can start a petition, that if the guy who spoiled the plot, and saved thousands of our lives, is not summarily tortured for being involved with the “Islamofascists” -
- then the US should invade Britain for being terrorist sympathizers.
Think on it awhile neocons. You’ll come to see the merits of the idea.
August 11th, 2006 at 7:57:21 am
Jazz,
The thing is campaigns like the war in iraq and the isreali bombing of Lebanon, alienate the grass roots Muslim communities against the west and such tips like the ones that stopped this terror attack will be rarer and harder to come by.
I think in addition to strong security, we need to fight another battle, a public relations battle to try and stem this anti-US sentiment among grass roots moderate muslims, to prevent them from becoming extremist muslims. Trying to only “kill all the terrorists/catch the bad guys” is a poor strategy since it will just lead to more grass roots resentment and two more terrorists propping up for each one that we kill.
August 11th, 2006 at 8:11:14 am
Jazz -
Ah, so because you hate neo-cons, you can now speak from them in effigy and know exactly what they think. Oh, they’ can’t speak for themselves, You have dictated their beliefs. Suuure.
You need to calm down. For first off:
a) When was the last terrorist attack in the US? Oh, yeah, 9/11. Are you about to tell me nobody has tried SINCE then?
b)Time - “MI5 and Scotland Yard agents tracked the plotters from the ground, while a knowledgeable American official says U.S. intelligence provided London authorities with intercepts of the group’s communications.”
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1225453,00.html
c) Who are the fucking people revealing intelligence programs like the NSA monitoring and the SWIFT program? It isn’t neocons. And who is pushing for prosecution of those leaks of PROVEN EFFECTIVE programs? It isn’t democrats.
d)9-11 Commission Recommendation for Intelligence: A Czar. Some recommendation.
e) “Stuff like, getting into bed with your enemies to uncover hidden threats? Stuff like, maintaining and nourishing networks to root out terrorism?
Stuff like, well, anything like Kissingerian real-politik?” Sounds good to me.
f) Can I point out Jazz, that despite the extremely brave and honorable man who delivered the tip, the men who PLOTTED the attack were Britons. How do you cultivate that?
http://pewglobal.org/reports/display.php?ReportID=254
g)”The Burden of Proof is on ‘The Man’.”
To be paired with that phrase most defense lawyers like you to ignore, ‘beyond ‘REASONABLE’ doubt’.
August 11th, 2006 at 8:18:01 am
Jazz -
Now your just being an idiot. At WHAT GODDAMN POINT has Al-Qaeda wanted to negotiate? At What point didn’t they call for the complete destruction of the US and Israel? And what about when CLINTON was in office? They were singing the SAME EXACT STORY then too. When bombs weren’t flying except for the ones they drove into embassies and the WTC.
And AGAIN, the terrorists plotting this attack in England were HOMEGROWN. So on one side, you have a brave man who was suspicious of someone he knew, to 29 men who were determined to die so they could kill approx. 2,700 people.
And again, go check out the Pew poll champ. Hardly is the British muslim community infatuated with scones and tea.
“- then the US should invade Britain for being terrorist sympathizers.”
Did Britan HARBOR terrorists? Um no. Strawman.
August 11th, 2006 at 8:22:20 am
I’d love to debate all this, but I’m off to a country manor where a friend of mine teaches latin to Chinese students. Since it’s holiday time, both of us and ten others get run of the place while it’s free! This place is like Hogwarts, add on drink, music, tennis, pool and being eccentric - a grand time should be had by all.
Hurrah!
Have a nice weekend you lot. (Starts Mexican wave for UK intelligence & Police services…)
August 11th, 2006 at 8:28:02 am
Peter -
Pity, I really liked your posts. But I thought Bolton’s mustache was very british in appearance. Would it be better if he had handlebars?
August 11th, 2006 at 8:37:37 am
Saying the left-wing conspiracy extremists speak for all Democrats is like saying all Republicans agree with Pat Robertson that the U.S. should assassinate Hugo Chavez. There are loons in both parties.
August 11th, 2006 at 8:38:34 am
“Whatever. None of this would be happening if Bush hadn’t invaded Iraq.”
Partisan Putz - You should be emphasizing the RNC line - this kind of thing isn’t happening because we are in Iraq.
Heh.
August 11th, 2006 at 8:46:43 am
Here is an interesting article about the tracking of the terrorists. It is interesting to note that Scotland Yard moved in when it did because of Iran’s talk about August 22nd….
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,20097656-910,00.html
August 11th, 2006 at 8:49:30 am
TIA Daily • August 10, 2006
Five Minutes to Midnight
The War Is Coming, No Matter How Hard We Try to Evade It
by Robert Tracinski
I have noticed a recent trend in war commentary, starting a few weeks after the beginning of the current conflict in Lebanon. The trend began with a series of analogies between recent events and the events of the 1930s, leading up to World War II.
In the August 2 Washington Times, for example, Kenneth Timmerman referred to the Lebanon War as “Islamofascism’s 1936.” Just as the Spanish Civil War that began in that year was a preview of World War IIâ€â€?the 1937 bombing of Guernica was Hermann Goering’s test of the ability of aerial bombing to destroy citiesâ€â€?so Timmerman argues that the Lebanon War is a preview of a larger conflict: “Iran…is testing the international community’s response, as it prepares for a future war.” (Jack Wakeland made a similar point in the July 19 edition of TIA Daily.)
