This thought–sparked by the following headline: “Warning, Specific Targets Identified”.
I’m torn about publicizing specific target warnings. Unless the plot is non-transferable for some reason, can’t the terrorist just pick another building? It will make our (correct) intelligence look stupid, and it will allow for an easier attack. But on the other hand not warning the people involved in known and specific target doesn’t seem right either.
N.B. – might be “specific targets from 2000 or 2001”. On the one hand, al Qaeda plans far in advance – on the other, the landscape has altered a lot since 2000.
Anyway, I agree with your tornedness.
I think they have no choice but to publicize it — imagine the scenario where they don’t say anything, they fail to prevent the attack, people die, and then it becomes known that they had specific credible information about the selected target ahead of time.
Anyway, if the info is accurate, then it could be a good thing to let the terrorists know that we know. IANAT(errorist), but I’d think it would be more likely that they call off the attack than simply switch targets at the last minute.
BTW, Sebastian, you’re not the only one thinking about this — here’s a snippet from Bush’s QA session today:
I hadn’t seen that response. It makes sense, but I’m still conflicted. I guess I would try to err on the side of overinforming–in the hopes that everyone can help out. But it is an ugly problem.
I would have thought there could be a middle ground for reporting to the people responsable for security like mayors, military, police, etc. Is it now assume that people can’t keep a secret when it comes to national security? Particularly if the threats could be years old shouldn’t it be a case of making sure the target security is in place so secondary targets are not picked.
Think about the number of people who would have to know something was up, if you only informed the police, fire departments, and companies in the buildings targeted. Word would get out, both because too many people would hear about it, and more fundamentally, because too many new, obviously security-relevant things (closing tunnels to truck traffic, putting up barricades, posting extra policemen) would be done to keep it secret. So once you decide to overtly prepare, I don’t think it’s possible to keep that preparation a secret.
–John
my whole city under lockdown, and it’s turned out to based on some info older than any of my underwear.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/
and Ridge was giving his boss a plug when making this specific Terra threat. but it’s not a device to soften the Kerry bounce or anything, not these honorable dudes (honorable in the Nixonian tradition, that is). Who needs Chuck Colson when you have Karl Rove?
The WTC was a target for at least a decade (assuming some planning prior to the 1993 attack), but we should assume any buildings targeted as recently as 2001 are not targets any longer because Wilfred hates Republicans. Check.
funny Phil, there are quite a lot of Republicans in my life that i love dearly, which puts you on the wrong, as usual (and with a teaspoon of nasty poured on top). ObWi is about the meeting of Left, Right and Center so please stop acting insulted when comments from the other side of the spectrum appear. If you want all wing-talk, all the time, may i recommend Hannity, Rush, Fox etc. as they use crass terms like Republican-Hater and Un-American there. If you’re looking for a whipping-boy, keep searching as this boy bites back when bitten.
Phil
I believe wilfred is reacting to the tone. We all know that an asteroid has a very good chance of hitting the earth at some point in the future but if the astronomers come out tomorrow screaming “An asteroid is coming. An asteroid is coming!” It would be thought that an asteroid is coming imminently.
The best we can do is to prepare for a possible attack to specific threats but I don’t think it helps if government starts arbitrarily deciding the terrorists timeline. The way things are now presented, Ridge is implying that after November 3 we can breath a sigh of relief if no attacks have happened. False security. But is it also false urgency?
Wilfred isn’t a fan of “connect-the-dots, apparently. But if there was an attack on any of those building, would Wilfred be first in line to throw bricks and the current Admin, I believe so.
Here’s the link Wilfred was talking about.
As much as I would hate to believe that the current administration would sink to puffing up old bits of intelligence for political gain, the fact that much of the information this warning was based on dates back to before 9/11 makes me wonder.
That said, given this paragraph in the new York Times this morning has to give one pause:
All in all, while the timing seems fishy, I think warning the public was the right thing to do.
Wilfred: Sorry, I’m not a Republican. I know you like to assume that anyone who defends them is one, but I ain’t. I just calls ’em as I sees ’em. If that bothers you, well . . . I can’t think of a polite way to finish that sentence so, there it is. Nice rant, though, even if it does make you “wrong, as usual (and with a teaspoon of nasty poured on top).”
By the way, in addition to the NYT graf quoted above, there’s this:
Carsick, my observations tell me that there is nothing — quite literally, nothing — regarding terrorism, warnings, whatever, that this administration could do that those voting Democrat this fall would not immediately call a lie or a distraction or poorly timed or trumped up. I suspect the only action they could take that would meet with Democratic approval would be if the Bush administration did not utter the words “terror” or “terrorism” at all until Nov. 3. Meanwhile, since I dropped my wife off at her office this morning a mere block from the World Bank and IMF in DC, I prefer that if the administration has good intelligence that it acts on it, informs the public, and does what it needs to do. And I really don’t care even the tiniest little bit what it does to Kerry’s campaign numbers, or the Bush’s either, for that matter. And if it makes people themselves more vigilant, all the better.
More information for people who are serious abouth the situation.
Phil
Is it a good idea for the Ravens to tell the Steelers that their defense is preparing to stop the run on the next play?
Are the IMF and the WorldBank now safer at the expense of the train station? Are we to assume al Queda doesn’t have the imagination to think of alternate targets? Or read the papers or watch tv?
Or thisThe arrest of a senior Al Qaeda operative in June and his subsequent interrogation enabled US and Pakistani intelligence agents to gather documents, e-mail addresses, and cellphone text messages that gave them their first clues about the network’s plan to strike targets in New York and Washington, D.C., according to Pakistani intelligence officials.
