Playing The "terror" Card?

[Cowperson]

A government controlled mainstream media source - the Washington Post - :P via a New York Times story yesterday - says most of the "intelligence" used to raise the terror alert in New York and Washington on the weekend was actually about three years old, even pre-dating 9/11.

Some wonder if the Bush camp used the capture of the information as an excuse to raise fears for political purposes.

But could they ignore it?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5581230/

Meanwhile, a new post-convention poll has Bush/Kerry in basically a dead heat with the Democrat gaining a smaller than usual bump from his convention and the Republicans set to enter the news later this month with their own gathering in New York.

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/politics/Vo...oll_040802.html

Cowperson

[nfotiu]

That has been my number 1 beef with Bush. I can't stand how he tries to use fear to his advantage.

[Cowperson]

Meanwhile in Britain, in a gesture dripping in irony, critics of Tony Blair are demanding he detail specific Al Qaeda threats against Britain AND demanding Blair appoint a home security czar like USA's Tom Ridge!!

The Conservative Party says it is scandalous the British people get more terror threat information from the USA than they do from their own government.

As I said, the irony is dripping considering the accusations flowing the way of the Bush government.

http://edition.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/europe/0...reat/index.html

Cowperson

[Cowperson]

More on the politics of terror from two "government controlled mainstream media sources" - the Washington Post and Newsweek. Both raising questions as to the timing of the Al Queda warning vis a vis the US election and even the arrests in Pakistan.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5595134/

and an excellent opinion piece in Newsweek wondering about the timing of all this and the fact the warning from Homeland Security guy Tom Ridge didn't mention the information he was using was dated:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5594697/site/newsweek/

Yet, there are the Brits again yesterday, rounding up 12 Pakistani's in their country including an apparent Al Queda leader who's name showed up as a result of the computer seizure in Pakistan.

http://edition.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/europe/0...ests/index.html

Who is right? The conspiracy theorists or the people, including the opposition parties in Britain, who say the government should tell the public what they know when they know it?

And, for the techno's in the crowd, a look at how Al-Queda is communicating in cyberspace.

http://edition.cnn.com/2004/US/08/03/terro...reat/index.html

Cowperson

[AaronSJ]

I normally laugh at conspiracy theories -- but I think it's more than a coincidence that Bush et al. quickly called press conferences to announce "dated" information in the same weekend that the President fell behind his challenger 52% to 44% in polls...

I don't doubt Al Qaeda's continued threat to the US - just the timing and "severity" of the announcement.