1115.org

Readers may remember that when the London liquid explosives plot burst into the headlines I asked several times why the U.S. government pushed the British authorities to arrest the plotters well before the British wanted to. What advantage (presumably political) did the administration think it was gaining by having the same news come out in the middle of August rather than a few weeks later?

Well, I have some kind of answer now. It may not be right, but it’s plausible, at least. Nothing else I came up with before or read anywhere really made much sense to me.

The mistake I made was in the way I framed the question, in thinking that the choice was between the same news now or later.

I think the Bush-men decided they couldn’t afford to wait when signs started to emerge that the plot had feet of clay, when its Mickey Mouse elements started to become clear, the fact that the plotters lacked what Kevin Drum called “serious operational capacity”.

Act now, and some pretty drastic security measures could be taken. It would definitely grab everyone’s attention, and scare a lot of people silly. Wait, and it would turn out to be a damp squib.

A complete no-brainer, once you put it like that. Especially when you factor in that the Bush-thinkers at that point still clung to the desperately pathetic delusion that all they needed was one good juicy terrorist scare to recapture the poll numbers of their heyday. And I think that’s why Bush’s no-brains lowered the boom on the plot when they did. The plot was a wasting asset, losing political value every day. They had to cash it in when they did.

Previously:
Aug. 15: The Mysteries Of TWAT—Searching For Explanations And Falling Short
Aug. 18: The Case For Skepticism
Aug. 18: Sabotaging A Terror Plot Prosecution