The Brits, using solid police work and counter-terrorism intel -- as opposed to the Bush method of bombing and torture -- reportedly had these alleged terrorists under surveillance for more than a year.
How did it happen that they waited to pounce, and announce, one day after Lamont's breakthrough victory in Connecticut revealed for all to see that maybe the emperor didn't have any clothes on at all? It's too fishy by half, especially because the plot apparently was not operational yet.
Blair and Bush were in communication on this plot for days, perhaps much longer, before the arrests were announced. In other words, Bush and thus the GOP leadership had been given a heads-up by the Brits, which allowed them time to prepare their public position. On the day before the London announcement, Cheney (who rarely talks to the press) had a rare teleconference with select reporters to lay the foundations for the GOP spin that will be the party's main strategy in the run-up to November: be afraid, our muscular policies will protect you, stay with us. Ken Mehlman, the GOP chief, made similar comments, along with various rightwing pundits and columnists.
The whole operation has got Karl Rove written all over it: an onslaught of carefully rolled-out denunciations of Democrats who they can suggest are allied with "Islamic fascists" because they don't support the President and his war-on-terrorism policies. ("You're either with us or with the terrorists," remember that one?)
NBC News has reported that British police and intelligence officials felt rushed by Bush Administration insistence on making the arrests sooner than they wanted to. ( http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14320452 ) Since those under surveillance had not yet purchased airline tickets, and some hadn't even obtained their passports, the police and counter-terrorism honchos wanted more opportunity to gather evidence and track down possible contacts with other unknown conspirators.
But the Bush Administration -- ostensibly worried about a possible "dry run," they claimed -- leaned on Blair to move immediately. And, wouldn't you know it, the result was that the news cycle for days afterward was dominated by liquid-bombs 24/7, while the disaster that is happening in Iraq and Lebanon, the behind-the-scenes planning for an attack on Iran, ( http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/060821fa_fact ) and Lieberman's momentous defeat in Connecticut virtually disappeared from the news.
IRAQ CONFLATED WITH G.W.O.T.
The Bush Administration invented a non-existent Iraq/terror connection to manipulate the Congress and American public in the rollup to the war in 2003 -- that Saddam Hussein was somehow tied in to the mass murders of 9/11. They are still doing it by conflating the war in Iraq with the "global war on terror." (Lest we forget, there were no terrorists to speak of in Iraq until the U.S. bombed and occupied that unfortunate country; Saddam's one major pro-terrorist sin, so far as I can determine, was to give $25K to Palestinian families whose children blew themselves up in Israel, an action that certainly was not a threat by Iraq to invade its neighbors, and certainly was in no way a threat to the U.S.)
When 9/11 happened, Condoleezza Rice described the 3000 deaths as an "opportunity" for the Administration to mobilize its forces to push its domestic and foreign agenda. Rice also views the destruction in Lebanon not as a tragedy but as an "opportunity" to shape a new Middle East order; it's just "birth pangs," she said. Now, the London plot provides the Busheviks with yet another "opportunity" to try to hang the "soft-on-terrorism" albatross around the necks of the Democrats, to keep them from taking back the House in November.
A White House official, who spoke on condition of not being named, was quoted about the liquid-bomb plot by Agence France Press: ( http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060810/pl_afp/britainattacksairline_060810185330 ) "Weeks before September 11th, this is going to play big," said the official, adding that some Democratic candidates won't "look as appealing" under the circumstances.
IT'S BARE-KNUCKLES TIME FOR DEMS
So how should the Democrats respond? And respond they must, or risk being "framed," in all uses of that term, as "weak on national security," or, worse yet, as apologists and aiders & abetters of terrorists, in short as traitors to America.
This is political hardball, and the Dems had better get their heavy hitters out there swinging away at the Republicans' desperate tactics. No whining, no complaining how unfair Cheney and the rest of the gang are. Just hit back hard, using the Busheviks' own words to demonstrate how the Bush Administration is harming our national security by flailing around the world in reckless military adventures (incompetently carried out as well) and by not doing what needs to be done to beef up security around our ports (most containers go unexamined), airlines (freight still mostly unscreened), nuclear power facilities and chemical plants.
