The threat this time was weapons of glass destruction.
Transatlantic suicide bombers were to mix cocktails of liquid explosives in flight and blast from the skies as many as a dozen airliners en route from England to the United States.
There’s nothing like a foiled plot to swell the chests of the authorities – and whet the appetite of the politicians.
This plot boiled over Thursday when British police said they arrested 24 citizens of Muslim faith suspected of planning mass murders in the sky. Though sketchy with details, the authorities said the plotters were on the brink of staging a dry run to test-smuggle their bottled explosives onto selected planes. The highly coordinated attacks designed to harvest a high death toll, officials said, bore the signature of al Qaeda.
The ensuing frenzy leaves the citizenry, to say nothing of stranded passengers, at the mercy of the airport police. (The private leased jets of the wealthy, of course, are not encumbered by the gridlock imposed upon the masses.)
Worse still, it leaves the average citizens at the whim of politicians bent on staying in power through fearmongering. Again, the wealthy can more deftly assess such threats, as witness the stock markets that barely blinked their tickers at news of the arrest of the two dozen suspects.
Such “terror plots” call for the media to be ever-vigilant against the excesses of the bureaucrat seeking promotion and the elected official seeking votes. Both power centers are capable of exploiting such emergencies. It is the role of the media to eschew propaganda while ferreting out the facts leading toward the truth. A healthy skepticism of authority and politician is in order.
First, let’s deal with the authorities.
After the London subway bombings in July last year, British authorities reportedly picked up significant tips about plots of future devastation. Dozens of suspects were identified and shadowed for months by British intelligence agents who have centuries of experience in such backstreet operations. In the internet age, however, plotters operate not by cloak and dagger but by computer mouse and code words.
Surveillance by cyberspace touched the ground as hundreds of British cops and technicians closed in last week on the band of young Brits of Pakistani descent. The ancient blood of these British-born, jihadist converts apparently backflowed against their country’s military involvement with the United States in Afghanistan and Iraq. Concerned that the plotters might scatter out of sight, the British – with assistance from Pakistan – arrested the suspects days, or weeks, before the planned operation.
Should we accept the general outlines of the foiled plot? Probably so, but with reservations. Was it as well-planned and otherwise as likely to succeed as the authorities would have us believe? Did the cops get there just in time?
These questions have not been sufficiently answered, and the media should not start pinning medals on the constables before the facts are in. Luckily for all sides, this is pre- and not post-catastrophe; instead of an after-action commission, we face the possibility of a trial. The world will get a look at the evidence.
The foiled “terror plot” has drawn the usual houseflies to their usual dung heaps, with the same resulting stench. The responses of Vice President Dick Cheney and Sen. Joseph Lieberman were as slimy as they were desperate. President George W. Bush emerged momentarily from his bike-riding vacationing in Crawford to yelp about “Islamic fascists” out to destroy freedom.
Bush blames al Qaeda for the British plot. Yet, in March ’02, when asked about Osama bin Laden, Bush said, “You know, I just don’t spend that much time on him, really, to be honest with you. I truly am not that concerned about him.”