May 22, 2002
The Washington Times, normally a reliable defender of GOP interests, comes out and says what no other paper quite does: Recent vague warnings by Dick Cheney, Robert Mueller, and Don Rumsfeld are politically motivated. (Duh.) “The Bush administration issued a spate of terror alerts in recent days to mute criticism that its national security team sat on intelligence warnings in the weeks before the September 11 attacks,” writes reporter Joseph Curl.Not quite “no other paper.” The Toronto Globe and Mail’s Doug Saunders writes:
White House officials told reporters that the blunt warnings issued yesterday and Sunday do not reflect a dramatic increase in threatening information but rather a desire to fend off criticism from the Democrats.Good to know our elected officials are working hard to protect…the political reputation of George W. Bush. I feel safer already.Last week, Democrats criticized the Republican administration for its failure to warn Americans about al-Qaeda terrorism in the months before the Sept. 11 attacks.
A senior administration official with knowledge of U.S. intelligence said yesterday that the new warnings, issued by Vice-President Dick Cheney on Sunday and by Mr. Mueller yesterday, are designed to give Americans better notice and to protect President George W. Bush against second-guessing in the event of another attack.
Anyway, it’s interesting that the New York Times and the Washington Post can’t bring themselves to note what’s obvious to anyone with half a brain. Tell me again how they’re bastions of the Liberal Media Conspiracy. [07:41 PM]
The real problem with the current "Danger/Danger, Will Robinson!" mentality about terrorism has to do with the nature of the "non-specific threats."
If last summer, the government announced, "While we don't have a specific threat of terrorism, we have heard about Arab men taking flying classes without any interest in learning how to take off or land," the average American might have scratched their head, but the average commercial pilot might have figure out what the modus operandi could be. The problem seemed to be that information was acquired and not shared well with others.
Granted, we are probably all Monday-morning quarterbacking on this. But I do live within 25 miles of a nuclear power plant, so I'd like to know if there have been security breaches or if anyone is missing a semi-tractor trailer.
As I wrote last fall (Don't Panic!), these people do not have infinite resources. We're more likely to Oklahoma City-style terrorism than WTC-style terrorism in the future. While this is, of course, not a reassuring thing, it's a reminder that terrorists are not omnipotent.
The timing is convenient, but the wording of the latest string of warnings just makes the administration look completely useless: they're downright fatalistic, telling us that terrorists are unstoppable supermen who are coming to kill us no matter what we do. It sounds almost as if they're trying to validate Ted Rall and Robert Fisk. This isn't doing Bush any favors, if that was what was intended.
Hard-Hitting Moderator: Teresa Nielsen Hayden.
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