Taking It Seriously

As I noted in my updates yesterday, my cynicism was validated that the White House and Republicans would use news of a thwarted plot in the U.K. to revitalize the 'Republicans = tough; Dems = terror lovers' talking point. My cynicism was further widened when I learned that the White House had been briefed on this plot several days ago, meaning that they began the post-Lamont victory rhetoric with full knowledge that this story was about to break. Yes, again, that's Bush/Cheney- using the war on terror for political gain since 2001. Take a bow.

Besides, the usual talking heads repeating the talking points (from the National Review to Fox News... see as a prime example this NY Post editorial which only seven paragraphs into a twenty-nine paragraph editorial ties the attack to 'surrender to terror' Dems like Ned Lamont, who is clearly the official new GOP boogeyman), the White House seized on this yesterday as well. President Bush said the plot was a 'reminder' that we are at war with terrorists, as if people had forgotten. The reason for this clear... a surge of new polls showing that Democrats are preferred on dealing with terrorism, as well as a number of other issues. Only one news organization- AFP- actually dared to report on this aspect of the story. They wrote in their wire report-

US President George W. Bush seized on a foiled London airline bomb plot to hammer unnamed critics he accused of having all but forgotten the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

Weighed down by the unpopular war in Iraq, Bush and his aides have tried to shift the national political debate from that conflict to the broader and more popular global war on terrorism ahead of November 7 congressional elections...

...His remarks came a day after the White House orchestrated an exceptionally aggressive campaign to tar opposition Democrats as weak on terrorism, knowing what Democrats didn't: News of the plot could soon break...

Bolded added for emphasis. A White Official is quoted in the article as saying, "Weeks before September 11th, this is going to play big". Umm, yea. I don't get the feeling that people waiting for hours on airport security lines is going to 'play big' at any time.

The fact is, as far as I'm concerned, is that President Bush has never taken this terrorism thing seriously; we should just all be glad our intelligence/law-enforcement agencies are filled with dedicated and hard working people (those who Run Suskind calls the 'invisibles') who've always done their best. If he had taken it seriously, he wouldn't have fought the 9/11 Commission at every turn, would've seen our dependency on foreign oil as the security threat it is, would've finished the job in Afghanistan instead of signing on for the Cheney/Rumsfeld debacle in Iraq, wouldn't have told the rest of the world to piss off, wouldn't have viewed laws/treaties as dispensable just because he could, and wouldn't have used the war to demonize and destroy his political enemies. The real answer is fear. "They're Still OUT THERE", the cover of today's Newsday warns us. It has served them well in the past few years and now they're happy to dole out a few more servings to anyone who's interested. I personally am optimistic that we've come too far for that to work, but we'll see.

UPDATE: In regards to an official GOP fundraising letter that went out in the last day or two reiterating all the above-mentioned talking points, the RNC blames... 'a low-level staffer'. You may have heard of him; he's the 'Not me!' ghost responsible for all their dirty tricks.

Keith Olbermann did a good report on the plot and known details last night.

UPDATE #2: At least two newspapers called them on this- the Philadelphia Daily News and Boston Globe.

Many liberals/progressives are condemning this and trying to put it back in perspective.

First up, Glenn Greenwald blogging for Salon-

[T]his [GOP] effort is as incoherent as it is manipulative. Nobody doubts that there are Muslim extremists who would like to commit acts of violence against the U.S. and the West. No political disputes are premised on a conflict over whether terrorism exists or whether it ought to be taken seriously. As a result, events such as this that reveal what everyone already knows -- that there is such a thing as Islamic extremists who want to commit terrorist acts against the U.S. -- do nothing to inform or resolve political debates over the Bush administration's militaristic foreign policy or its radical lawlessness at home.

Opposition to the war in Iraq, for instance, is not based upon the premise that there is no terrorist threat. It is based on the premise that that invasion undermines, rather than strengthens, our campaign to fight terrorism...

...Nor is opposition to the president's lawbreaking somehow undermined when it is "revealed" that there are terrorists in the world who are trying to attack the U.S. Opposition to warrantless eavesdropping, for instance, is predicated on the fact that a constitutional republic that exists under the rule of law cannot tolerate a president who defies the law at will, and is further based on the indisputable fact that the president is fully able to eavesdrop on terrorists in compliance with the law, i.e., by obtaining warrants...

...But Bush followers who exploit terrorist threats for political gain and to gin up support for the president's policies are not pursuing rational arguments. They leap at the chance to manipulate terrorist stories because they want to ratchet up the fear levels, precisely because fear obviates rational analysis and increases the willingness of citizens to cede more power and control to the government, to place more blind faith in political officials in exchange for a feeling of protection.

Next, Arianna Huffington-

[Vice President] Cheney knows damn well that, far from making us safer, "an aggressive posture" on Iraq has had the exact opposite effect. In a survey of 100 top foreign-policy experts (both Republicans and Democrats), 84 believed that we're losing the war on terror and 87 thought Iraq has had a negative impact on our efforts to defeat terrorists...

...[It is a] war that 60 percent of Americans are against. A war that is the defining foreign policy initiative of the Bush administration -- an initiative that has been an abject failure on every level. A war that has put the GOP's back against the electoral wall. So it's firing back with it's favorite weapon -- fear...

...They know being against the war in Iraq doesn't mean you are against fighting the war on terror. It means you are against a failed policy that has created more terrorists than it has killed, that has cost America 2,591 lives and $305 billion dollars, that has thrown Iraq into a bloody sectarian civil war, and that has so lessened our standing abroad that we are unable to be a real power broker in an exploding Middle East.

Finally, Ivo Daalder at TPM Cafe-

...What appears to have cracked this case is not a war strategy or military offensive, but good intelligence, skilled detective work, and months of careful surveillance — the kind of traditional law enforcement strategies and defensive measures that Bush and his administration have always shunned.

This apparent success also undermines the second core element of the administration’s war on terror — the notion that effective counter-terrorism action requires ignoring established procedures and the rule of law. As the Brits have shown, there is no need to subvert the law, or civic liberties, to conduct effective counter-terrorism operations. And when the UK government found that some laws (e.g., on the duration of detention) might interfere with effective investigations and actions, it has sought to change the law through established parliamentary procedures rather than to ignore it as Bush has been wont to do.

We still live in a very dangerous world, where evil men concoct evil plots aiming to inflict “mass murder on an unimaginable scale.” But that reality should not be mistaken for justifying the ill-conceived strategies Bush has touted to deal with this danger over the past 5 years.

In conclusion, what was uncovered in the U.K. should be looked at seriously, not as another campaign ad.

[PS- John at Americablog is still suspicious about the details of this thwarted plot, urging for Americans to discern between hype and reality of what we are told. One very, very good question he asks is this- If President Bush and Cheney were briefed on this plot/threat several days ago, why did the new security measures only go into effect at airports yesterday, only after the official announcements? "Why was it safe on Monday, but not safe on Friday?", he wonders. He also doesn't think, if the details of this plot are correct, that it's a good idea to dump a potentially explosive liquid into a big bin filled with other potentially explosive liquids. But officials always overreact at first... these new restrictions may be temporary.]