The "So-Called Plot": It's All A Distraction

One of the mainstream media's favorite talking heads on terrorism is Larry Johnson, who formerly worked for the CIA and the State Department's Office of Counter Terrorism. Johnson is one of several former intelligence-types who journalists turn to for a quick quote.

Here is his latest commentary on the UK airliner bomb plot. In Johnson's view, there was a plot but the would-be terrorists "lacked a viable terrorist plan ready for execution." The Bushies hyped this bust though. Why? Because they wanted to distract the public from Seymour Hersh's reporting in the New Yorker. No, I am not kidding.

In a piece titled "Bush's Weapon of Mass Deception," Johnson writes [Emphasis Added]:

...I have no doubt that British intelligence had succeeded in penetrating a group of Muslim extremists who had big dreams about hurting the United States, but they lacked a viable terrorist plan ready for execution. We also know that the Bush administration, which was being regularly briefed by the Brits about the plot, pushed London to act prematurely. What is particularly galling is that no one at the Bush White House, apparently, felt compelled to look for ways to boost aviation security in the United States. Instead, they sought to create a firestorm of fear in order to distract public attention from the devastating article written by Sy Hersh. One of Sy's key points:

The Bush administration, however, was closely involved in the planning of Israel's retaliatory attacks. President Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney were convinced, current and former intelligence and diplomatic officials told me, that a successful Israeli Air Force bombing campaign against Hezbollah's heavily fortified underground-missile and command-and-control complexes in Lebanon could ease Israel's security concerns and also serve as a prelude to a potential American pre-emptive attack to destroy Iran's nuclear installations, some of which are also buried deep underground.

That is the kind of news the White House would like to bury, particularly as a cease-fire took hold in Lebanon that left Hezbollah standing ten feet tall. As Keith Olbermann showed the other night, the Bush administration has been zealous about trotting out bogus threats when there is political bad news afoot. If I'm right about this latest incident, Keith Olbermann has a new item to add to his list of ten. ...


This is the type of luminary our media turns to regularly for commentary on terrorism.

Think about that.