October 16th, 2006
Yesterday morning, I watched Sunday’s Meet the Press with this strange sense of déjà vu. I found myself asking, “Haven’t I seen this already?” Is this a rerun?
It couldn’t be, of course, because the show had started with a discussion about the fact that North Korea had announced it tested a nuclear bomb, which had happened after last week’s show. So they couldn’t be re-airing the previous week’s show.
Still, I felt as if I had heard it all word-for-word before.
Then I realized who it was that Tim Russett was talking to.
Minnesota Hennepin County Attorney Amy Klobuchar (D) and Representative Mark Kennedy (R).
Why I had just seen them on MSNBC within the last two weeks. They were being asked the same exact questions and they were responding the same exact way. Kennedy was answering every question with an attack on Klobuchar and Klobuchar was repeatedly pointing out that he wasn’t answering the questions. When asked why Kennedy appeared to agree with President Bush 92% of the time, Kennedy thought the study should have been worded that Bush agreed with him 92% of the time.
What I didn’t understand was why they were being asked the same exact questions. Had this been agreed upon? It seemed all so rehearsed to me. A big show on everyone’s part. The fact that the shows are NBC-related does make me wonder. Talk about fake…Meet the Press, Klobuchar, Kennedy, Russett…all of them.
Tags: Minnesota, politics, Amy Klobuchar, Mark Kennedy, MSNBC, NBC, Meet the Press, Tim Russett
August 14th, 2006
I guess I’m starting to feel like enough time has passed and enough information is starting to come out that I feel I can voice my opinion on this whole “terror in the skies” thing with some confidence.
First of all, I’d like to state that I’m so relieved that my friends and I are all back in the States or back in England where we belong from our wedding-related and Summer International travels. What a nightmare if any of us had been caught up in any of this, particularly those of us with OCD-type issue and those of us who run a little hot-headed.
Second, I’d like to express empathy to anyone who has been caught in the nightmare of having to travel on airlines in Britain and the U.S. or in or out of the two in the last four days. You have my sympathy. I’ve got a very vivid picture of what you’ve been experiencing propped up in my brain and I certainly feel your pain.
That said…O.K. I’m extremely cynical. I felt that the timing seemed really odd and that the new surprise restrictions for airlines on both sides of the pond were way overboard and ludicrous. I mean, c’mon…they were forcing people to pour out their drinks in common open trashcans because they might be explosive and some airports may be donating the confiscated potential explosives to the homeless or airport security employees or might sell them on eBay, which kind of suggests that those things really weren’t all that potentially explosive to begin with — which makes you wonder why big show of national guard and army guys and extra airport security forcing American and British citizens to give up their personal belongs in such a humiliating and bullied manner?
And really those were just minor clues that maybe Thelma and Daphne might have picked up on. Heck Scooby and Shaggy might have even got those.
The fact that the plan itself was a rerun of another terrorist plot that already hadn’t worked once before — Project Bojinka. In fact, part of the reason it hadn’t come off before is because it got too big…too many people involve, which appears to be part of the problem with this one.
And I’m not saying there wasn’t a terrorist plot. I believe there was. I just don’t think it was an imminent as everyone made it out to be last Thursday in the news.
And it’s starting to look like I was right according to NBC news.
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.
British officials 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. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the case.
Interesting how last Thursday and Friday officials were implying that the reason that they raised the alerts was because the terrorists were going to strike any day. They got everyone riled up on both sides of the pond, did some fear-mongering, etc. And yet…
In contrast to previous reports, one senior British official suggested an attack was not imminent, saying the suspects had not yet purchased any airline tickets. In fact, some did not even have passports.
Gosh, it took me like six weeks just to get my passport. How long does it take in England? I’m thinking it takes at least a little time, more than a few days, probably longer than the definition of “imminent”, you think?
So why the hurry, I wonder.
The sources did say, however, that police believe one U.K.-based suspect was ready to conduct a “dry run.” British authorities had wanted to let him go forward with part of the plan, but the Americans balked.
One? One little terrorist wanted to do a “dry run”. They couldn’t follow one terrorist? With no liquid explosives at that. I mean, I assume that’s what “dry” means.
At the White House, a top aide to President Bush denied the account.
Somehow I’m not surprised.
“There was unprecedented cooperation and coordination between the U.S., the U.K. and Pakistani officials throughout the case,” said Frances Townsend, Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, “and we worked together to protect our citizens from harm while ensuring that we gathered as much info as possible to bring the plotters to justice. There was no disagreement between U.S. and U.K. officials.”
Another U.S. official, however, acknowledges there was disagreement over timing. Analysts say that in recent years, American security officials have become edgier than the British in such cases because of missed opportunities leading up to 9/11.
Aside from the timing issue, there was excellent cooperation between the British and the Americans, officials told NBC News.
One senior British official said the Americans also argued over the timing of the arrest of suspected ringleader Rashid Rauf in Pakistan, warning that if he was not taken into custody immediately, the United States would “render” him or pressure the Pakistani government to arrest him.
British security was concerned that Rauf be taken into custody “in circumstances where there was due process,” according to the official, so that he could be tried in British courts. Ultimately, this official says, Rauf was arrested over the objections of the British.