For others on the pro-war right, the preferred analogy is 1938, the year in which Western appeasement of Hitler emboldened him to further attacks. That year’s Munich Agreementâ€â€?the “diplomatic solution” to a German-fomented crisis in Czechoslovakia, abandoned Czechoslovakia to Hitler in exchange for promises that British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain claimed would guarantee “peace for our time.” On August 7, the headline of a Washington Times editorial asked: is the Bush administration’s proposed diplomatic solution for Lebanon an attempt to secure “Peace in Our Time?”
Over at National Review Online, Jonah Goldberg picks 1939, wondering if Israel will fall to a Sunni-Shiite pact, just as Poland fell to a Nazi-Soviet pact, while John Batchelor, writing in the New York Sun, is more ecumenical, citing analogies to 1936, 1938, 1939, and even America in 1941.
British commentator David Pryce-Jones, in his blog at National Review Online, sums up the general sense of things:
“I have often wondered what it would have been like to live through the Thirties. How would I have reacted to the annual Nuremberg Party rallies, the rants against the Jews, and Hitler’s foreign adventures which the democracies did nothing to oppose, the occupation of the Rhineland and Austria, Nazi support for Franco in the Spanish civil war, and the rest of it. Appeasement was then considered wise, and has only become a dirty word with hindsight….
“Now Iran is embarked on foreign adventures in Iraq and Syria and Lebanon. It is engaged on all-out armament programs, and is evidently hard at work developing the nuclear weapon that will give it a dimension of power that Hitler did not have…. Appeasement is again considered wise.”
What these commentators are picking up is not an exact parallel to any one event of the 1930s�hence their scattershot of historical analogies. Instead, what they are picking up is a sense of the overall direction of world events: we are clearly headed toward a much larger, bloodier conflict in the Middle East, but no one in the West wants to acknowledge it, prepare for it, or begin to fight it.
The phrase that best captures this sense of foreboding struck me in a long and interesting account of wartime Israel by Bernard-Henri Levy:
“Zivit Seri is a tiny woman, a mother, who speaks with clumsy, defenseless gestures as she guides me through the destroyed buildings of Bat Galimâ€â€?literally “daughter of the waves,â€? the Haifa neighborhood that has suffered most from the shellings. The problem, she explains, is not just the people killed: Israel is used to that. It’s not even the fact that here the enemy is aiming not at military objectives but deliberately at civilian targetsâ€â€?that, too, is no surprise. No, the problem, the real one, is that these incoming rockets make us see what will happen on the dayâ€â€?not necessarily far offâ€â€?when the rockets are ones with new capabilities: first, they will become more accurate and be able to threaten, for example, the petrochemical facilities you see there, on the harbor, down below; second, they may come equipped with chemical weapons that can create a desolation compared with which Chernobyl and Sept. 11 together will seem like a mild prelude.
“For that, in fact, is the situation. As seen from Haifa, this is what is at stake in the operation in southern Lebanon. Israel did not go to war because its borders had been violated. It did not send its planes over southern Lebanon for the pleasure of punishing a country that permitted Hezbollah to construct its state-within-a-state. It reacted with such vigor because the Iranian President Ahmadinejad’s call for Israel to be wiped off the map and his drive for a nuclear weapon came simultaneously with the provocations of Hamas and Hezbollah. The conjunction, for the first time, of a clearly annihilating will with the weapons to go with it created a new situation. We should listen to the Israelis when they tell us they had no other choice anymore. We should listen to Zivit Seri tell us, in front of a crushed building whose concrete slabs are balancing on tips of twisted metal, that, for Israel, it was five minutes to midnight.”
It is, indeed, “five minutes to midnight”â€â€?not just for Israel, but for the West. The time is very short now before we will have to confront Iran. The only question is how long we let events spin out of our control, and how badly we let the enemy hit us before we begin fighting back.
We can’t avoid this war, because Iran won’t let us avoid it. That is the real analogy to the 1930s. Hitler came to power espousing the goal of German world domination, openly promising to conquer neighboring nations through military force and to persecute and murder Europe’s Jews. He predicted that the free nations of the world would be too weakâ€â€?too morally weakâ€â€?to stand up to him, and European and American leaders spent the 1930s reinforcing that impression. So Hitler kept advancingâ€â€?the militarization of the Rhineland in 1936, the Spanish bombing campaign in 1937, the annexation of Austria and the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1938, the invasion of Poland in 1939â€â€?until the West finally, belated decided there was no alternative but war.
That is what is playing out today. Iran’s theocracy has chosen, as the nation’s new president, a religious fanatic who believes in the impending, apocalyptic triumph of Islam over the infidels. He openly proclaims his desire to create an Iranian-led Axis that will unite the Middle East in the battle against America, and he proclaims his desire to “wipe Israel off the map,” telling an audience of Muslim leaders that “the main solution” to the conflict in Lebanon is “the elimination of the Zionist regime.” (Perhaps this would be better translated as Ahmadinejad’s “final solution” to the problem of Israel.)
Like Hitler, Ahmadinejad regards the free nations of the world as fading “sunset” powers, too morally weak to resist his legions of Muslim fanatics. And when we hesitate to kill Muqtada al-Sadr in Iraq, when we pressure Israel to rein in its attacks on Hezbollah, when we pander to the anti-Jewish bigotry of the “Muslim street”â€â€?we reinforce his impression of our weakness.
The result has been and will be the same: Iran will press its advantage and continue to attack our interests in the Middle East and beyond. The only question is when we will finally decide that Iran’s aggression has gone too far and its theocratic regime needs to be destroyed.
But the delay has been and will be costly. When the wider war comes, Lebanon won’t be the only nation plunged into turmoil. Iraq will also get much worse, since Sadr is almost certain to lead a Shiite uprising against American troops in support of his masters in Tehran. And the terrorist plot uncovered today in Britain should cause us to recollect that Iran has a long-standing global terrorist network that it could use to strike in Europe and even in America.
