Booker Rising (one of TMV’s favorite centrist sites) has an intriguing post by Shay who notes in part:
Seven men concocted a terrorist plot to “kill all the devils we can” – starting by blowing up Chicago’s Sears Tower in the name of Al Qaeda – according to charges in a federal indictment…(That) devil language sounds oh-so-Nation of Islam-ish. Now Arab Muslim jihadists like Al Qaeda have black folks trying to do their dirty work for them. I guess the fact that Chicago – my hometown – is 40% black meant nothing to them. Nice going, “brothas”.
Make sure you read the comments under the post, which explores this issue a bit more. Read the whole post and comments section.
It’s a touchy issue, yet an issue that (if it is a valid one) can be subtly thrown out there and linger. All of this is indicative of how far the country has fallen in what citizens think government really means; when government opens up its mouth these days, many people of all political ideologies want to say “yeah, right.”
As the always-thoughtful Shay suggests, Al Qaeda can do its dirty work by finding home-grown American surrogates. The debate will go on as to whether these roped-in guys were wannabes or real surrogates-in-the-making. But the issue is out there. Meanwhile, the key political tidbits to watch in an election year will be:
(1) Whether it pans out that this was a legit threat or something thrown out because the elections are drawing near. Americans of all parties need to ask themselves why it seems that over the past few years some key threats or talk about threats surfaced around summer, right before November elections. Is this truly coincidence? Because terrorists get more active near election time? Or is there political manipulation? (The counter question becomes: are charges that it’s manipulation indicative of massive political paranoia?) The question has been raised by the Left and it’s a legitimate one. If we suddenly see a spate of terrorism-related threat announcements and stories the closer we get to November, it will become even more legitimate. Is the timing all happenstance? The next few months are worth watching (particularly August/September/Oct)….as are the months after an election to see if the threats are still being reported or have seemingly vanished.
(2) Whether there is any kind of overt or covert suggestion that any specific ethnic group is connected or cooperating with Islamic terrorists (it could be any group, although it’s probably not going to involve many Jewish organizations at this point — but then, some will say THEY control the media and blogs such as this). In fairness to the government, yours truly doesn’t see any of that on the terrorism issue and those who say that talking about Islam and terrorism is racist are practicing the Ultimate PC. Sorry: we don’t see many of bin Laden’s followers baptizing their kids or bar mitzvahing them. But send us a link if you see a story on that.
The tragedy is that these days people look at the terrorism issue and many consider it politicized. Even if not true, it’s a tragedy. The stakes are too high for all Americans. We get emails all the time asking us to do posts on why it is that the terrorism threats, color codes, etc., revelations seem to come around summer, right before elections (if you remember, that’s when the clamor for going to war about Iraq came up as well).
Why is government believability on terrorism news being 100 percent valid without any political motives imporant? Because, after 911, there was incredible and genuine American unity. If a similar tragedy happens again, calls for unity by administration leaders may generate some skeptical raised eyebrows instead of a unified nation with stiffened backbones.
UPDATE: Time Magazine looks at whether this threat should be taken lightly or not.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.