The UK Plot: Don't Believe The Hype? (Pt. II)

Little discussed amid all the hysteria in the wake of the foiled U.K. plot are major concerns with the official narrative of the plot. Let me be clear- there is no doubt the men arrested were potential terrorists revealed through careful police surveillance to be planning attacks. This is certain. But was the attack as imminent and grand as we were told? Did they have the means to pull it off or was the plot still in the discussion phase? These are the concerns after the way the U.S. hyped up the plot.

While reporters and pundits are devoting much airtime to whether WhatsHisFace really killed lil' WhatsHerName, no major pundit that I have seen has had the courage to question the official story of the U.K./U.S. plane plot. Some of these questions were brought to light by Craig Murray, Britain's ambassador to Uzbekistan. As he stated, "None of the alleged terrorists had made a bomb. None had bought a plane ticket. Many did not even have passports, which given the efficiency of the UK Passport Agency would mean they couldn't be a plane bomber for quite some time. In the absence of bombs and airline tickets, and in many cases passports, it could be pretty difficult to convince a jury beyond reasonable doubt that individuals intended to go through with suicide bombings, whatever rash stuff they may have bragged in internet chat rooms... Nothing from that surveillance had indicated the need for early arrests."

I discussed all of that with a friend of mine on Friday night (after seeing 'Snakes on a Plane'... look into that threat, Chertoff!). I stated to him my expectation that, if indeed there was little evidence that they had the means to pull off this discussed plan, the suspects would, for the time being, be splapped with a simple conspiracy charge. British terror laws allow for suspects to be held for as long as 28 days without charges (still better than the indefinite length here under President Bush's self-made rules), so the clock was ticking.

Sure enough, today I read that "11 of the 23 suspects being held in the foiled plot to blow up as many as 10 trans-Atlantic flights have been charged with conspiracy to commit murder." Officials also stated that they found bomb-making materials in a search. British Home Secretary John Reid said to expect more charges in the next few days. The plot thus thickens.

In regards to the concerns about the timing of the revelation of this plot, there is more evidence that the arrests were rushed due to political pressure. The Observer paper in Britain reports that-

Anti-terror police in Britain have made an angry request to their US counterparts asking them to stop leaking details of this month's suspected bomb plot over fears that it could jeopardise the chances of a successful prosecution and hamper the gathering of evidence.

So it's clear that U.S. government officials were overly enthusiastic to present this news.

More importantly they note further down that-

It is understood that British anti-terror police wanted to prolong their observation of the suspects for as long as possible in a bid to gather sufficient evidence. There are now fears among some Scotland Yard officers that they may have acted too hastily when deciding to arrest the 24 suspects earlier this month. Although martydom videos and the components of a bomb have been recovered in the investigation, linking such evidence to all those arrested could still prove difficult.

The decision to make the arrests that week was not that of the British police/Scotland Yard. That call came from Downing Street. We know from reports that Tony Blair and President Bush spoke a few days before the arrests. We know that right about the time of that call, but before the arrests, the White House renewed talking point efforts to attack Democrats (on the brink of a key victory in the Connecticut primary) on the terrorism issue. This AP report from the 10th sums that up-

Snow said Bush first learned in detail about the plot on Friday, and received two detailed briefings on it on Saturday and Sunday, as well as had two conversations about it with British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

But a senior White House official said that the British government had not launched its raid until well after Cheney held a highly unusual conference call with reporters to attack the Democrats as weak against terrorism.

This could all be coincidence. But I don't believe in coincidences where Rove is involved.

In conclusion, it is clear that the British police uncovered a major plot here and should be commended for a job well done. But the real plot they uncovered is clearly not as imminent and glamorous as the one that the media and government- most specifically here in the U.S.- have presented it as. It was rushed into the spotlight for reasons officially unknown. A little skepticism is required still.

UPDATE: A judge tossed a charge in the infamous Jose Padilla case- another plot we were told was the 'next 9/11'.




[PS- Another side-effect of this story... a crop of stories about hysteria and racial profiling on airplanes. Matt Drudge (proudly?) linked to this story this weekend about passengers staging a "mutiny" against two Asian passengers speaking in Arabic to each other. Eep! Foreigners! This was not an uncommon incident in the last two weeks. Several such examples have been proudly heralded on right-wing blogs. Reminds me of why NYPD were ordered in the afternoon of 9/11 to go guard all the area mosques. Glenn Greenwald analyzes these incidents on his blog.

PPS- Tom Tomorrow illustrates a handy guide to taking terrorism seriously.]