Cipherdom (deprecated)

Reasons to be Fearful?

Now, far be it from me to claim our Attorney General is playing politics with terror, but some reporters are hinting at it. Certainly the timing of his "announcement" regarding an imminent Al Qaeda threat seems likely to distract people from the unremittingly bad news out of Iraq. Polls show that Bush's handling of terror is about the only aspect of his administration that meets with public approval these days. But only a real cynic would conclude that Ashcroft and FBI head Mueller trotted out their stale wanted posters to give their boss a bump in the polls.

I can't help wondering, though, why Tom Ridge didn't join the briefing. In separate interviews, he went out of his way to state that there is no specific new intelligence, and that the levels of "chatter" aren't very different from what they've seen since 9/11. Ashcroft disputed that there's a disconnect between his Justice department and Ridge's Homeland Security, which pointedly did not raise its terror-threat level today. It's still yellow for "Elevated." Hmmm . . .

The wanted posters mainly dealt with fugitives who've been sought for questioning over more than a year. One, a female former MIT and Brandeis student named Aafia Siddiqui, was rumored in 2003 to be held by Pakistani and FBI interrogators. There's been no sign of her or her children since, though the reported arrest seems not to have happened after all. She is allegedly an Al Qaeda "fixer" who passes money to operatives and handles logistics. Like many of us, she left a trail of UseNet posts, though nothing that would betray an intent to help kill innocent people. She did, however, suggest that people avoid seeing Nirvana in concert (see post "Re: WOMEN AVAILABLE FOR MARRIAGE"). Everyone's a critic, as the saying goes.