Sick To The Gut Feeling

By Cernig

Brian Ross is playing shill for anonymous "senior U.S. intelligence figures" again and Chertoff has a "gut feeling" that Al Qaeda is planning a summer attack in the U.S.

What's scariest is that the 26%ers fall over themselves every single time in their rush to check for terrorists under the bed. No, I have to correct myself. What's scariest is that an administration up to its neck in homegrown alligators from its own party because of the quagmire in Iraq obviously feels it can bend its rebels back to the one true path with such fearmongering.

Avedon gets it right.

Shouldn't it concern us that Republicans are constantly talking about how people will all wise up when the next terrorist attack at home comes?

I mean, they really seem to be looking forward to it, and they take great delight in the thought that, by God, people will see things differently when it happens.

They relish the thought. They hunger for that terrorist attack they need to save their Party.

Democrats would be wise to talk on TV about how the last thing we need is to put people in power who have such a stake in having terrorists attack Americans.

And Jill has a great post on the same theme:

So with support for Bush's penis-enlarging war in Iraq dwindling to only the most deluded lunatics of his base, what's a president to do?

Why, do what's worked before, that's what -- play the fear card.

...The more we examine how this Administration has handled these so-called threats, and as we look at this Administration's history, going back to prior to 9/11, when his administration was already damaged by the U.S. spy plane captured in China, a U.S. Navy Submarine being operated by Bush cronies and campaign contributors ramming and sinking a Japanese fishing vessel, and general ineptitude and corruption already clearly visible, this report should make us very, very afraid -- not because terrorist cells may be here or on their way here, but because history has shown us that when this President is briefed about an impending attack, he does nothing -- it is allowed to play out, as the 9/11 attacks were allowed to play out -- if it means political advantage to George W. Bush.

This president desperately needs vindication. His war has proven to be perhaps the biggest foreign policy blunder in our nation's history. He has destabilized the entire Middle East in his ridiculous quest to prove something to his father. His approval ratings are at Nixonian levels. He needs something to happen, and he needs it quickly. Why NOT let a terrorist attack play out? It worked for him last time.

He doesn't need an actual attack, though. He just needs the fear. That works for him every time.

Update Over at The Danger Room, defense expert Noah Shachtman is amazed that the Prezi-didn't is still unsure about (or deliberately muddying) the differences between Al Qaeda in Iraq and Bin Laden's group.

Excuse me. My head is about to explode. Most people understand that the group calling itself "Al Qaeda in Iraq" is not the same guys who are lead by Bin Laden, Zawahiri, & co. Those people would not include our President, apparently, who said today:

...al Qaeda is doing most of the spectacular bombings, trying to incite sectarian violence. The same people that attacked us on September the 11th is the crowd that is now bombing people...

Jeebus. The folks in Mesopotomia weren't even called "Al Qaeda" until years into their bombings; they dubbed themselves Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad, "Group of oneness (Monotheism) and the Holy Struggle," instead. Then, their leader made some vague pledge to the Al Qaeda O.G.s, and they started to use a new, Al-Qaeda monicker. But even now, the ties are considered very loose. Which is why the bad guys in Iraq are usually called an "affiliate" of the ones in Pakistan/Afghanistan.

So maybe this is why the President and his people keep throwing around the "Al Qaeda" name: to scare people with the specter of 9/11.

Uh-huh.