Believe it or not, the Bush Administration even took $6,000,000 away from new bomb-detection programs! ( http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060811/ap_on_go_ot/terror_explosives_detection )
It's time for Democrats, progressives, Independents, Libertarians, moderate Republicans and others to unite openly to defeat this Republican crew in November. This may be the last good chance we get to take them down -- before they take us all down with them. #
First published by The Crisis Papers and Democratic Underground 8/15/06.
Copyright 2006 by Bernard Weiner.
How did it happen that they waited to pounce, and announce, one day after Lamont's breakthrough victory in Connecticut revealed for all to see that maybe the emperor didn't have any clothes on at all? It's too fishy by half, especially because the plot apparently was not operational yet.
Blair and Bush were in communication on this plot for days, perhaps much longer, before the arrests were announced. In other words, Bush and thus the GOP leadership had been given a heads-up by the Brits, which allowed them time to prepare their public position. On the day before the London announcement, Cheney (who rarely talks to the press) had a rare teleconference with select reporters to lay the foundations for the GOP spin that will be the party's main strategy in the run-up to November: be afraid, our muscular policies will protect you, stay with us. Ken Mehlman, the GOP chief, made similar comments, along with various rightwing pundits and columnists.
The whole operation has got Karl Rove written all over it: an onslaught of carefully rolled-out denunciations of Democrats who they can suggest are allied with "Islamic fascists" because they don't support the President and his war-on-terrorism policies. ("You're either with us or with the terrorists," remember that one?)
But the Bush Administration -- ostensibly worried about a possible "dry run," they claimed -- leaned on Blair to move immediately. And, wouldn't you know it, the result was that the news cycle for days afterward was dominated by liquid-bombs 24/7, while the disaster that is happening in Iraq and Lebanon, the behind-the-scenes planning for an attack on Iran, ( http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/060821fa_fact ) and Lieberman's momentous defeat in Connecticut virtually disappeared from the news.
IRAQ CONFLATED WITH G.W.O.T.
The Bush Administration invented a non-existent Iraq/terror connection to manipulate the Congress and American public in the rollup to the war in 2003 -- that Saddam Hussein was somehow tied in to the mass murders of 9/11. They are still doing it by conflating the war in Iraq with the "global war on terror." (Lest we forget, there were no terrorists to speak of in Iraq until the U.S. bombed and occupied that unfortunate country; Saddam's one major pro-terrorist sin, so far as I can determine, was to give $25K to Palestinian families whose children blew themselves up in Israel, an action that certainly was not a threat by Iraq to invade its neighbors, and certainly was in no way a threat to the U.S.)
When 9/11 happened, Condoleezza Rice described the 3000 deaths as an "opportunity" for the Administration to mobilize its forces to push its domestic and foreign agenda. Rice also views the destruction in Lebanon not as a tragedy but as an "opportunity" to shape a new Middle East order; it's just "birth pangs," she said. Now, the London plot provides the Busheviks with yet another "opportunity" to try to hang the "soft-on-terrorism" albatross around the necks of the Democrats, to keep them from taking back the House in November.
A White House official, who spoke on condition of not being named, was quoted about the liquid-bomb plot by Agence France Press: ( http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060810/pl_afp/britainattacksairline_060810185330 ) "Weeks before September 11th, this is going to play big," said the official, adding that some Democratic candidates won't "look as appealing" under the circumstances.
IT'S BARE-KNUCKLES TIME FOR DEMS
So how should the Democrats respond? And respond they must, or risk being "framed," in all uses of that term, as "weak on national security," or, worse yet, as apologists and aiders & abetters of terrorists, in short as traitors to America.
This is political hardball, and the Dems had better get their heavy hitters out there swinging away at the Republicans' desperate tactics. No whining, no complaining how unfair Cheney and the rest of the gang are. Just hit back hard, using the Busheviks' own words to demonstrate how the Bush Administration is harming our national security by flailing around the world in reckless military adventures (incompetently carried out as well) and by not doing what needs to be done to beef up security around our ports (most containers go unexamined), airlines (freight still mostly unscreened), nuclear power facilities and chemical plants.
Believe it or not, the Bush Administration even took $6,000,000 away from new bomb-detection programs! ( http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060811/ap_on_go_ot/terror_explosives_detection )
It's time for Democrats, progressives, Independents, Libertarians, moderate Republicans and others to unite openly to defeat this Republican crew in November. This may be the last good chance we get to take them down -- before they take us all down with them. #
First published by The Crisis Papers and Democratic Underground 8/15/06.
Copyright 2006 by Bernard Weiner.
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