Can we please stop freaking out every time a group of people who think they're Cobra from the old GI Joe cartoon try to do something that they're incapable of doing?

And by the way, nothing in the "War on Terror" stopped these guys. Not domestic spying. Not the two wars we've have in 6 years, not Gitmo or Abu Ghraib. They were stopped because, like most "criminal masterminds" these guys don't know what they're doing.

I know, I'm making light. Fact of life is that every now and then we'll have to deal with a Timothy McVeigh and that's a horrible thing to face. But the vast majority are incompetents who think that JFK airport is like the Death Star and that you can blow it up by setting off a chain reaction.

Actually, these guys really are like Cobra from "GI Joe." Cobra Commander's schemes all failed as well.

thosethingswesay.blogspot.com

But of course the attention is focused on the bad "Die Hard" situation in England and not our ongoing debacle, America can not admit it's wrong...ever. And we will go to great lengths to focus on something else, ANYTHING ELSE, in order to overlook something that we are doing badly.

But there's more to it than that. Perhaps there are sectors of the media that are behooven to some neo-conservative or Republican agenda but it is my belief that the real motivation behind much of our countries "information disemmination" is the bottom line - it's dollars with little or no sense. And a fantastical misadventure of bungled but oh-so-scary "bombers" in England is a much easier sell then the morbid and depressing droning of yet more American deaths in an illegal, botched and utterly corrupt military misadventure in the Middle East. It's a war that's draining our nations soul as much as it is our treasury and international standing. And that's just too depressing to watch after a long day stuck in traffic isn't it?

Anyone that's been paying any attention whatsoever here in the United States now knows that the news is not news anymore but entertainment. And it's marketed and sold as such. Not only are the headlines more fit for rags in the checkout lines of grocery stores, but the fact that we can now have several editions of "Hot News-on-News Anchor-Chick Calendars" is a dismal and obvious sign that the press in our country is gangrenous and will soon play it's own part in our nations fall.

* Just a note: the press and the politicians are not the only ones to blame here. No. Lazy, apathetic and ignorant citizens are equally at fault. All of that crap news coverage is driven by sales. And if the dumb-ass public weren't willing to buy it they wouldn't be selling it. That's part of how capitalism works...you know supply and demand. If the people really wanted the truth then that's what they'd give us. So we all need to adjust our part in this currently tragic play if there is ever going to be any hope of a happy ending.

Several years ago I would likely have fully agreed with you here but now I'm not so sure.

I don't think that the "War on Terror" is so much about Osama Bin Laden's agenda as it is about the agenda of those waging the war itself. I mean is Bin Laden even relevent anymore? He's more like an imaginary monster used to scare your kids into obeying you than a real threat that's being actively sought.

Larry this isn't something the company would do as a distraction, is it? Be honest.

I have begun to conclude that governments use the word "Al Qaeda" to scare us so we'll do whatever they want.

According to a British documentary the Name “Al Qaeda” was never used by Al Qaeda untill after the CIA used that name to describe them. I think I can find the link if you are interested.

~

Naw ... the Brits can handle this type of Psyops all on their own ...

Through their 15 (UK) Psychological Operations Group (TinyURL preview link)

They've been very capable in Northern Ireland for decades...

~OGD~

If you want a concise history of Al Qaeda, I'd suggest this book by Jason Burke.

If can recall correctly from the book, the term Al Qaeda literally means something like "the base". It is however unclear when the term was first used - it may have been by Bin Laden at some point in the mid-to-late 1990's - but certainly when the Clinton DoJ was prosecuting the 1993 WTC bombers, they were looking to tie-in Bin Laden (using RICO statutes) and to do so they needed to name his "organization". They used Al Qaeda. So it seems we probably started using the term around the same time Bin Laden did, and it just sort of grew from there. But no-one is really certain how the phrase originated.