The Al Qaeda operative, Musaad Aruchi, was arrested in Karachi on June 12 by Pakistani paramilitary forces in an operation supervised by the CIA, officials said. According to a senior Pakistani intelligence official involved in the early interrogation of the suspect, “Aruchi was sure that Al Qaeda would hit New York or Washington pretty soon.
“He had with him street maps of New York City without the front cover and addresses of some other important buildings,” the official said. “There were some data CDs also recovered from him.”
Pakistani officials said Aruchi’s capture led to other important arrests, including last week’s raid in the city of Gujrat that netted Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a Tanzanian wanted in connection with the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
But don’t worry about it — the spin machine is already revved up, the narrative lined up: “Old data! Bush lied! Politicizing terror!”
Are we to assume that, because we’re making a visible show of force at what the administration claims are targets, that we aren’t watching other potential targets, too? Do you have a basis for that assumption?
here phil is the proof that you don’t even read posts, just react to them. Where in my comment did i state you were a Republican? and believe me, democrats and centrists don’t allude to folks being republican haters so you outed yourself as a wingnut by your language. if it uses the wingnut speak and posts in wing-nut attitude… as that famous wingnut Scalia says…. quack quack.
“But if there was an attack on any of those building, would Wilfred be first in line to throw bricks and the current Admin, I believe so.”
Well Timmy, you’ve outdone yourself, you’re psychic. Now just apply that thinking to yourself: if Gore was installed in 2000, how would you be posting if he hadn’t found the perpetrator of the WTC attacks and was running for re-election as a War President?
Not that I expect an honest answer from the guys, you know who you are, who basically gang-banged Katherine off ObWi last night in some of the nastiest group bullying i’ve ever seen on a blog. We lost the best Diarist and Poster on the this site and now you, Phil and the gang are looking for new meat this morning to chew on.
May i suggest you just start Masturbation.com blog because a circle jerk is all that will be around on this site soon if you guys don’t take a good hard look in the mirror and really, what are the odds of that happening?
Where in my comment did i state you were a Republican?
Right here: “ObWi is about the meeting of Left, Right and Center so please stop acting insulted when comments from the other side of the spectrum appear.”
If you figure I’m reacting to comments from “the other side of the spectrum,” said comments being yours, you must figure that, you being on the left, I’m on the right. Throw your little snit-fits all you want, but don’t suggest that I can’t read English.
and believe me, democrats and centrists don’t allude to folks being republican haters so you outed yourself as a wingnut by your language.
Want to see my voting records? It would be worth getting them out there just to watch you turn ten shades of red, if you’re even capable of embarrassment.
And whatever this is about: you know who you are, who basically gang-banged Katherine off ObWi last night in some of the nastiest group bullying i’ve ever seen on a blog . . . Phil and the gang are looking for new meat this morning to chew on.
I wasn’t even involved in whatever you think you’re pathetically accusing me of, and I would suggest that an apology is in order, but I doubt you’re capable of that, either. You want to address me, pal, you’ll address me as me, and not as part of some shadowy cabal that you think I belong to.
you know phil, your rants get worse by the minute. first, the other side is other than left and your posts aren’t from the left so please don’t feign what you’re not.
secondly, that part about Katherine was worded precisely to exclude you from that but did include you in today’s chewfest. But subtlety is lost on you fella, oops, don’t mean to assume you’re a man just because you’re named phil.
OK, Phil, Wilfred: you each have demonstrated your strong opinions of the other, everybody knows where you stand, if you want to keep on with it kindly take it somewhere else.
Okay, I feel like I should answer this. Wilfred, I appreciate that, but it’s not necessary. I thought they were being obnoxious and grossly wrong and arguing in bad faith, and being outnumbered made it worse, but I would never describe it as a “gang bang”. I didn’t have my feelings hurt so much as I was pissed.
There comes a time in an argument when you have lost any hope of changing each other’s mind, and instead you are just changing your opinions of each other for the worse. I have reached that point–I have passed that point.
But it has more to do with the Bush administration and the GOP leadership and the incompetence of the press*, as it does with anything said last night.
*off topic, but since this is my last-post-for-real, I will point the way towards these two horrifying stories on Abu Ghraib, which the dailies and TV news have completely ignored. When Congress, the President, and the press fail, and the opposition is afraid to say much, it’s time for ordinary citizens to step into the breach.
Now just apply that thinking to yourself: if Gore was installed in 2000, how would you be posting if he hadn’t found the perpetrator of the WTC attacks and was running for re-election as a War President?
It all depends if Gore was a war President. But assuming that he was (gone into both Iraq and Afghanistan), I would be supporting him in that effort. BTW we found the perpetrator of the WTC attack, we now are looking for the banker.
Doesn’t mean that I would be voting for Gore though.
Sorry Katherine, i was just pissed myself at what was done and well, since i thought it was just guys i used that term and i wouldn’t have if i thought there was a lady present. I started to use the word ‘bully session’ and thought it just didn’t convey what i thought needed to be addressed and i wanted the posters to look at what they did in tandem. And i did mean what i said about ObWi losing the best Diarist and Poster we had. I hope one day soon i’ll be plying you with margaritas and making you smile (at least by paying the check!).
But assuming that he was (gone into both Iraq and Afghanistan),
This is something I’ve been meaning to ask for a long time. At what point after 9/11 did the need for invading Iraq become obvious as the next most important step after invading Afghanistan?