So the administratioin felt the need to act on intelligence that was 3 to 4 years old in such a public and immediate way the week after the DNC because?
To be clear, I don’t think the government is inventing facts out of whole cloth, but I do think that incumbants always use their office to their own advantage and that this administration is doing it to an unprecedented degree.
As for how this hurts the Democrats, I think it pushes the convention and the official launch of Kerry’s campaign off the front page, or at least to a lower place on the front page.
If this administration isn’t manipulating terror alerts for its own political gains, I think they are still poorly serving the American people with these kind of alarmist announcements. I’m tired of my government jumping everytime Al Qaeda says boo, I think these alerts play into the hands of Bin Laden by keeping the American public on edge.
Here’s an item from MSNBC that also stops just short of saying that this terror alert is bullshit, though that’s the clear implication.
In other words, they found a laptop with some files that show that terrorists were checking out a bunch of potential targets three or four years ago. There’s no evidence that there’s any sort of active plot against those locations now, but the administration decided to pull the fire alarm.
They’re either manipulating the situation for political advantage, or they’re morons. Take your pick.
So we should go on high alert, and shut down the financial districts of NY and DC, starting when? And going on for how long? Because terrorists checked out some buildings back in 2000?
The adminstration ratcheted up the alert level not because they discovered some new, immediate threat. They did it because they just found evidence of an old threat. Does that actually make sense to anyone? Really?
Sorry, World Eater, it’s early, and I missed the scarcasm of your post. My point remains, of course, but directed at those who still believe that it’s a reasonable justification.
It would be fair to say that new terror information should be disseminated to the public, but when Bush comes out and says how this new warning is “a serious reminder … a solemn reminder” how we are all in grave danger, then it turns out that the info is so damn old …
Can any of you Bush apologistas explain the timing of the announcement here? Coincidence, right?
Because they’re fucking idiots. My prior comments were valid only if there was evidence of an actual plot that is nearing completion, not evidence of 3-4 year old research on some buildings, with no current information to back it up.
This sort of evidence deserves attention, to be sure, but not front page headlines and national news. Account for this in your security arrangements for these buildings and cities. Mention in your press conference (if you deem one necessary) that this is old data, but you will incorporate it in your plans. Don’t act like the truck bomb is cruising through the Holland Tunnel this very minute. :rolleyes:
Since it’s getting out that this info is pre-9/11, the Administration is looking pretty stupid over it. Well, I think they’re pretty stupid, and that’s good enough for me.
Brutus, I don’t think anyone really believes that they don’t take years to plan an event like this. However, shouldn’t we have some evidence that an attack is currently being planned before searching trucks, closing roads and changing our alert level? Three year old info with no evidence of ongoing plans is just another data point, not something to go nuts over.
To me, this says that they don’t consider it a viable target. At most, it says that a whole bunch of targets are still on their “someday, maybe” list. If they were seriously planning an attack any time in the near future, they’d be updating their intelligence now. The fact that they haven’t done anything about it in over seven months suggests to me that there’s no immediate threat at all.
On top of that, the info that was updated in January was on only one of the targets, and even that update couldn’t be shown to be coming from active intelligence gathering by al Qaida. The info for the rest of the buildings apparently hasn’t been touched in years.
Haven’t seen much talk about this on the boards (or in the media) but the capture of Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a Tanzanian Al Qaeda operative announced on the day Kerry was to speak panned out exactly like it was predicted by the New Republic:
So given the highly suspicious coinciding of events, what makes it seem unlikely that Bush and friends would blow the current terror alert information out of proportion to distract the media and public from the Democrats post-convention afterglow?