Writers on the pro-war right (along with a very small number of pro-war liberals) sense that this war cannot be avoided, and they are beginning to prepare themselvesâ€â€?and their readersâ€â€?to fight. Few of them are yet prepared to say that we need to strike immediately at Iran, though a few are beginning to contemplate this necessity. (See Joel Rosenberg in today’s National Review Online.)
The left also senses the impending war, but they have a very different reaction. Their favorite analogy is not the prelude to World War II, but the beginning of World War I.
It is widely acknowledged that World War II was made far more horrible by the years in which free nations appeased Hitler, allowing him to strengthen his armies before he took over Europe. That analogy lends itself to one conclusion: the sooner we attack Iran, the better.
World War I, by contrast, is largely regarded as the result of a giant, tragic mistake, a failure of diplomacy in which the great powers of Europe, seeking a network of alliances that would guarantee a “balance of power,” instead trapped themselves into a senseless war. This is the use made of the analogy by Henry Porter in The Guardian:
“With a shudder, I realise I am writing this on 4 August, 92 years to the day that my grandfathers, both serving officers and in the same regiment, learned they would probably be going to war. I do not know how long they thought they would be fighting for or if they expected to survive (both did), but I am fairly sure that neither had an exact idea of the complex forces that brought them to France and Mons by the end of month.
“Few people in 1914 saw things as clearly as we do now…the building of alliances, the accumulating tension in Europe, and the setting of numerous invisible hair triggers across the Continent and the colonies. Without being alarmist, I wonder if, in future, students will look back on 2006 and observe similar developments and point to some of the same drift, blindness, and ambition that characterised the beginning of the last century.”
Porter literally ignores the role of Iran in driving this conflict and instead blames the looming regional war on the alleged tendency of President Bush and Prime Minister Blair to view the conflict as a “struggle between the values of democracy and the tyranny of violent fundamentalism: a vision of a primordial conflict between the forces of light and darkness.” Instead, Porter advocates that we drop the dangerous guidance of morality in favor of a “huge diplomatic effort with all concerned taking part.”
In today’s Washington Post, Richard Holbrooke, US ambassador to the UN under the Clinton administration, uses the same analogy for the same purpose:
“Barbara Tuchman’s classic, ‘The Guns of August,’…recounted how a seemingly isolated event 92 summers agoâ€â€?an assassination in Sarajevo by a Serb terroristâ€â€?set off a chain reaction that led in just a few weeks to World War I. There are vast differences between that August and this one. But Tuchman ended her book with a sentence that resonates in this summer of crisis: ‘The nations were caught in a trap, a trap made during the first thirty days out of battles that failed to be decisive, a trap from which there was, and has been, no exit.’
“Preventing just such a trap must be the highest priority of American policy…. Every secretary of state from Henry Kissinger to Warren Christopher and Madeleine Albright negotiated with Syria, including those Republican icons George Shultz and James Baker. Why won’t this administration follow suit, in full consultation with Israel at every step?… The same is true of talks with Iran, although these would be more difficult….
“Containing the violence must be Washington’s first priority.”
Note that the idea that we can settle all of this just by sitting down and talking with Iran and Syriaâ€â€?with no reference to the ideas, statements, goals, and actions of the Iranian regimeâ€â€?give the left’s pronouncements on the coming war an air of unreality.
That is most striking in a recent article by New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, an ersatz “liberal” who specializes in expressing grave concern about genocide and oppression, while counseling America against any military action to stop the killers and tyrants.
Responding to the question, “How can one negotiate with those who would destroy you?,” Kristof blithely answers:
“France is showing leadership in pressing for such a lasting deal, and Mr. Bush should push that diplomatic effort with every administration sinew.
“Terms of a genuine settlement might involve an exchange of prisoners, Israel giving up the Shebaa Farms area (if not to Lebanon, then to an international force), and an Israeli promise not to breach Lebanese territory or airspace unless attacked. Hezbollah would commit to becoming a purely political force and to dismantling its militia, with its weaponry going to the Lebanese armed forces. Israel would resume talks with Syria on the Golan Heights, the US would resume contact with Syria, and Syria would agree to stop supplying weaponry to Hezbollah (or allowing it in from Iran). Syria and Hezbollah would then pledge cooperation with a robust international buffer force along the border. Some of this may have to come in stages: for example, with Hezbollah first leaving the border area and then giving up its weaponry….
“So let’s stop the killing and start the talking.”
All of this is obviously a fantasy. Kristof offers not a single piece of evidence that Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah�who together conspired to initiate this war�would simply agree to stop arming and plotting against Israel.
Over on HBL, Harry Binswanger mentioned this passage and started a discussion trying to explain how Kristof could engage in such a massive, open evasion. He came to some good conclusions, but I don’t think anyone has yet put together the big picture. This small evasion is just one tiny appendage of a much larger evasion.
The larger evasion is this: the left senses that a regional war is coming, that Iran is hell-bent on starting it, and that there is no way to avoid it. But all of this runs directly counter to their whole world-view. Rather than questioning that world view, they simply assert that this can’t be happening. They have to believe that something, anythingâ€â€?no matter how implausibleâ€â€?will stop it from happening. If we just get everyone together and talk, and we keep tinkering with diplomatic solutions until we find something that works, surely we can find a way to avoid a regional war in the Middle East. Can’t we? Please?
And so the left confirms the right’s sense that the appeasement of the 1930s is the best historical precedent for the current era.
