Regarding the JFK Pipeline plot we busted last week:
There was no set plan. There was no financing. They didn't have any explosives -- and yet government officials were quoted calling the amorphous plot "one of the most chilling plots imaginable" that almost "resulted in unfathomable damage, deaths, and destruction." And people wonder why the public has become cynical about how the war on terror is being used for political purposes.Damn you, professional journalists whose job it is to analyze current events and politics! I, a part-time blogger with no training whatsoever, can't compete with you! Curses!
4 comments:
I had a plan to date Angelina Jolie; only thing is, I don't know her, have no idea where to get in touch with her, and she wouldn't go out with me. But I had a plan; I thought about it a lot.
You realize, of course, that this is one of the plots that was uncovered by the eavesdropping program? If we hadn't done that, those guys might actually have advanced to writing something down!
This cynicism regarding the JFK plot is ill-founded.
While it is true that the plan, as it was formulated at the time the conspiracy was broken up, was not workable, the conspirators (who included people who worked at the airport and had technical knowledge of such things) were aware of its shortcomings.
You need to ask yourself; were they just going to sit around saying to themselves "gee, it would have been really great if that pipeline plan we had would've worked." Certainly not. The mere fact that they absolutely had the motive and were actively looking into ways to cause such extreme levels of death and destruction, even if their plan of the moment wasn't practical, doesn't mean they wouldn't have found one that was.
Christ on a stick, how many plots need to be nipped in the bud before you Bush-haters realize there really ARE jihadists out there who want to kill you, me, and as many of our friends as they possibly can?
I would infinitely prefer to see us stop a thousand impractical plots to kill a thousand people, than to see us miss one that turns into a practical plot to kill a thousand.
Joe, no one is saying that these guys shouldn't have been arrested. Obviously, that's a good thing.
But this plot was by no means worth the hyperbole attached to it. No way. This is just all part of the culture of fear designed to keep us from questioning the bad decisions made by our leaders over the past few years.
I agree with Joseph to the extent that the anti-Bush feeling has made people doubt the existence of jidhadists at all. I think there is a tendency for anti-Bushies to assume they are making it all up. And that's dangerous because these really are nasty people and there really are significant threats. But, as Bob notes, the administration uses these incidents to implicitly justify all of their decisions, including the eavesdropping and the war itself. So it is hard to evaluate how seriously to take each particular plot.
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