Awkward criticism

Awkward criticism

August 11th, 2006

It’s Reid who doesn’t get it:
This government’s response to the real threat of terrorism has only made things worse
by Dan Plesch, The Guardian
Friday, August 11, 2006

If true, the British agents who risked their lives to infiltrate and expose this massive plot to bring down airliners crossing the Atlantic to the U.S. are forever in our debt. If true, authorities have identified yet another way security can be bypassed. If true, the phrase “If true” may point to the more dangerous property of Thursday’s events: Governments aren’t trusted.

Plesch’s column points to a big difference between experiencing the aftermath of a great tragedy and anticpating one. This kind of criticism was completely lacking five years ago in America. One reason, of course, is that the nation was focused on its grief and anger. Another reason is that the first foreign attack on U.S. soil in decades automatically harkened back to the previous such attack, Pearl Harbor. We were supposed to believe our government was in the right, acting on our collective behalf, and at all times doing the right things. That is why the traditional news channels suddenly flatlined into the same story, and dissention such as the opposition by Barbara Lee was rare for several weeks. Airliners didn’t fall into the sea in pieces yesterday, and so Dan Plesch can question his country’s leadership in the same daily news cycle as the arrest of terrorists.

Mass murder is a very black-and-white concept. Even by those who might sit on the side of the fence that can spin it as a necessary evil, the bottom line is it is evil. Government double-talk is the large, smooth gradient in between. At face value, it is easy to understand the players without a program. The Good Guys just defeated the Bad Guys. Hooray. If you start factoring in the cost of accumulation of questionable decisions by those same Good Guys, and the long-evolving circumstances that helped create such fervent desperation in the Bad Guys, everyone starts wearing hats in shades of gray. The fact that, at least in the back of their minds, there is a sizeable population that questions how much truth is in the claims of the U.S. and U.K. is a byproduct of the low level of trust those in power have engendered. That, as much as explosive combinations of on-board liquids, is a threat to be addressed.

The lives of thousands of people were just saved, allegedly. A long-awaited British version of the September 11, 2001 attacks was thwarted Thursday, reportedly. Backup attacks may have been stepped up in the wake of the arrests, presumably. Al-Qaida was behind it all, claims the U.S. A million travelers are now moving about their lives apprehensively, at best — definitely. Fear is the only certainty.

Entry Filed under: International