Fortunately, George Bush is not Neville Chamberlain. He has already waged two wars, in Afghanistan and Iraq. Imagine if, during the 1930s, the Allied Powers had already joined forces to defeat the fascists in Spain, then invaded Italy and overthrown Mussolini’s regime. It would have made the coming conflict easierâ€â€?but it would not have defanged our most dangerous enemy.
Unfortunately, George Bush is not Winston Churchill. It is as if, having suppressed fascism in Spain and Italy, we were still appeasing Germany and subordinating our interests to a wobbly consensus at the League of Nations. Just as Germany was the central enemy in the European theater of World War II, so Iran is the central enemy in the Middle East today.
Observing the events of today�the hesitation and uncertainty, the stubborn clinging to the fantasy that the enemy can be appeased if we just keep talking and find the right diplomatic solution�I now feel that, for the first time, I really understand the leaders of the 1930s. Their illusion that Hitler could be appeased has always seemed, in historical hindsight, to be such a willful evasion of the facts that I have never grasped how it was possible for those men to deceive themselves. But I can now see how they clung to their evasions because they could not imagine anything worse than a return to the mass slaughter of the First World War. They wanted to believe that something, anything could prevent a return to war. What they refused to imagine is that, in trying to avoid the horrors of the previous war, they were allowing Hitler to unleash the much greater horrors of a new war.
Today’s leaders and commentators have less excuse. The “horror” they are afraid of repeating is the insurgency we’re fighting in Iraqâ€â€?a war whose cost in lives, dollars, and resolve is among the smallest America has ever had to pay. And it takes no great feat of imagination to project how much more horrible the coming conflict will be if we wait on events long enough for Iran to arm itself with nuclear technology. Among the horrific consequences is the specter of a new Holocaust, courtesy of an Iranian nuclear bomb.
The good news, such as it is, is that the air of foreboding about this new war is somewhat exaggerated. Yes, the conflict will become larger and bloodierâ€â€?far bloodier than it would have been had we acted earlier. But Iran is not Nazi Germanyâ€â€?a large, united, economically and technologically advanced nation that could nearly equal our military capability. Iran is a poor, backward nation with a large, restive dissident movement. Its military bluster is a hollow shell hiding its underlying weakness. It’s time to break that shell and kill the monster insideâ€â€?before it grows any bigger and more powerful.
We can all sense that the war is coming. It is vital for America to seize the initiative and fight it on our terms, when we have the maximum advantage.
It’s five minutes to midnight. The time to strike Iran is now.
August 11th, 2006 at 8:53:58 am
Lojo,
If you support Kissinger-style realpolitik, you are definitionally not a neocon. This clearly raises the question of why you are so eagerly supporting a group with which you are dispositionally not at all aligned.
A few further thoughts:
1) If you believe that there have been any other terrorist attacks on the scale of 9/11 that have been thwarted in a manner similar to the current one under discussion, you are seriously ignorant regarding the Bush playbook.
Maybe their opponents are too harsh in suggesting the Bush Admin invents threats for its own good.
But if you seriously believe that the Bush Admin had a BONA FIDE threat, thwarted it, and then held it under wraps for our collective well-being - you are much more naive than you previously seemed.
2) You may find it helpful to read the 9/11 commission report. Yes there was the czar. But there was a long laundry list of operational changes, etc more or less ignored. You can check it out for yourself if you wish. I am not interested enough to provide cites.
3) Pointing out the outing of NSA wiretapping and SWIFT is a transparent diversionary tactic.
Lojo, the unpatriotic assholes behind that activity have been pilloried to DEATH, both here and in the rest of the blogosophere.
For once, FOR ONCE, we weren’t talking about the Democrats, rather trying to have a reasonable discussion about Dumbya’s “intelligence” (oxymoron) performance - and you had to resurrect the dying corpse of the SWIFT haters.
Can we put them to bed and talk about the thing at hand…that actually matters?
4) Finally - the rest of your arguments can be essentially boiled down to:
“Well surely the realpolitik-type approach is wrong because there are all these bad people who want to do us harm”.
Might I gently suggest that you have refuted my proposed solution with recourse to the obvious problem.
Let’s try to make this simple, using high school debate terminology:
HARM: There are bad people of Islamic faith who want to hurt us.
INHERENCY: The government is struggling to solve the problem.
(I digress, but please reread to notice that my rant begins at solvency, and your response begins at harms, which is weird).
SOLVENCY (Neocon style): Bomb the crap out of everyone.
SOLVENCY (Sane, Kissingerian realpolitik style): Develop and sustain relationships within the malicious communities -
So, again, you’re a neocon? Or a Kissingerian? Or…?
August 11th, 2006 at 8:55:27 am
“It’s five minutes to midnight. The time to strike Iran is now.”
Joe Mama-
Glad to hear you are on board. Here’s a site you might want to visit. I understand we are going to need some more people over there to help….
http://www.army.mil/
If you really believe this is World War III and it is critical to attack Iran now, join up. Otherwise shut the fuck up with your hollow rhetoric.
August 11th, 2006 at 9:00:11 am
Another thing. Everything I have heard so far indicates that it is Pakistanis in Britain getting funding and training from Al Qaeda members in Pakistan. Where the fuck is all this, “Nuke Iran” talk coming from? Zarqawi was murdering Shi’ites. Iran is Shi’ite.
August 11th, 2006 at 9:13:04 am
So, then after I ranted against the neocons, the following perfectly awful thought hit me:
What if the “foiling” of the plot in fact IS the terrorist attack?
