BCT Editorial – 6/30/06

This page was last updated on July 1, 2006.

Scare tactics; Editorial; Beaver County Times; June 30, 2006.

Below is a detailed critique of the subject editorial.

“Once you got past the flashy press conferences and started looking at the context of the arrests of seven Miami men accused of planning to wage a ‘full ground war against the United States,’ the fishier things got.

“It’s not that the members of group shouldn’t have been arrested. They were, after all, at least thinking about carrying out attacks against targets in the United States. (Whether they had the means or the ability to do so is up to debate.) When it comes to stopping this kind of plotting, the earlier the better.”

[RWC] “At least thinking about carrying out attacks?” I guess that’s true, but it understates how far the suspects had thought they progressed. According to the news reports, they were soliciting support from a person they believed to represent al-Qaida.

“But these guys weren’t even small fish. They were minnows, which raises the question: Why did the Bush White House orchestrate a series of press conferences to trumpet the arrests and make such a big deal over the matter? As FBI Deputy Director John Pistole acknowledged, the ‘group was more aspirational than operational.’

“But brouhaha over the arrests did give everybody a good scare for a while, didn’t it?”

[RWC] You see, I believe the Times wants us to forget Islamic terrorists – both foreign and homegrown – want us dead. I believe the Times wants us to forget 9/11 happened as well as the 1993 WTC bombing and the worldwide attacks since the late 1970s. All of this is in an effort to make President Bush look like Chicken Little. Therefore, when we have continuing reports showing people really are plotting against us, the Times must do its best to try an minimize the threat. I guess the Times never considered that publicizing the arrests might have a deterrent effect, or perhaps it did.

One last point. When we have the next inevitable successful terrorist attack on U.S. soil, how much do you want to bet the Times will claim President Bush didn’t take the threat seriously enough and didn’t do enough to defend the country?