U.S./U.K Clashed Over Timing
(Posted by Mona)
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U.S., U.K. at odds over timing of arrests: British wanted to continue surveillance on terror suspects, official says.*LONDON – NBC News has learned that U.S. and British authorities had a significant disagreement over when to move in on the suspects in the alleged plot to bring down trans-Atlantic airliners bound for the United States.*A senior British official knowledgeable about the case said British police were planning to continue to run surveillance for at least another week to try to obtain more evidence, while American officials pressured them to arrest the suspects sooner….*In contrast to previous reports, the official suggested an attack was not imminent,…
With that in mind, it is interesting to note that over at QandO, neo-libertarian McQ is lampooning Keith Olbermann and others who are speculating about whether there are nefarious GOPers afoot in the timing of the announcement of the plot. Declares McQ:
If the administration had been interested in manipulating the bust to effect a primary outcome [Liberman-Lamont], doing it after the primary isn’t the most effective way to do so, is it? So the actual facts argue pretty persuasively against any “timing” theory, don’t they?
Perhaps – what think ye here at Jim’s?
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I’m not , however, inclined to give McQ points for his dismissial of Bush Co.’s craven and transparent manipulation of public fear for political gain; he sees such machinations as merely politics as usual, and finds it silly to even call attention to these GOP ploys:
Again, consider the point being made: Politicians are -gasp- exploiting news stories for political gain?!?! It would actually be news if they weren’t.
Well, perhaps McQ is not disgusted by Republican “statesmen” who are willing to keep the public unnecessarily agitated about terrorists (not just any old news story, but a threat to our security), instead of their behaving as leaders who counsels us to be calm and assured — as Americans have characteristically been when he we have bravely faced all manner of threat, internal and external.
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But that was then; this is what passes for stalwart “leadership” from Bush, Cheney and Rove.
Comment by vaskeli —
August 13, 2006 @ 11:09 am
Perhaps – what think ye here at Jim’s?
Lieberman’s GOP “fans” never wanted him to win the primary. Endorsements from Bill Kristol, Tom DeLay and Ann Coulter during the final week of a Democratic primary were so many gift-wrapped anchors.
Lamont’s victory provides an opportunity for the GOP to float a test-balloon for November: weak on Iraq, weak on terror. If the public isn’t buying that line in a year when the New Middle East is imploding around their standing army, they’ll have plenty of time to change tactics.
Trackback by Unpartisan.com Political News and Blog Aggregator —
August 13, 2006 @ 11:51 am
Dems assail GOP ?terror? fundraising…
Democrats assailed the Republicans Friday for e-mailing a fundraising appeal mentioning the war on t…
Comment by Jaybird —
August 13, 2006 @ 12:11 pm
I don’t find it surprising that the US said something to the effect of “get them now!”
What I would find surprising is that they would specifically say “Joe lost in ct… YOU HAVE TO ARREST THESE GUYS RIGHT NOW!!!”
I mean, seriously. That would suggest a level of competence and planning on the part of Bush that, until now, has been noticably lacking.
Comment by The Ugly American —
August 13, 2006 @ 1:40 pm
k
WTF are you talking about? unnecessarily agited?
As someone who flys overseas regularly I get really freaking agitated when people are caught trying to blow up the planes I am on.
that is definitely the dumbest thing I have read today, but it is early.
Comment by Andrew Olmsted —
August 13, 2006 @ 1:59 pm
Mona,
I think you and McQ need a timeout or something; I realize you don’t get along, but must you tear at one another constantly? (And this is mutual; McQ seems to have an impressive number of posts referencing you these days.)
More seriously, I think that McQ has a point in this case; I seem to recall President Clinton using the Oklahoma City bombing as a bludgeon against his political opponents. It’s not admirable, it’s not leadership, but it is certainly politics. Should we expect anything more out of this administration after 5 1/2 years of watching it? I see no reason to think so. Leadership and politics are not completely separate sets, but the overlap is pretty small these days.
I would be quite interested to see someone in the press follow up on this to see why the U.S. was pushing for earlier arrests.
Comment by Mona —
August 13, 2006 @ 3:35 pm
Mr. Olmsted: One can read only so many blogs, and among mine are QnadO and Greenwalds’s. McQ frequently makes points that serve as the ideal rhetorical foil for my arguments, while I often (not invariably) find compelling merit in what Glenn Greenwald writes. I often enough cite one or both men.
Indeed, McQ is somewhat obsessed with criticizing Greenwald, and often me as well, really, both of us together lately. Last time he went on an anti-Greenwald rant, myriad of his commneters purported deep curiosity as to my opinion about same. Consider my posts mentioning McQ a partial response.
And, if you think a GOP that exploits the lizard brains of the body politic “in a time of war” not to be ignoble, that they should not instead in statesmen-like fashion be appealing to our frontal lobes and asking us to be the calm and resolute citizenry — especially libertarain-type folks — we have historically been, well, we will have to disagree. I find Bush, Cheny, Rove & etc. repugnant when they exploit base fear for political gain in service of such policies as torture, illegal electronic surveillance, and their inept foreign policy.
Comment by Joseph j7uy5 —
August 13, 2006 @ 3:49 pm
As far as the timing goes, one of the problems that the Bush administration is having is that they have lost control of the media agenda. The Lamont-Lieberman race was dominating the headlines. It was in the best interest of the Administration to make those headlines go away. They want to be the ones who control what is in the news media.
It is not clear that the UK has any need to bow to pressure from the US in this regard. However, this Administration has a record of blowing intelligence operations (three that I know of, that were leaked prematurely). Therefore, once the Administration was on to this, the UK would have had to act quickly for fear that their operation would be blown.
Comment by Thoreau —
August 13, 2006 @ 4:25 pm
Although I have expressed some skepticism about the threat, if they were indeed planning a dry run I can’t blame the US for insisting on an immediate arrest. There’s always the possibility that the talk of a dry run could be a ruse to cover a real attack. Bottom line: If the threat is indeed real, stopping it right before the dry run seems justifiably prudent.
The question is whether these guys were really as capable and dangerous as they’re made out to be.
Comment by Andrew Olmsted —
August 13, 2006 @ 6:34 pm
Mona,
Please, call me Andrew…we’re all best friends in the blogosphere. (Although I should note that I am impressed that you did spell my name right. A less common occurence than you might think.) I suppose I should have been clearer with my intro, as it was intended to be gentle sarcasm and not a serious point. I just read a lot of QandO and UO, so with you guest-posting here, it was beginning to seem like an episode of Crossfire. I should, I suppose, leave my humor at home when commenting, since humor is so terribly subjective in the first place, and so much harder to interpret without the benefit of voice inflection or expression.
As for the GOP, I don’t disagree that it is ignoble. I am just too cynical to expect any more. All things being equal, I would love to see more statesmen and fewer politicians, but I have stopped hoping for such things.
Comment by Jackmormon —
August 13, 2006 @ 11:34 pm
I rather doubt that the Lamont-Lieberman primary would have been sufficient motivator to move the raid forward. If there were headlines to push aside, I’d vote for the cease-fire agreement in Lebanon.