Seems unlikely, yes. But what if these Pakistani terrorists, looking to sow terror in the West and not provoke the final cleansing operation (which would lead to their destruction), outed these operatives to ensure
a) full Western terror, but
b) no consequences for them (because there wasn’t actually an incident).
I know, we’re not going to be afraid, right? We had a shoe bomber, and that seemed scary, because who the fuck puts a bomb in their shoes?
But the international airports responded by making us all take off our shoes, and we more or less stopped worrying.
Now this. How will the international airports comfort us on THIS issue? No one is ever allowed to take any liquid at all onto a plane ever again?
We’ll all breathe a collective sigh of relief this weekend, phew, I’m glad these guys were caught.
Sometime late next week that relief will wear off. Unlike the shoebomber, we will lack the confidence that our safety is guaranteed, unless the airlines follow through with the extraordinarily restrictive rule of no liquids anywhere, ever.
I think I’m gonna go short the airlines. Even with the hit they’ve already taken the last two days.
I reiterate - the scenario above is not particularly likely.
But if its true, if the foiling of this attack is in fact the attack, thereby allowing the “perpetrators” to remain ensconsed where they are -
- then I would be listening, neocons.
And possibly retract most of what I wrote today.
August 11th, 2006 at 9:30:35 am
One more kiss-and-make-up thought for the neocon regulars I offended above:
Remember when John Kerry said that he hoped to reduce terrorism to a “nuisance, like prostitution, or drugs”.
Well, as you board your next transatlantic flight in full terror of whose contact lens solution is more solute, less solution -
- realize that the “nuisance” you are experiencing might well be Al-Qaeda’s objective as well.
August 11th, 2006 at 9:37:30 am
MI5 was also tipped off by chatter heard on call intercepts here in the USA. Yep, those same intercepts you moonbats were screaming about a few months back.
August 11th, 2006 at 9:40:04 am
Angrier -
Ah the ‘chickenhawk’ argument, Love that one. BTW, if ever want to criticize law enforcement,
http://mpdc.dc.gov/mpdc/cwp/view,a,1230,Q,537771,mpdcNav_GID,1523,mpdcNav,%7C31417%7C,.asp
Oh, and on education, better shut your mouth unless,
http://www.soe.vt.edu/
Got issues with government intelligence?
https://www.cia.gov/careers/index.html
Are we through here and can you just shelve that lame-ass tired argument? You want to call Joe a moron for suggesting, go ahead. But don’t be an idiot and claim he can’t suggest it until he’s been in the military.
“Civilian control assures that a country’s values, institutions, and policies are the free choices of the people rather than the military. The purpose of a military is to defend society, not define it.”
http://usinfo.state.gov/products/pubs/principles/civil.htm
August 11th, 2006 at 9:50:36 am
Lojo-
Well if this is really World War III, it stands to reason we would have at least 16 million Americans serving right now (the number in WWII, not adjusted for population increases since).
I’m not saying Joe Mama is a chickenhawk. I’m saying his overheated rhetoric is empty if he is incapable of backing it up.
August 11th, 2006 at 9:52:33 am
“If you really believe this is World War III and it is critical to attack Iran now, join up. Otherwise shut the fuck up with your hollow rhetoric.”
Oh bravo, A&A. You’re the last person I’d expect to hear a real substantive comment from, and you didn’t disappoint. That infantile shibboleth has already been discredited numerous times before, so I’m not going to go over that ground again (I’m also not going to “shut the fuck up.” Douchebags like yourself require constant correction, kind of like cleaning up after a messy baby). But by all means, keep trotting out your “chickenhawk” nonsense and see if any other morons will buy it.
“Partisan Putz - You should be emphasizing the RNC line - this kind of thing isn’t happening because we are in Iraq.”
So let me see if I can understand what you’re implying: In the decade after we left Saddam Hussein in power rather than deposing him, radical Muslims bombed the World Trade Center (1993), Khobar (1996), the embassies (1998), the U.S.S. Cole (2000); unsuccessfully plotted to blow up much of Manhattan (1993), a bunch of airliners (1994-95), and L.A. Int’l Airport (2000); and finally killed almost 3000 of us in suicide hijackings that destroyed the WTC and damaged the Pentagon . . . but it was the Iraq war of 2003 that radicalized them.
A&A, you are stupid, stupid, stupid.
August 11th, 2006 at 10:00:39 am
Jazz -
Frankly I’m not sure if I’m neo-con or not. Probably am more just a straightforward traditional conservative with different views on governmental powers due to the War on Terror.
But despite your characterization, your still working off a poor definition:
“HARM: There are bad people of Islamic faith who want to hurt us.”
Hurt implies that there is a limit. There is a point they will stop or hold at. Here is an accurate representation:
“HARM: There are bad people of Islamic faith who want to annihilate us.”
Strong word, sure. But it is wholly accurate in that there is nothing of Western civilization they think should survive. A clash of civilizations.
Now, in light of the harm in that the defined group wants our way of life and us erased. Does this make sense:
“Develop and sustain relationships within the malicious communities”
This solvency only works if the community, as a whole, wants to work with you. And considering after muslim terrorist attacks, the first thing groups like CAIR do is demand more security at mosques, I don’t see even moderate muslim groups (certainly not fight against the US) showing the interest in working with US.
I mean, accuse me of bad debate sure, but your whole point boils down too, “Neocons want to blow everything up.”
