Aaron Dykes
JonesReport.com
September 23, 2010
“Terrorism” concerns necessarily hinge on fear, and it is now completely predictable that an otherwise unpopular Obama Administration would roll out the threat of terror to bolster support for the 2010 elections. The Washington Post reports that the “Risk of small-scale attacks by al-Qaeda and its allies is rising, officials say.” This alarming headline comes in concert with comments from President Obama about absorbing a terror attack, as well as hyperbolic warnings from Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano before Congress that al Qaeda is recruiting for homeland attacks. The Washington Post writes:
Al-Qaeda and its allies are likely to attempt small-scale, less sophisticated terrorist attacks in the United States, senior Obama administration officials said Wednesday, noting that it’s extremely difficult to detect such threats in advance.
“Unlike large-scale, coordinated, catastrophic attacks, executing smaller-scale attacks requires less planning and fewer pre-operational steps,” said Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, testifying before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. “Accordingly, there are fewer opportunities to detect such an attack before it occurs.”
The main thrust of these timely “warnings” is to scare the public, not to share intelligence analysis or stop an attack. It is clear from the context that there is no basis for expecting an attack– the ‘evidence’ cited by Napolitano & co. includes reference to the attempted “underwear bombing” on a flight to Detroit– proven to be a falsehood, as eyewitnesses on the plane contradict the official account. Homeland Security also cites the ‘failed’ Times Square car bombing– an incident that didn’t include any real explosives or any connection to al Qaeda at all. Napolitano further links this terror threat with the alleged “rise” of domestic extremism, which has never been qualified or demonstrated, but only hyped via the MIAC and Homeland Security reports issued by DHS earlier in the Obama Administration. Those reports merely speculate that incidents will likely occur based on blanket-mass profiling– a mirror of the Administration’s current attempt to spark worry and fear.
These are the same tactics the Bush Administration admittedly used for political expediency post-9/11– threats without substance, but useful for enlarging a projected threat. Recall that so-called Bin Laden tapes would consistently emerge just prior to key elections or that the terror alert levels would be elevated to re-enforce the fear in the populace for purely political purposes. CIA officials have now admitted to faking Bin Laden videos.
Is it any wonder Obama would now discuss absorbing a terror attack in the U.S. or that Homeland Security head Janet Napolitano would revive the script of homeland terror threats and the pre-programmed idea of small-scale al Qaeda attacks? Is it a coincidence that Obama advisor Robert Shapiro suggested this summer that only a large-scale terror attack could counter President Obama’s “credibility crisis”:
“He has to find some way between now and November of demonstrating that he is a leader who can command confidence and, short of a 9/11 event or an Oklahoma City bombing, I can’t think of how he could do that.”
9/11 was obviously a ace-card in the Bush Administration’s public relations deck; the Oklahoma City Bombing bolstered Bill Clinton’s image for a second term. Would the Obama Administration use an attack any differently?
Who orchestrates these talking points and baseless forecasts of terror? Why is Republican Sen. Lindsay Graham simultaneously also cynically stating that another terror attack is imminent? Political expediency, not the omnipresence of al Qaeda, is the only logical answer. If the administration has verifiable intel, they should stop any such attempts, not scare up political points.