Something Burke makes clear in his book is that by assigning a name to Al Qaeda, we somewhat distort our understanding of the nature of the beast. That although there is often a unifying theme of militant Islamism across the diverse groups who use the Al Qaeda brand, their objectives are often distinct and limited to a specific regional grievance. And it seems the other obvious point about calling your group an "Al Qaeda affiliate", is that you basically call on Bin Laden's considerable financial resources.

But to Larry's post, I think the true danger this episode exposes is what fearmongering by our government can do to us. On the one hand, these incidents in London and Glasgow are not trivial. The bombs might have been poorly made and the bombers thankfully inept, but it is a sobering reminder that people with these homicidal intents exist in our midst. And perhaps most notably, British intelligence agencies evidently had very little clue about these planned attacks (although you would never have learned this fact from the thoroughly dumb ramblings of the Chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee).

Yet on the other hand, it should remind us to keep the terrorist threat in perspective, that the probability of an attack is really quite slim.

And to look at how British leaders respond to these incidents - by basically saying that police and intelligence agencies will chase down the suspects, and in the meantime people should continue to live as normal... isn't that just the most marvellous antidote to the terrorist threat?

To remind the public that the terrorist threat is not some kind of existential crisis; that there is no need to disappear into bomb-shelters whilst hanging on to the words of our Leaders; that Al Qaeda whilst real, is not always the killing machine we sometimes imagine it to be.

I can't find the citation at the moment, but I read this weekend some analysis which said Al Qaeda will try to avoid getting linked with these failed UK bombings. Apparently feckless jihadi activity will damage Al Qaeda's street cred... which seems to me to be a pretty good reason to cover these incidents in their proper context, that is, brainwashed, incompetent crazies doing their cause more harm than good.

Was Timmothy McVeigh a great genius as a terrorist? How many people did he kill, including young children, in Oklahoma City?

The use of fear by the Bush crowd is a disgrace. They seem not to remember that the Founders of this country faced hanging in if they lost their fight for independence and the rights they sought. Physical safety is not the be all and end all of being an American. Protecting the rights defended for us by previous generations should be the highest duty of any President or any citizen.

However, I do not understand the insistence on the left to match the inanities of Bush and the right. How many people should be killed in a terrorist attack before it is worth your notice. Should we giggle because this doctor in Scotland didn't really know what he was doing? Should we just let all these "yuppy" terrorists alone and see if they can get it right? If at the airport someone was stopped carrying a boxcutter would you dismiss this and a minor incident? Wasn't that pretty much the lone weapon of the 9/11 murderers?

The need of Bush to gin up the fear and the left to deny the existence of real threats largely from a group or groups of Muslims is equally scary.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

However, I do not understand the insistence on the left to match the inanities of Bush and the right.

Democratic Party members were ridiculed for emphasizing law enforcement as the major means of combating domestic terror. Remember Rove's comments?
In reality, it will be very difficult to crack a very dedicated small group of fanatics. Tracking odd/large purchases of the building blocks of the weapons they would craft is of utmost importantance. Post- Oklahoma City, efforts to label the materials used to build the bomb were blocked by the NRA, not by crazy lefties.
The terrorists who made the London/Scotland attacks could be tracked by because of surveillance cameras placed throughout large cities in England. The debacle in Iraq, fostered in by Cheney's 1% solution, delays an internal US discussion about how much of our civil liberty we will be willing to give up for the ability to back-track through surveillance the small but lethal groups of terrorists that cannot be detected before they carry out their mission.
It is the Cheney 1% solution that got us bogged down in Iraq and the NRA and it's supporters that block law enforcement efforts that could have an immediate effect in the "war on terror". The problem is with the right.

There was a Theodore Sturgeon science-fiction story about a mysterious powerful alien attacking the Earth, and how all of the various international governments banded together to combat the threat. At the end of this Sturgeon sci-fi story, it was revealed to the reader that the threat was entirely made up, that there was no mysterious alien, but that it had been created so that everybody would be cooperative. Well, the parallels between that story and Bush & Company's use of the "War on Terror" are striking, only Bush & Company seem to be using such a mysterious powerful group (the "Terrorists and "Al Qaeda") to grab power, abolish rights under the Constitution, and grow the Republican Party. Anyone questioning the "War On Terror" is deemed a traitor or a wimp. Very ingenious, wouldn't you say?