From Wikipedia, hardly a right-wing bastion:
“However, neoconservatives describe their shared view as a belief that national security is best attained by promoting freedom and democracy abroad through the support of pro-democracy movements, foreign aid and in certain cases military intervention.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoconservatism_(United_States)
“A straw man argument is a logical fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent’s position.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man
Your only talking about one aspect of neo-conservative and inflating it to the ENTIRE reason of the movement. I would hardly call liberals as being nothing BUT Anti-War (although for some liberals, one could argue they are nothing but Anti-Bush, but its not fair to characterize them all like that).
As for no attacks since 9/11, this may seem a little ‘HIGH SCHOOL’ in nature, but if Bush’s plan to fight terrorism is a complete disaster, why have no attacks happened here SINCE? Again, are you really going to say in five years they haven’t tried?
And that doesn’t mean that the gov’t has quashed secretly some 9/11 style attack at all, but could simply mean no active attempts at plotting have gotten into advanced stages or have gotten traction in the US.
August 11th, 2006 at 10:04:52 am
Angrier -
ONLY if you think WWII and WWIII are comparable.
WWII - Fronts, trenches, boundaries, indentifiable enemies, uniforms, accepted standards of warfare.
WWIII (If you believe it is that is): Intelligence, small strikes, IEDs and car bombs, terrorist attacks on civilians, groups operating independent of countries, terrorists hiding among civilians refusing to wear uniforms and not conforming at all to acceptable standards of warfare.
But people are dying in both. That’s the same.
August 11th, 2006 at 10:07:05 am
“Experts” are predicting that the news this week could boost the box office of Oliver Stone’s World Trade Center…
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14294594/
…Now Lojo and Joe Mama have somewhere to go this weekend to show how “patriotic” they are.
August 11th, 2006 at 10:08:28 am
Lojo-
I don’t believe it is WWIII. If anything, it is a much smaller version of the Cold War, based on your description.
August 11th, 2006 at 10:33:03 am
Angrier -
Fine and dandy. Its not my point that its WWIII. Its my point that using WWII as a basis for how WWIII should be fought is foolish. Warfare changes with time and technology. Those armies that don’t get wiped out.
And I don’t have to go see a movie to prove I’m a patriot (though I will probably see it). I’m very secure with my love for my country.
August 11th, 2006 at 10:45:50 am
A more serious analysis as to why this is in fact WWIII:
The Only Option Is to Win
By Newt Gingrich
The Washington Post
Friday, August 11, 2006; A19
Yesterday on this page, in a serious and thoughtful survey of a world in crisis, Richard Holbrooke listed 13 countries that could be involved in violence in the near future: Lebanon, Israel, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Uzbekistan, Somalia. And in addition, of course, the United States.
With those 14 nations Holbrooke could make the case for what I describe as “an emerging third world war” — a long-running conflict whose latest manifestation was brought home to Americans yesterday with the disclosure in London of yet another ghastly terrorist plot — this one intended to destroy a number of airliners en route to America.
But while Holbrooke lists the geography accurately, he then asserts an analysis and a goal that do not fit the current threats.
First, he asserts that the Iranian nuclear threat is far less dangerous than violence in southern Lebanon. Speaking of the Iranian-American negotiations, Holbrooke asks, “And why has that dialogue been restricted to the nuclear issue — vitally important to be sure, but not as urgent at this moment as Iran’s sponsorship and arming of Hezbollah and its support of actions against U.S. forces in Iraq?”
In fact an Iran armed with nuclear weapons is a mortal threat to American, Israeli and European cities. If a nonnuclear Iran is prepared to finance, arm and train Hezbollah, sustain a war against Israel from southern Lebanon and, in Holbrooke’s own words, “support actions against U.S. forces in Iraq,” then what would a nuclear Iran be likely to do? Remember, Iranian officials were present at North Korea’s missile launches on our Fourth of July, and it is noteworthy that Venezuela’s anti-American dictator, Hugo Chávez, has visited Iran five times.
It is because the Bush administration has failed to win this argument over the direct threat of Iranian and North Korean nuclear and biological weapons that Americans are divided and uncertain about our national security interests.
Nevertheless, Holbrooke has set the stage for an important national debate that goes well beyond such awful possibilities as Sept. 11-style airliner plots. It’s a debate about whether we are in danger of losing one or more U.S. cities, whether the world faces the possibility of a second Holocaust should Iran use nuclear or biological weapons against Israel, and whether a nuclear Iran would dominate the Persian Gulf and the world’s energy supplies. This is the most important debate of our time. It rivals both Winston Churchill’s argument in the 1930s over the nature of Hitler and the Nazis and Harry Truman’s argument in the 1940s about the emerging Soviet empire.
Yet Holbrooke indicates that he would take the wrong path on American national security. He asserts that “containing the violence must be Washington’s first priority.”
As a goal this is precisely wrong. Defeating the terrorists and thwarting efforts by Iran and North Korea to gain nuclear and biological weapons must be the first goal of American policy. To paraphrase Abraham Lincoln, if violence is necessary to defeat the terrorists, the Iranians and the North Koreans, then it is regrettably necessary. If they can be disarmed with less violence, then that is desirable. But a nonviolent solution that allows the terrorists to become better trained, better organized, more numerous and better armed is a defeat. A nonviolent solution that leads to North Korean and Iranian nuclear weapons threatening us across the planet is a defeat.
This failure to understand the nature of the threat is captured in Holbrooke’s assertion that diplomacy can lead to “finding a stable and secure solution that protects Israel.” If Iran gets nuclear weapons, there will be no diplomacy capable of protecting Israel. If Iran continues to fund and equip Hezbollah, there will be no stability or security for Israel. Diplomacy cannot substitute for victory against an opponent who openly states that he wants to eliminate you from the face of the earth.
