Aug 10, 2006

An article about a quote about what could have been

Reuters posted an article today about U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff's comparison to today's foiled terrorist plan to blow up planes. Sit back and watch the political spin machine at work [emphasis mine]:
"If these plotters had succeeded in taking down multiple jets carrying hundreds of people, we would have seen a disaster on a scale comparable to 9/11 with hundreds and maybe thousands of people being killed," Chertoff said in an interview on PBS's "NewsHour With Jim Lehrer."

He said al Qaeda might have been involved, that the United States was in a race against "terrorist ingenuity" and that the sophisticated plot was "in the top level of the kind of terrorist activities we've seen over the past 10 years."
Look. I'm glad the plot was foiled. I don't think anybody is saying anything to the contrary. But, instead of the messages conveyed echoing the effectiveness of intelligence gathering and acting on it, the key message being conveyed is more along the lines of What Could Have Been. The better to keep you afraid, my pretties.

Pretty transparent.

Sidebar: Bernie Kerik was on Donnie Deutch's show today, serving as another pawn for the Bush White House, blaming the media for reporting these stories, because the terrorists get their information from the American media, and thus, get inspiration for more terrorist acts. Nothing we've heard before. I don't even have to tell you what I think of that logic.

I absolutely do not question Kerik's heroism and leadership of the NYPD after the 9/11 attacks, but the fact that he is now on Donnie Deutsch's show saying things like this, and given that he is now the CEO of his own firm specializing in homeland security, I have to take what he says with a grain of salt.

There's no question this world is getting crazier and crazier by the minute. But I cannot stand watching people throw the events of 9/11, and terrorism in general, around to benefit their own agendas. Totally disgusting.

Sidebar: Wasn't British intelligence responsible for thwarting the planned terrorist attack, and not the U.S.? Mark Benjamin at Salon asks the same question.

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