As Meteor Blades writes in his diary, this busted terror plot may be hoax, may be hype, may be all too real. Quite likely, it will turn out to be a bit of each, and even likelier, we'll never actually know for sure. While the truth or falsehood of the story makes for a vividly emotional debate, it's ultimately a debate that leads nowhere, because there's no reason to expect that anyone will be proven right or wrong. From a practical standpoint, it's a debate over whether Satchel Paige would have been able to strike out Barry Bonds, or whether Jesus was really resurrected. The answer may matter, to some people quite a lot, but while it is debatable by us, it is not authoritatively answerable by us. And the debate, therefore, is a distraction from what really matters.
What really matters is that our job -- and it is a vital one -- is to push our Democratic "leaders" to state the obvious truth: that, while we're certainly glad and grateful that the British busted this ring, this whole story is sad evidence of the hash our Republican government has made of the "war on terror."
Al Qaeda has not been defeated. Homicidal terrorists, willing to die in order to kill us, are being easily recruited in Iraq and in the inner cities of the West. Osama bin Laden is on the loose, al Qaeda is regrouped in the mountains of Pakistan, and the Taliban is running a significant portion of Afghanistan. The Middle East is in flames, and there is no peace process. Iraq is (to be charitable to the Administration) on the verge of civil war, thousands of Americans and tens of thousands of Iraqis are dead, hundreds of billions of dollars have been wasted, and there is no end (let alone "victory") in sight. And we, five years after 9/11, come within days of losing 10 airliners, thousands of people, our airline industry, and what's left of our economy. Thank goodness for Scotland Yard, but is this really what the country expects of its leaders?
In the coming days, our national Democratic leaders must state this message clearly, forthrightly, and with a bit of righteous anger. And we have to watch, listen, praise those who do it right, and punish those who fall into Republican traps.
The Republicans and the Administration have already begun spinning (read... lying) that these arrests prove that their "strong on security" stance is the right way to go, and that this is no time for the weakness of the Defeat-ocrats. This is patently ridiculous, but the media will run with it, and the average voter will fall for it -- unless Democrats emerge powerfully and quickly with our counter-narrative. That counter-narrative is one about Republican weakness, Republican incompetence, the Republicans' poor judgement and even worse execution, and the need for change. The Democrats are the party of real security, of a focus on the threats that really matter, and of a peaceful world in which extremists and terrorists can be isolated and defeated.