Maybe it is time to give Tony Blair and George Bush some credit for a solid achievement in the war on terror--the current lot of muslim extremists in the UK had major problems building a reliable, effective incendiary device.

Larry is joking, but Ed Morrissey at Captain's Quarters is not.

...indicate[s] that our years-long aggressive strategy of attacking AQ as an enemy at war rather than a criminal gang has paid off ... They used to excel at coordinated bombing attacks, but now their bombs misfire, and they're reduced to banzai attacks on concrete barricades.

On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron. H.L. Mencken

I am upset that the media is focused on ONLY the bad news coming out of the UK. Why don't they focus on some of the more positives aspects of life in the UK. Can't they find a story about a new school being built? Just goes to show you the MSM really is on the side of the terrorists.

The need of [...] the left to deny the existence of real threats largely from a group or groups of Muslims is [...] scary.

Please show us the evidence of people on the left who DENY the existence of real threats from Islamist terrorists.

In case you didn't read Larry's post on NoQuarter, he included this:

Are there jihadist extremists in the world who are willing to kill innocents?  Absolutely.  Are they amenable to negotiation?  No.  I am not in the, "have you hugged a terrorist today" camp.  However, we need to stop equating their hatred with actual capability.

That's the kind of perspective we need, not the breathless, pantloading reporting we have seen. I don't know about you, but whatever the Glasgow airport guys wanted to do, I still find this picture of a driver (failed suicide bomber??) being hosed down by airport security really pretty amusing. A bit like the movie of Zarqawi when he couldn't figure out how to un-jam his kalashnikov. And the Fort Dix plot to invade the army base in a pizza delivery van.

Sometimes terrorists deserve to be laughed at. That doesn't mean denying the threat, it means keeping it in perspective.

Not what I heard from folks that lived it. The Chechen thing didn't blow up until Yeltsin and Putin.

OK...this is great: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=465481&in_page_id=1770&ct=5 ...in this news story in the Daily Mail, we learn all kinds of things about the recent terror in the UK:

 • "The suspected ringleader of the Al Qaeda car bombers is a brilliant neurologist working for the NHS, it was revealed today. Saudi Mohammed Asha, 26, was arrested with his 27-year-old wife, who was in traditional Muslim dress, on the M6 in Cheshire on Saturday night. "

• One of the two men who drove a blazing Jeep Cherokee into the terminal building at Glasgow airport on Saturday afternoon is also thought to be a doctor.

http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2007/06_03/ArrestMillar0107_468x393.jpg

• Meanwhile, links between an Islamist terror group responsible for a series of bloody bombings in Iraq and the London attacks last week have emerged today. According to reports, British intelligence had warned the Government that Iranian Kurds could be plotting a campaign of terror to coincide with the handover of power from Tony Blair to Gordon Brown.

• US sources today suggested radical Kurdish group Ansar al-Islam would have a motive for an attack on Britain, having been driven out of its northern Iraqi stronghold and into Iran after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.

•

Anti-terrorist detectives swooped on five members of the gang across Britain after gathering crucial clues from phones found in the two London car bombs.

The phones were meant to trigger a blast when they were called. The bombers twice called the car outside the Tiger Tiger nightclub in Haymarket, and the one in Cockspur Street four times, but the bombs failed to detonate for technical reasons.

[DAMN DOCTOR-TERRORISTS CAN'T DO NOTHIN' RIGHT!!]

• The suspected ringleader of the plot is also a doctor, a Jordanian. Neurologist Dr Mohammed Asha, 26, and his burka-wearing wife, 27, were held in a dramatic operation as they drove on the M6 in Cheshire with their two-year-old son on Saturday.