Our enemies are quite public and repetitive in saying what they want. Not since Adolf Hitler has any group been as bloodthirsty and as open. If Holbrooke really wants a “stable and secure” Israel he will not find it by trying to appease Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas.
This issue of national security goals will be at the heart of the American dialogue for some time. If our enemies are truly our enemies (and their words and deeds are certainly those of enemies) then victory should be our goal. If nuclear and biological threats are real, then aggressive strategies to disarm them if possible and defeat them if necessary will be required.
Holbrooke represents the diplomacy first-diplomacy always school. We saw its workings throughout the 1990s, as Syria was visited again and again by secretaries of state who achieved absolutely nothing. Even a secretary of state dancing with Kim Jong Il (arguably a low point in American diplomatic efforts) produced no results; such niceties never do in dealing with vicious dictators.
The democracies have been talking while the dictators and the terrorists gain strength and move closer to having the weapons necessary for a terrifying assault on America and its allies. The arrests yesterday of British citizens allegedly plotting to blow up American airliners over the Atlantic Ocean are only the latest example of the determination of our enemies. This makes the dialogue on our national security even more important.
Richard Holbrooke has established a framework for a clear debate. The Bush administration should take up his challenge.
The writer, a former speaker of the House, is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and author of “Winning the Future: A 21st Century Contract with America.”
© 2006 The Washington Post Company
August 11th, 2006 at 11:41:22 am
Joe -
I don’t think its WWIII yet. But I do think this is the most serious possibility of WWIII since the end of the Cold War and, frankly, since the Cuban Missile Crisis (No way would Carter have gone toe-to-toe with the Soviets over Afghanistan).
My eyes are on Iran. They will be the closest approximate of Germany in WWII if it gets that bad.
August 11th, 2006 at 12:01:46 pm
Joe Mama-
Yeah. I’ll take the advice of a guy who asked his wife for a divorce when she was in the hospital with cancer. Shows you how good Newt’s judgement is.
August 11th, 2006 at 12:14:09 pm
I also like Newt’s theory that women are too busy menstruating to kill giraffes. Real brain trust you right wingers have there.
August 11th, 2006 at 12:33:07 pm
Angrier -
So your response to the position Gingrich takes on the Middle East is to make a personal attack on him over a matter I’m sure you don’t have special knowledge on.
Are you going to call him a poo-poo head next?
August 11th, 2006 at 12:41:34 pm
Angrier -
Whose the brain-trust on the left winger side? Bob Shrum? Oh, no wait, Pete Carville? Please.
At least act like an adult and debate the points.
August 11th, 2006 at 12:56:25 pm
Lojo-
There’s no point to debate. Gingrich basically thinks we should employ the same losing strategy we are using in Iraq in Syria, Iran and any other country or region that looks cross-eyed at us. What will that accomplish besides more hate and less security for the U.S., I have no idea. Maybe Newt should discuss how we end the perpetual war in Iraq now before we start a new one somewhere else.
Like I said, “menstruating women not being able to hunt giraffes.” That’s not a personal attack. That’s an observation of the man’s horrifically poor judgement.
August 11th, 2006 at 1:17:55 pm
Angrier -
A) Is there some inability of left-wing to link to or quote in full. Use the full quote. And no, I won’t do it for you. Because if you did, you would see the whole quote is a damn joke. ‘
B) The whole first part of your post, tone aside, is you actually debating the issue, not trying to demonize the speaker. Was that so difficult?
August 11th, 2006 at 1:55:53 pm
The more I think about this, the more sympathetic to the neocon view I become.
I want to know more about this “tipster”.
Is he a hero? Maybe. Suppose on the other hand that he was an inside job, another al-Qaeda guy who ratted out the 23 stooges that just got arrested.
See, whether he is an inside job or not, there are three things we can be absolutely sure will result from yesterday’s arrests:
1) The safety of air travel will become essentially impossible to guarantee.
2) Western ways of life will be compromised by that.
3) No one is going to step up the efforts to bust al-Qaeda.
Look at those three outcomes again. If the plot had succeeded, 1+2 still would have occurred, but instead of #3 above, the US/NATO would have gone apeshit in Tora Bora and killed every living thing including al-Zawahiri, Bin Laden, whoever.
In other words, if this particular tipster is not a plant, there’s every reason to believe that while these al-Qaeda assholes exist, the current chain of events fits their interests.
We gotta exterminate these folks. They’re playing with the house money. And the dice are loaded. By them.
August 11th, 2006 at 1:57:09 pm
Brendan,
You are my hero. You are able to put into words what a lot of us feel. We may not comment all the time, but we are out there. Fight on!
August 11th, 2006 at 1:58:02 pm
Lojo-
If you insist…
Giraffes
http://www.holysmoke.org/fem/fem0545.htm
Cancer divorce…
http://www.salon.com/news/1998/08/28news.html
August 11th, 2006 at 2:00:51 pm
So is having oily hair, bad breath and B.O. on business trips a sign that we aren’t letting the terrorists win?
August 11th, 2006 at 3:08:39 pm
Lojo - A&A has managed to find a place below nadir ! I *am* impressed !
“I also like Newt’s theory that women are too busy menstruating to kill giraffes.” - except that Newt doesn’t appear to have said it, and doesn’t say it in the ‘Giraffes’ URL cited, either …
August 11th, 2006 at 4:04:53 pm
Jazz -
I agree with 1 and completely disagree with 2. Hell, ask the air carrier for Israel. There is a level of security that can make this kind of attack miniscule while still making it available and usable to the public.
And even if it weren’t, Western Civilization is not going to fall apart tomorrow because its safer to drive than fly to Atlanta from DC. I think you vastly underestimate the public on that one.
