U.S. enters the age of foiled plots-----Bush's clever footwork

[rodeodance]

http://www.iht.com/bin/challenge.php?URI=http://iht.nytimes.com/protected/articles/2006/09/08/news/globalist.php
Globalist: Linking faces to terror: Bush's clever footwork
Roger Cohen International Herald Tribune
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 2006
A lot of words have been expended on President George W. Bush these past years, many of them harsh, and in the cacophony a single thought has perhaps been overlooked: He's a pure political animal.

TimesSelect Exclusive Content (which i do not have-sorry)

and;

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/09/08/news/threat.php

U.S. enters the age of foiled plots
By Scott Shane and Lowell Bergman The New York Times

Published: September 8, 2006

There are few counterterrorism success stories more compelling than that of Raed al-Banna, a 32-year-old Jordanian turned away by a wary border officer who found "multiple terrorist risk factors" and refused him entry at O'Hare Airport in Chicago in July 2003.

Given Banna's fluent English, education as a lawyer and previous stay in the United States, the next chapter in his story might have been a civil rights complaint. But events took a starkly different turn.

After a suicide car bombing killed 132 people in Hilla, Iraq, in February 2005, the bomber's severed hand, still chained to the steering wheel, was found in the wreckage. Fingerprints identified the bomber as Banna, said Robert Bonner, who headed Customs and Border Protection until 2005.

"We've put some things in place, you bet, that make it more difficult for Al Qaeda to get terrorist operatives in the United States," Bonner said.

The absence of new attacks, even as terrorist violence worldwide has increased, with bomb attacks in Madrid, London and beyond, and major threats in Europe - like last month's foiled plot to use liquid explosives to bring down jetliners flying from Britain to the United States, two failed train bombings in Germany and the arrests of seven Muslim men suspected of planning "terrorist" acts in Denmark - he said, "is not pure luck."........

[liberal N proud]

1. Fabricated counterterrorism success stories

The timing of all the foiled terror plots has always been suspect. The latest is one of the best examples.
They pressure Britain to arrest 19 people and charge that they were going to blow up airplanes with baby formula. This shortly after their DINO Lieberman lost a primary election and the fall election season looked very dim for the republican incumbents.

Never mind that the British were not ready to arrest these people and the people had not tickets, no passports or explosives.
But it made for good news, Bu$h foils a terror plot.

It also allowed them to put in place more restrictions on air travel, just to keep the voters reminded that they are being kept safe by the bu$h regime. All these restrictions will probably be lifted right after another stolen election right along with the dramatic rise in gas prices.
But be on your toes, the terrorist could attack at any time, or is that bu$h and the republicans are keeping us safer, I can't remember which one we are on today.