Ridge: "The Terrorists are comming! The Terrorists are coming!" (wag the media)
Sunder
sunder at sunder.net
Thu Aug 5 08:35:26 PDT 2004
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/08/03/us_terror_alert_political_football/print.html
US terror alert becomes political football
By Thomas C Greene (thomas.greene at theregister.co.uk)
Published Tuesday 3rd August 2004 15:15 GMT
Update As we reported recently
(http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/08/02/al_qaeda_cyber_terror_panic), the
latest ratcheting up of the terror threat level in the United States was
based on captured documents dating back some time. In that article, we
observed that it was "not clear whether any of the information recently
obtained relates to current or future schemes."
<SNIP>
"much of the information that led the authorities to raise the terror
alert at several large financial institutions in the New York City and
Washington areas was three or four years old, intelligence and law
enforcement officials said on Monday. They reported that they had not yet
found concrete evidence that a terrorist plot or preparatory surveillance
operations were still under way."
<SNIP>
Why now?
If anyone is wondering why terrorism, and especially attacks at home,
should have been so fully hyped on such thin evidence, it's useful to
consider the news cycle.
Last week, John Kerry did a surprisingly good job of introducing himself
to the nation as a plausible replacement for Bush.
<SNIP>
Politics
But this rain dance was not undertaken from a security point of view. It
was concocted with a political motive, and its purpose was to distract the
public from the additive disasters in Iraq, and the unexpectedly strong
showing by the Democrats in Boston last week. It was designed to make
Junior look like the "strong leader" that his cheerleaders insist, against
all evidence, that he really is. (We note that the true Prince of
Darkness, Dick Cheney, has been dutifully silent, and conspicuously
absent, during the recent national security festivities, to vouchsafe the
limelight to Junior.)
<SNIP>
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