A long time ago...in a world of terror far far away...
I had to laugh reading the LA Times take on the Bush Administration revealing details of a plot to crash planes into our Library Tower here in downtown that was thwarted by our intelligence agencies. I can't link the story because they don't have it posted online so I'll summarize it: "Yeah, well, uh...it didn't happen did it? And uh...even if there really was a plot to kill tens of thousands of Los Angeles citizens, it was a really long time ago!"
Here are the real quotes from the piece:
"The details did little to counter skepticism from Democrats and some law enforcement officials who have questioned whether the reported scheme had ever been put into operation before it was thwarted. 'It didn't go,' said one U.S. official familiar with the operational aspects of the war on terrorism. 'It didn't happen.' The official said he believed the Library Tower plot was one of many Al Qaeda operations that had not gone much past the conceptual stage."
You'd think a good reporter would ask him what he meant by "much". Alas, no follow up.
More:
"Critics on Thursday accused Bush of reaching far back into time as part of a public relations ploy to maintain focus on his battle against terrorism, an issue that continued to win him public approval."
Take a journey with me, if you will. Let's look "far back into time" to 2002, when this plot was thwarted; and to 2003 when the men orchestrating it were captured. It was a time of the internet, ipods, and Britney Spears. Not at all like our world of today.
Does the LA Times really believe that terrorist plots to kill thousands of Americans are a part our distant past? I guess so. If 2003 is so long past, it was even further back into the corridors of history that one, nay two, of these buildings actually were attacked and thousands murdered-- Let's go back to the summer of 2001. It was a time of the internet, ipods, and Britney Spears...
Here are the real quotes from the piece:
"The details did little to counter skepticism from Democrats and some law enforcement officials who have questioned whether the reported scheme had ever been put into operation before it was thwarted. 'It didn't go,' said one U.S. official familiar with the operational aspects of the war on terrorism. 'It didn't happen.' The official said he believed the Library Tower plot was one of many Al Qaeda operations that had not gone much past the conceptual stage."
You'd think a good reporter would ask him what he meant by "much". Alas, no follow up.
More:
"Critics on Thursday accused Bush of reaching far back into time as part of a public relations ploy to maintain focus on his battle against terrorism, an issue that continued to win him public approval."
Take a journey with me, if you will. Let's look "far back into time" to 2002, when this plot was thwarted; and to 2003 when the men orchestrating it were captured. It was a time of the internet, ipods, and Britney Spears. Not at all like our world of today.
Does the LA Times really believe that terrorist plots to kill thousands of Americans are a part our distant past? I guess so. If 2003 is so long past, it was even further back into the corridors of history that one, nay two, of these buildings actually were attacked and thousands murdered-- Let's go back to the summer of 2001. It was a time of the internet, ipods, and Britney Spears...
posted by Wonderdog | 10:50 AM | Permalink
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6 comments
6 Comments:
There you go again, wingnut fear-monger! Exploiting the memory of 9/11 to induce hysteria in a gullible population . . . How dare you??!!
I'm looking out the window of my downtain LA office and I can see the building stading there, obscured only by the high pressure induced smog. I can report that it is still standing. I will report in daily, and perhaps install a Stewcam.
I suppose he should have announced this sooner. That way the terrorists would have had so much more notice that they needed new plans. Possibly they could have figured out where their leaks were. Yes, the Prez is just making life unfair for Al Kayda.
For what it's worth, I don't think it's necessarily wrong for anyone to want something more concrete from the federal government than "trust us." I'm no fool, so I don't expect the government to spill all of its secrets, but surely the White House can find a few more credible ways to assure us that the bad guys are being thwarted. It certainly wouldn't have hurt if they'd chatted up the authorities in Los Angeles at least enough for the mayor to corroborate this story rather than whine about being blindsided.
Saturday update. The Building is still standing.
Jeff, I'm not naive enough to think there's no politics involved in this announcement by the White House, but I see no harm in reminding a complacent American public about the real dangers that exist out there.
As for more credible ways of showing us that they're thwarting the bad guys, I think nearly five years without a terrorist attack on American soil (knock on wood) seems pretty credible.
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