So…the U.S. threatened that if Britain didn’t do things our way, the U.S. would just run amok anyway and ruin the whole investigation by kidnapping the ringleader and making sure he couldn’t be prosecuted at all in a proper court of law. Aren’t we just the bullies? If we can’t have it our way, we’ll just ruin it for everyone.
As an interesting side note, PW sent an email saying, “The airports are a complete mess over here and everyone’s pissed off because Blair is on vacation and isn’t coming back; how are things over there?”
To which I replied, “Well, the airports are pretty much a complete mess over here and everyone’s pretty much pissed off because Bush is on vacation and isn’t coming back; so pretty much the same.”
Source: U.S., U.K. at odds over timing of arrests (emphasis mine)
Recommended Reading:
Tags: terrorism, UK, politics, liquid explosives, Scooby Doo, Project Bojinka, NBC, International flights
July 31st, 2006
Today is Day 20 of the “Crisis in the Middle East”.
Do you know how many days it’s been since the U.S. invaded Iraq?
According to Frank Rich in yesterday’s New York Times, yesterday was Day 1,229, making today a nice even 1,230.
According to CNN, “there have been 2,802 coalition deaths, 2,576 Americans, two Australians, 114 Britons, 13 Bulgarians, three Danes, two Dutch, two Estonians, one Fijian, one Hungarian, 31 Italians, one Kazakh, one Latvian, 17 Poles, two Romanians, two Salvadoran, three Slovaks, 11 Spaniards, two Thai and 18 Ukrainians in the war in Iraq as of July 31, 2006.” 1,000 plus Iraqis per month have lost their lives in Baghdad alone the last few months.
However, according to Frank Rich:
On the Big Three networks’ evening newscasts, the time devoted to Iraq has fallen 60 percent between 2003 and this spring, as clocked by the television monitor, the Tyndall Report. On Thursday, Brian Williams of NBC read aloud a “shame on you” e-mail complaint from the parents of two military sons anguished that his broadcast had so little news about the war.
This is happening even as the casualties in Iraq, averaging more than 100 a day, easily surpass those in Israel and Lebanon combined. When Nouri al-Maliki, the latest Iraqi prime minister, visited Washington last week to address Congress, he too got short TV shrift — a mere five sentences about the speech on ABC’s “World News.” The networks know a rerun when they see it. Only 22 months earlier, one of Mr. Maliki’s short-lived predecessors, Ayad Allawi, had come to town during the 2004 campaign to give a similarly empty Congressional address laced with White House-scripted talking points about the war’s progress. Propaganda stunts, unlike “Law & Order” episodes, don’t hold up on a second viewing.
The steady falloff in Iraq coverage isn’t happenstance. It’s a barometer of the scope of the tragedy. For reporters, the already apocalyptic security situation in Baghdad keeps getting worse, simply making the war more difficult to cover than ever. The audience has its own phobia: Iraq is a bummer. “It is depressing to pay attention to this war on terror,” said Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly on July 18. “I mean, it’s summertime.” Americans don’t like to lose, whatever the season. They know defeat when they see it, no matter how many new plans for victory are trotted out to obscure that reality.
So much for supporting our troops, eh? What happened to reporting all of that good news that was supposed to be happening in Iraq?
I’m upset about Israel and Lebanon too. Heck, I’m outraged; however, remember, Iraq and Afghanistan are our wars and our messes and our soldiers are dying over there. Shame on our media for a lack of patriotic priority.
Hat tip AmericaBlog.
Tags: Iraq, Israel, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Baghdad, American soldiers, New York Times, ABC, Fox News, NBC, Nouri al-Maliki, Frank Rich
March 10th, 2006
The Department of Defense admitted in a letter obtained by NBC News on Thursday that it had wrongly added peaceful demonstrators to a database of possible domestic terrorist threats. The letter followed an NBC report focusing on the Defense Department’s Threat and Local Observation Notice, or TALON, report.
Acting Deputy Undersecretary of Defense Roger W. Rogalski’s letter came in reply to a memo from Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., who had demanded answers about the process of identifying domestic protesters as suspicious and removing their names when they are wrongly listed.
“The recent review of the TALON Reporting System … identified a small number of reports that did not meet the TALON reporting criteria. Those reports dealt with domestic anti-military protests or demonstrations potentially impacting DoD facilities or personnel,” Rogalski wrote on Wednesday.
[…]
Other documents obtained by NBC News show that the Defense Department is clearly increasing its domestic monitoring activities. One briefing document stamped “secret” concludes: “[W]e have noted increased communication and encouragement between protest groups using the Internet,” but no “significant connection” between incidents, such as “reoccurring instigators at protests” or “vehicle descriptions.” [“Pentagon admits errors in spying on protestors” (MSNBC)]
Are we really expected to believe that these are just mistakes with the system? I mean, come on! The U.S. Military has a history of spying on American dissenters. During Vietnam, the military used American soldiers to inflitrate the anti-war movement to spy on Americans exercising their Constitutional freedom of speech. I just find it hard to believe that given the current atmosphere of terror and bullying from the current administration that this wouldn’t be overlooked or even encouraged behavior again. After all, if the President can do it…
Tags: politics, Conspiracy Theories, Pentagon, spying on Americans, protestors, TALON, NBC News, Defense Department
