Is anyone else amused that the Bush Administration, which has been criticized for issuing overly-vague security warnings to the public since 9-11, is now being criticized (in many cases by the same people) for not sending out an overly-vague public security warning pre-9-11?
I’m no friend of the Bushies, but I’ve yet to hear anything like a smoking gun to indicate that the Administration knew everything it needed to in order to connect the dots on the plane hijackings. While some “dots” have come to light, it’s worth remembering that they were hidden amongst hundreds, if not thousands, of other dots of intelligence info as to possible threats and opportunities. Let’s remember that Osama bin Laden and al Qa’eda were not (and are not) the only folks out there that needed watching.
(I’ll also note that a lot of folks who, twenty or thirty years ago, were horrified at the prospect of the CIA and the FBI collaborating as some sort of Orwellian super-agency are now horrified that they weren’t working hand-in-glove to thwart this one specific conspiracy.)
Nice additional article on this here.
yeah, endless NPR saber rattling on this one, but you know…
I might of thought up the airplane idea… and the thought that somebody in a security postition saw and reported the risk, and it wasn’t immediately shrilled to the pablum sucking public doesn’t bother me.
I can’t live with the radio screaming dire threats at me every moment of my day. I turn it off. And the mind turns off, after a while, to the threats of living in a divided world. But that is what we have.
I don’t want my government telling me everytime they think of something awful that might happen to me or others. Two reasons – I will end up in a straightjacket, mumbling incoherently, and I don’t want them giving the ‘enemy’ ideas… really.
Incipit threats, yes, blow the old air raid siren… potential threats and disasters…. well.
Call me code name ostrich. I would rather not know.