What I object to and scoff at is not the pursuit, arrest, or announcement that a terrorism "plot" was "foiled". I am skeptical about the "spin" that is designed to tighten control of the populace and their thinking. The tactic is politically motivated propaganda to instill fear and then to ratchet it up, whenever approval of the "leadership", sags in the polls.
IMO, there was no need to do more than screen passengers and their carry on belongings, more closely and thoroughly, in response to the liquid explosives plot. If there was a danger of the potenitial that the UK and US governments have the media and the color coded "warning" systems blaring out at us today,
and the mass disruption of travel, why are both leaders, who knew of the "plot" before they left for vacation, not at work, spearheading the "lockdown" that they've now executed?
How many times do these leaders, "cry wolf", before the robotic certainty, posted at the foxnews site and at the GOPUSA site, gives way to something representing rational thought and deliberation, curiousity, and questioning of authority.
How accurate did Cheney's hype turn out to be? Didn't we suspect what Tom Ridge finally admitted, before he finally said it?
Quote:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...060623-11.html
June 23, 2006
Vice President's Remarks at a Luncheon for Congressional Candidate Dave McSweeney
Hilton Chicago
Chicago, Illinois
......And of course, this morning the Attorney General held a press conference which I was watching as I came in on the plane to Chicago to announce the arrest of seven individuals in a cell in Miami, plotting among other things an attack on the Sears Tower here in Chicago. It is a very real threat. There are still people out there who are trying to do everything they can to kill Americans. We have to defend ourselves against that threat.........
|
Quote:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washing...e-alerts_x.htm
Posted 5/10/2005 11:21 PM
Ridge reveals clashes on alerts
By Mimi Hall, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — The Bush administration periodically put the USA on high alert for terrorist attacks even though then-Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge argued there was only flimsy evidence to justify raising the threat level, Ridge now says.
Ridge, who resigned Feb. 1, said Tuesday that he often disagreed with administration officials who wanted to elevate the threat level to orange, or "high" risk of terrorist attack, but was overruled.
His comments at a Washington forum describe spirited debates over terrorist intelligence and provide rare insight into the inner workings of the nation's homeland security apparatus.
Ridge said he wanted to "debunk the myth" that his agency was responsible for repeatedly raising the alert under a color-coded system he unveiled in 2002.
"More often than not we were the least inclined to raise it," Ridge told reporters. "Sometimes we disagreed with the intelligence assessment. Sometimes we thought even if the intelligence was good, you don't necessarily put the country on (alert). ... There were times when some people were really aggressive about raising it, and we said, 'For that?' "
|
Yesterday...last week....last month....when presumably, there was more uncertainty about the nature and the risk potential of the "plot", there was no lockdown of the passengers, no color coded terror alert....but now, with the governments telling us that the "masterminds", and many of the plotters, but possibly not all.....are in custody....when the most is known of the plot specifics, up till now...it is somehow necessary to spew code red and code orange alerts, and bar all carry on items....but only on certain flight routes?
C'mon.....THINK!