As for 3, I think alot of this is predicated on that we don’t know everything. I’m not going to say that the US is stamping out Terror Attacks left and right and not saying anything about it, but I think its a little too cynical to say the US is sitting around with its thumb up its collective behind in dealing with Al-Qaeda.
August 11th, 2006 at 4:06:32 pm
Angrier -
Again, one is a joke. And the other, lest your his marriage counselor, your judgment on his marriage holds zero weight. Did you mention that they were already separated before this? Nope. Missed that.
August 11th, 2006 at 4:21:46 pm
“Before and After”
Which is hotter Fire are Pepper?um let
me see. Wake up Fool!!!!!!!
wake up! wake up! wake up!!
August 11th, 2006 at 6:12:42 pm
I sit and admire Brendan’s slow but painful march to the Center/Right.
It is not the attraction of being a Republican that forces this on so many, but the pathetic state of the Democrat’s relationship with the militant and moronic Left that has put my friend Brendan in this uncomfortable position.
I welcome Brendan and his brilliant mind to the True Center and look forward to his wisdom as it grows.
The Lefty Moonbats on this blog, on other hand are not making any sense…as usual.
August 11th, 2006 at 6:21:08 pm
True center alright but aim high!!!
August 11th, 2006 at 6:32:23 pm
Lojo,
Is America ready for El Al-style security measures? Heaven forbid, whose going to *pay* for all of that? Surely not the tax free zone of Bushland?
In a sense you’re right that the lack of an actual attack is less of a deterrent than if it occured. Yes. Also, even with an attack people would still fly. I was guilty of hyperbole in an attempt to make a point.
Basically, my point is: if (big if) we find that Al Qaeda in Tora Bora is behind this, then it is pretty important that we respond as if it actually happened.
I kinda sorta maybe fear we won’t. If we don’t, than the evil men in the Afghanistan mountains are like the marionettes, and we are like the puppets.
That’s the nasty little neocon inside me speaking, growing bigger by the minute.
August 11th, 2006 at 6:47:55 pm
I’m always amused by the way at people saying ‘the American left’ while at the same time going, “Yay! Go the Brit Labour Party!� (Which is centre left) There is no American left. There’s right and centre when it comes to your parties.
Odd of you to make that assertion, Peter, when you know quite well Blair has been considered “Thatcher-lite” by the vast majority of his lefty peers. IOW, Blair might be a centrist (like Clinton was), but the Labour Party sure ain’t.
What annoys me is, one day after we learn of this plot, and many liberals are already making political hay out of it. Give me a break! This is NOT a political issue. Nothing about our success in uncovering the plot tells us JACK SHIT whether Bush and neocon foreign policy helped or hindered Scotland Yard’s effort; whether we are putting enough resources in intelligence gathering; whether invading Iraq helped or worsened the danger of such plots. I’m just plain pissed that American liberals like Josh Marshall start insinuating about conspiracies when the news is not even 24-hours old. As Brendan notes, it’s ridiculously pathetic.
As for those liberals asserting this is Rovean vengeance for the defeat of Lieberman, that’s just plain laughable. And stupid. If Rove had such insight about this news and wanted to use it to Lieberman’s benefit, he would have dropped the bombshell a week ago, giving Lieberman a better chance to win the primary. Duh.
The more I think about this, the more sympathetic to the neocon view I become.
How nice of you to mature so rapidly, Jazz. But I’m still going to take you to task for the shitload of idiocy you expended above:
How’s that American intelligence community, Bush-lovers?
It was doing better before liberals in the media started publishing about a few promising intelligence-gathering and surveillance methods to the press in hopes of shutting them down.
How about those 9/11 recommendations for making our intelligence services stronger?
Congress was the recipient of the 9/11 commission’s recommendations. Congress debated and passed laws to beef up our security, which the president signed. If you feel more needs to be done, please point to specifics that were not enacted and you felt should have been.
All those heads that rolled after 9/11? How many again?
Point conceded.
Neocons: what’s your feeling about intelligence gathering generally?
We’re all for it. One of the main criticisms of neocons is that we have completely neglected our HUMINT capacities, with Carter, Reagan, and then Clinton writing various executive orders diminishing the power and ability to spy while Congress funded HUMINT less and less. You might have noticed that Scotland Yard had success in this instance precisely because of a HUMINT success–they infiltrated the cell with a mole. If you don’t think HUMINT is a high, high priority of the neocon attitude, you’re just ignorant and wasting your time attacking a straw man.
…Stuff like, well, anything like Kissingerian real-politik?
“Real-politik” has nothing to do with HUMINT. Realpolitik is a diplomatic strategy, not an intelligence-gathering strategy.
You fucking hate it. You fucking disdain it. Don’t even pretend for a second that you don’t.
See my comments above. You’re flailing at a straw man here.
The first page of the neocon bible says “If you have a problem with any nation/group, simply bomb the crap out of them and everything will be fine�.
Cute. Strawman.
Karl Rove, the spiritual leader of neoconnery, was quite vocal about how important it is to be *tough!* on terror, that there is no place for conversation, negotiation, psycho-babble, blah, blah, blah.
IF there is a “spiritual leader of neoconnery”, it most certainly is not Rove. Rove is a very useful political hack, but he is far from our spiritual leader. Try Michael Ledeen, Bill Kristol, Newt Gingrich, or any of the other guys behind Project for a New American Century.
(Current leadership can be seen here)
If you want to learn about neoconservatism, you’d do well to at least start with Wikipedia, as linked to by Lojo above. At a minimum,