I wake up every morning to CBS News on my local all-news radio station. Today, I was shocked (but not surprised) to hear
this as the lead story:
(CBS) U.S. officials believe Canadian arrests over the weekend and three recent domestic incidents in the United States are evidence the U.S. will soon be hit again by a terrorist attack. Privately, they say, they'd be surprised if it didn't come by the end of the year, reports CBS News correspondent Jim Stewart in a CBS News exclusive.
The three recent domestic incidents? A Torrance, CA cell of "Muslim converts who bonded together in prison [and] planned to use... robberies to finance attacks on 20 Army recruiting stations," a Toledo, OH group of "three men training to attack U.S. forces overseas," and an Atlanta pair who "are charged with videotaping domestic targets, including the U.S. Capitol and the World Bank."
Please note the source: "U.S. officials."
A leak from the Administration, which signifies that, yes, election season is now officially upon us. (And we thought that Presidential gay-baiting was the only sign of spring...)
But note also how helpful this message is to the Republicans, in a number of key ways:
* It begins to ratchet up the terror fears, just in time...
* It "justifies" all of the NSA domestic spying (even that which has yet to be revealed to us), because these cells are "homegrown," and they are only caught when the government "stumbled on the plot," or they reach out in an attempt to recruit others, or the government listens in on their phone calls.
* It tells the story that "they" may be all around us, and as a bonus, can be used to justify even more domestic spying: "if four, including the one in Canada, have been uncovered in just 11 months, officials fear there are inevitably other plots that have not been and are maturing even now."
* It takes the focus off of the enemy we don't seem to be able to catch ("Osama bin Laden didn't pay for these plots, recruit for them or even know of them") and puts it onto unseen enemies within.
* And, in a postscript that doesn't appear in the written report on the web but can be heard on the video, it ties this all in with not only the GWOT but also with Iraq: when the anchor asks if "authorities believe that these people who could be plotting these future attacks are already in the United States?", Jim Stewart answers that
there has been a disturbing new development overseas in Iraq, where they have noted that several people now who volunteered to commit jihad, or war against the United States there, have been told to wait, stay where you are, for possible developments in the United States or Europe.
Of course, the crack reporting and news analysis at CBS News doesn't go so far as to question whether this homegrown terror (to the extent it actually exists) may be an outgrowth of the Iraq war, Guantanamo, rendition, torture, etc... nor do they question the motives of their Administration sources... Par for the course, I guess, when the story lets them juice their ratings by frightening the rubes, and gives them a chance to show off their cool graphics:
This won't be the last we hear of this -- I predict that the drumbeats keep getting louder throughout the summer, with an official upgrade for a travel warning for Labor Day weekend...