It’s almost laughable, really, when you think about it.
Hillary Clinton stood on the floor of the Senate last year waving a New York Post and insisting on being told what the President knew and when he knew it. The implication, of course, by Senator Clinton is that the President knew 9/11 was coming and did nothing to prevent it. It’s almost laughable, really, the assumption by an elected official in this country that the president knew of an impending attack and did nothing to prevent it, but even laughable claims by rabble rousing Senators are entertained to their full extent in the media.
Particularly interesting, was the general knowledge at the time, that people should have been warned in advance if we knew in advance, the people of this country had the right to be warned before it happened. You’d be hard pressed to argue the logic.
Sure, you could make the claim that alarming the American people would do nothing but plunge the country into F.U.D. (fear, uncertainty and doubt), but impending disaster has a way of doing that to people.
This week, a terror warning, the likes of which we’ve never seen, came forth from the Department of Homeland Security. The warning was vague about targets and timeframes, but very specific about the players. Pictures, history, and detailed dossiers were released on suspected Al Qaeda operatives who were believed to already be in this country. No doubt, the intelligence services picked up something interesting on the “chatterwire,” the same wire that we were supposed to act to stop 9/11 based on, and instead of suppressing the information, the government shared it.
In a press conference by Robert Moller, directer of the FBI, and John Ashcroft, the Attorney General, the information was presented to the american people in a way that was alarming. The words “planning on hitting us, and hard,” and “already in the United States” stand firmly in my mind. The faces of the possible participants are emblazened in my brain, right now.
But what really came as very little surprise to me were the whispers I caught wind of. Whispers that the threat wasn’t that serious. Whispers that the American public were being scared into hiding over vague threats. Whispers that persisted for days. The downplaying of the threat posed by these individuals was co-mingled with headlines about John Kerry proudly proclaiming that he could fight a better war on terrorism than George W. Bush.
Isn’t it interesting how this administration can’t win for losing? Think about the 9/11 commission panning the President for not acting on the history report that was the much ballyhooed PDB of August 16th. Think about the criticism that critics foisted upon the President for not being in his office in August of 2001 (incidentally ignoring the fact that Congress isn’t in session at that point either, but i digress). Think about how everyone carefully diagrammed all the points that we missed prior to 9/11 and all the signals we didn’t act upon. How we didn’t connect the dots.
I’m sure you remember all that; you couldn’t take two steps without hearing about how badly intelligence did in stopping the attacks. We hear about the 3,000 dead and how they died, in the words of Monica Gabrielle and Kristen Breitweiser, “on Bush’s watch,” and everyone just nods in agreement.
So instead of saying to the American people that this warning is important, should be heeded, and telling everyone to be proud that their intelligence services are working to protect them, we hear the exact opposite. The warning is election year posturing. Fear mongering. Scare tactics. Election year posturing.
It makes you wonder, what do these people really want besides the political head of George Bush on a platter?
How about some headlines if something does happen?
1. “Bush Administration Caught Off Guard Again,” “Bush lets another 3,000 people die” and, don’t forget the Michael Moore Movie: “9/11 Redux: How Bush Failed The American People Twice.”
2. “Senators downplaying of terror threat results in 3,000 dead” and “Dead Americans, Seriousness of threat ignored.”
Which batch of headlines do you think you’d see?
While I don’t go in for the threat color coding, the constant vague notices to be alert, and other silly things that our government does dish out from time tom time, that is clearly not the case this time. We have specifics as far as people. We have a pretty good idea about what events are coming up that would be a tasty target for terrorists. Hell, whether or not we knew a specific place, we know that arab terrorists have a hard-on for New York City.
So why downplay the threat? Because the threat goes to a certain length to end the criticism that this administration is ignoring our national security. Because this warning comes from an administration who has been accused on numerous occasions of scare mongering. Because this warning directly contradicts John Kerry who, in his own words, called the threat of terrorism “exaggerated.”
I have a real problem with the naysayers right now., mainly because those naysayers are the ones who are lining up to take shots at the president for not doing enough prior to 9/11 to stop it.
Do you think these people would be saying the same thing if Mohammed Atta, Ramsey BinAlShibh, and others were flashed on the covers of newspapers prior to 9/11 and labelled as suspects in a plot to attack the World Trade Center?
I have a feeling they would, and we all know how that turned out.
Think about it.