Punch-drunk sober
February 6th, 2008Mitt Romney’s incredible, guys — he continually comes second, third and not first despite the fact that he has blown an insatiable amount of his own money on the campaign. I’m glad John McCain is pulling away in the Republican race because Romney is a joke and a hack. On the Democratic side, it’s good to watch a tight race and Obama has lingered much longer than I expected. This might go all the way to the Convention, and in those situations the experienced candidate and politicos win but who knows what fate has in store for the candidates.
Life has a way of punching you in the mouth when you walk into a situation unprepared.
Let’s talk about something more, ah, interesting than whether or not life is going to punch Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton in the teeth: terrorism!
Senior al Qaeda leaders have diverted operatives from Iraq across the globe and are increasing preparations to strike the United States, senior intelligence officials told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence yesterday. They said the terrorists had plans to attack the White House as recently as 2006.
“Al Qaeda is improving the last key aspect of its ability to attack the U.S. — the identification, training and positioning of operatives for an attack in the homeland,” said Michael McConnell, director of national intelligence, which oversees all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies. Intelligence officials also said they used a controversial interrogation tactic known as “waterboarding,” which some people regard as torture, only on three senior al Qaeda members early in the war on terror and that it has not been used in five years. The officials added that al Qaeda is recruiting Westerners to terror camps in Pakistan.
“While increased security measures at home and abroad have caused al Qaeda to view the West, especially the U.S., as a harder target, we have seen an influx of new Western recruits into the tribal areas since mid-2006, ” Mr. McConnell said. Mr. McConnell revealed that al Qaeda had plans to specifically target the White House. “It [al Qaeda] probably will continue to devote some effort towards honoring bin Laden’s request in 2005 that al Qaeda attempt to strike the United States, affirmed publicly by current al Qaeda leader Abu Ayyub al-Masri in a November 2006 threat against the White House,” he said.
The first thing that struck me was the shameless lie: “we have not waterboarded in five years”. Yeah? I’m not terribly, bitterly opposed to the tactic, on occasion, but damn if it doesn’t bother me to hear a government official say such a thing. A “no comment” or “we’d be compromising national security” is much preferred. As for the other parts — they worry me significantly, to think that al-Qaeda is diverting resources, but then I note that everytime the government publicly cautions they’re wrong (although that can’t go on forever) and I realize that “al-Qaeda is preparing to strike inside the US” and “al-Qaeda is recruiting” and “al-Qaeda is working very, very hard” are things that could be said at any point in the last ten years, so maybe we shouldn’t worry too much.
It is sobering to think about, and I need all the sobering I can get this morning after a night out at the sports lounge with the Clinton campaign, enjoying democracy.