Election coming! Orange alert!

No tinfoil here. Just a review of what actually happens.

There was some kind of real plot. Sure. There are terrorists out there and they're trying to kill people. They're bad guys and the police should stop them and the papers should report when they do.

The government is anxious to be seen as doing something about terrorism. They'll hype it. Of course they will. Nothing intrinsically wrong with propaganda, so long as it's not dishonest.

But...

There's some latitude about when many arrests are made. It's possible -- by no means certain -- that this arrest was deliberately made today.

Regardless. Arrests are made all the time.  That's fine. This was a real terror plot. Stipulated.

It's not the validity of the arrest or the fact of the terrorist plot that's questioned. It's the government response that's so obviously propagandistic.

It is three months before the midterm elections and there is now an Orange Alert.

Count the number of Orange Alerts in the six months prior to the 2004 elections.

Count the number of Orange Alerts there have been in the twenty-one months since the 2004 elections.

It's not a conspiracy. For it to be a conspiracy it would have to be nonobvious.  This is right out in the open.

•  Needed a 'victory' after a string of bad news...

  After the BP pipeline shutdown, the worsening situation in Lebanon, US Generals admitting that a civil war in Iraq is likely, the Lamont victory and Bush on vacation - this White House badly needed a "win".

  I doun't have any doubts that this was a genuine terror plot. But I just worry that the plot was shut down haphazardly or too early in order to get the "good" news out.

  Britain is still on its highest alert - and US had incoming UK flights on red alert.  That doesn't lend too much confidence that everything was broken up.

  by citizen92 on Thu Aug 10, 2006 at 09:10:51 AM PDT

  •  I don't know...

    If they were going to coordinate that, I think they would have done it on Monday or Tuesday to effect CT and help Lieberman.

    Just saying...

    by marchmoon on Thu Aug 10, 2006 at 09:23:12 AM PDT

    •  Totally agreed.

      If the Rethugs wanted to make sure their lickspittle Lieberman won, they would have made sure there was a convenient leak from MI5 over the weekend before the election, complete with a Rovian smear-dial campaign linking Lamont to softness on terrorism.

      This also proves that law enforcement agencies can disrupt a terror plot without resorting to torture.  Take that, Alan Dershowitz - we had here a possible ticking time bomb, and standard police and intelligence procedures broke it up.

      by varro on Thu Aug 10, 2006 at 10:02:53 AM PDT

      •  Excellent points

        This really should work in our favor

        by marchmoon on Thu Aug 10, 2006 at 10:10:23 AM PDT

•  has anybody counted them?

  it sounds like a good idea

  by yet another liberal on Thu Aug 10, 2006 at 09:14:24 AM PDT