[^^REMEMBER, IN THE FIRST PARAGRAPH HE WAS A SAUDI^^]

• He is believed to be linked to the two Mercedes packed with gas canisters, petrol and nails found in the West End on Friday.

[WHAT ELSE WOULD ANT SELF-RESPECTING DOCTOR-TERRORIST DRIVE?] 

•Dr Asha is also believed to have links to a two-bedroom, semi-detached house in the quiet commuter village of Houston, Renfrewshire, just outside Glasgow.

Two Asian men had recently moved into the house which was being searched by police yesterday.

[UH OH...A WORLD-WIDE CONSPIRACY EMERGES!]

• Mya Logan, 29, an IT support technician, said: "I saw a man washing a 4x4 vehicle outside the house two weeks ago.

"I can't remember the colour or the make, but it was a big 4x4. I saw the car a couple of times in recent weeks.

"The last time was a Saturday morning and I was on my way to work at 8am. It seemed strange to be washing the car so early, that's what caught my eye."

[GOTTA HAVE THAT CAR BOMB SPANKY CLEAN!!] 

America can not admit it's wrong...ever.

Then the revelation that America is occasionally wrong would hurt the politicians' close friends and campaign contributors who own the more and more centralized 'news' media. They would lose audience share and advertisers. Can't allow that to happen, can we?

However, I do not understand the insistence on the left to match the inanities of Bush and the right. How many people should be killed in a terrorist attack before it is worth your notice. Should we giggle because this doctor in Scotland didn't really know what he was doing?

And, as usual, when you get asked exactly *who* on the left is saying these things, exactly *who* on the left is "denying the existence of real threats," you won't respond.

Because, as usual, you are full of shit.

Actually, maybe you are right. I did read it in a comment from this guy SuperDEM1893 over at Democratic Underground one day.

So, never mind. You've convinced me. I take it all back.

I'm sorry to be pretty a much a dick with my comment here, Daniel. But I get sooooo tired of reading this crap from you, over and over again. Never anything to back up what you say, the same smears about "the Left" over and over and over.

You take a caricature of liberals, and you apply it to and offend every one of us who actually knows there are plenty of real threats out there, but is deeply horrified by the way our government has attacked people that did not attack us, and how, using their "War On Terror" bumper sticker strategy, they've tortured people in our name, or wiretapped our phones, or bankrupted our country's finances, or questioned the patriotism of anyone whose disagreed with their tactics.

And, yeah, we "giggle," because sometimes, when things are as bad as they are, you need a laugh, to get you through the despondent and desperate situation we really are in.

And, yeah, we "giggle," because the way the Bush Administration "fights" terrorism is, in a word, laughable.

So why don't you just give it a break? We're tired of hearing these smears from you. Or, at least, I am.

"Thank God George Bush is our president." -Rudy Giuliani

Personally, I don't think these incidents should be trivialized.  We can thank our lucky stars that these operations went awry - but thanking lucky stars doesn't strike me as a particularly secure position.  The Brits are saying Glasglow and London are related - but I don't think that implies al Qaeda (bin Laden's International Islamic Front IIF) hand.  They look more like local jahadi initiatives that were well-planned but technologically unsound.  That seems more threatening to me - certainly more difficult to mediate with law enforcement.  As for the "connection" two things come to mind:

1) The recent death of Taliban leader Dadullah at the hands of British, Canadian and German troops in Afghanistan.  His brother Mansoor has called for retaliation against the three European nations.

2) The knighting of Salman Rushdie, which curiously has caused the strongest response (demonstrations etc.) in Jammu/Kashmir and India, not Iran and other western asian areas as we would expect.  

That suggests to me that there are others in the UK and elsewhere who are fomenting over these issues and even planing strikes.  I'm struck by the potential lethality of the bombs - and the resemblance to Iraq style terrorism.  Whatever crackdown the Brits employ on the Pakistani community will have some blowback also - aggravating an already tense community and inadvertently encouraging more local jahadi retaliation.

Most of this comes from South Asia Analysis Group, which I always find to be extremely informative. 

Neoboho