Exploiting Terror

[FOTD]

Olbermann Timeline: How The Bush Administration Exploited Terror Threats For Political Gain, 2002-2008
Huffington Post   |   February 23, 2008

Read More: Bush Administration Exploitation Of Terror Threats, Keith Olberman, Keith Olbermann Bush Administration, Nexus Politics Terror, Timeline Of Terror Threats, Breaking Media New
In case you missed it, on Thursday night's "Countdown" Keith Olbermann presented an impressively detailed timeline he called "The Nexus of Politics and Terror," in which he chronicled the Bush administration's exploitation of terror threats for political gain. Olbermann's exhaustive account weaves from each revelation of an intelligence failure or a Democratic political victory to an almost immediate orange alert or "new threat" from al Qaeda.

The clip is 17 minutes long and entirely worth it, and its conclusion — "what we were told about terror, and not told, for security reasons, has overlapped considerably with what we were told about terror, and not told, for political reasons" — is a dutiful summary of the past six years.

Watch:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/02/23/olbermann-timeline-how-t_n_88110.html

[altruismsuffers]

Oh this sounds like some kind of "conspiracy theory" to me

[Ed W]

Olbermann honestly recognizes that correlation is not causation and he states it several times.  Yet it's interesting to see that the color-coded terror index ratchets upward, seemingly synchronized to other events.  So, should we expect that some major attacks will be predicted just after the eventual Democratic nominee is selected?  Would it be reasonable to assume that there will be a late summer terror alert that coincides with the Democratic convention?

Bruce Schenierwrites about security issues.  He calls the window dressing measures designed to enhance our perceptions of security as "security theater".  The latest is AMTRAKs random bag inspection program, which includes roving patrols with sub-machine guns and dogs.  As Olbermann pointed out, the NYC response that initiated the heightened subway security (that AMTRAKs plan uses as a model) was based on bogus information.

The worrisome part of all this is that these so-called security measures will live on long after any threat, credible or otherwise, fades into history.  The Bush administration has enhanced security as it eroded individual privacy rights, something that should set any thinking American's teeth on edge.  But the worst of it is that the administration would  like to see this as a permanent.

There's a name for government that sets the needs of the state above the needs of the individual.  It surely isn't democracy.

[FOTD]

quote:Originally posted by altruismsuffers

Oh this sounds like some kind of "conspiracy theory" to me

Countless evidence points away from a conspiracy. Watch the video.