Sullivan, Johnson and Schneier owe us an apology

Andrew Sullivan, Bruce Schneier and Larry Johnson owe us - the public - and the fine folks working at TSA, Homeland Security and surely other unidentified agencies a big, fat apology. It was just about a year ago that the news broke of a massive terror plot to blow up international flights from Britain to the US. In what would seem to have become a common refrain from the left these individuals surged to cast doubt on the government reports of imminent attacks. As always these men and others relied on the fact that the government can not release vital information concerning investigations of a sensitive nature in order to try and poke holes in the official story to lesson the serious nature of these plots and undermine the credibility of our government. It is their obvious intent to make these very real plots appear like nothing more than Bush Administration attempts to make political hay out of fear.

Sullivan wrote “So there was no imminent threat at all.” In supporting this all these men remarked on the lack of passports, plane tickets, and viability of the liquid explosives to be used in the plot. An example from Schneier:

In truth, it's doubtful that their plan would have succeeded; chemists have been debunking the idea since it became public. Certainly the suspects were a long way off from trying: None had bought airline tickets, and some didn't even have passports.

Yes, this was the argument; no ticket equals no ‘imminent threat’. As I showed previously a specific example of a terrorist buying a ticket one hour before a flight (that she blew up) is easily obtainable. Passports can be expedited, faked, and it is quite possible that other as-of-yet unidentified people with passports were expected to carry out the attack.

Sullivan even went so far as to demand an apology from those who called into question his ‘debunking’ of the terror plot:

I await a retraction from the Malkin blog; and an apology from Jeff Goldstein who accused me of "dementia" for doubting the original official line. It was not dementia prompting my doubts. It was the evidence, something some on the far right seem uninterested in.

Larry Johnson wrote:

...they lacked a viable terrorist plan ready for execution.  We also know that the Bush Administration, who was being regularly briefed by the Brits about the plot, pushed London to act prematurely.

Now ABC News is reporting in an interview with DHS Secretary Chertoff that the plot was “a matter of weeks or even days" away from execution. As well the report shows that government laboratories have tested the liquid explosives to be used in the planned attack and found it produced a quite devastating explosion even in small quantities. The report has accompanying video of the government tests.

Clearly all these men were using their expertise to make judgments in a vacuum of information. But what these men should know and most certainly do know is that the government can not release every detail of such a plot because they have a duty to protect sources, methods of intelligence collection, and keep the details of destructive methods used by terrorists out of the public purview. The fact is that they relied on this predictable lack of information to prey on a public unaware of how the government must keep some things secret in our own interests. They exploited our own security procedures to make political hey against a president they oppose politically. For that reason, not for being wrong, but for doing it purposely to mislead the public in their roles – in the case of Schneier and Johnson - as security experts, these men owe us all an apology.

Wake up America looks at fear mongering vs common sense

Comments

[Mark]

When your sole motivation is hatred of a president you see all events involving that person in a different way than normal.

Whatever it is that Bush or his administration say there are certain people who knee jerk react to believe the opposite. It's a shame but it happens quite a bit.

[spree]

Good article and thanks for the link.