UK Law Enforcement Works Again?
I noticed that the first sentence of the Reuters story on the potential terrorist plot revealed in the UK today is:
British police foiled a plot by would-be suicide bombers to simultaneously blow up several planes flying to the United States, arresting 24 people days before they could attack, officials said on Thursday.
British police foiled a terrorist plot, eh? I can’t help but recall that a certain vice president said a few years ago that
an intelligence-gathering, law-enforcement . . . approach has been tried before and proved entirely inadequate to protect the American people from the terrorists who are quite certain they’re at war with us.
I discussed this in a Policy piece a few years ago, but it definitely looks like there’s another piece of support for the potential effectiveness of intelligence and law enforcement.
As Josh Marshall said at Talking Points Memo today:
President Bush just said the events in London are “a stark reminder that this nation is at war with Islamic fascists.”
Also a pretty stark reminder that President Bush’s War on Terror, the way he’s chosen to fight it, is at best irrelevant to combatting this sort of danger. These are homegrown Brits apparently trying to blow up planes over the Atlantic. Good thing we’ve got a 150,000 or so troops in Iraq to take the fight to them.
About Dave Thomer
Born and raised in Philadelphia. Studied philosophy at Fordham University in the Bronx, where I made many great friends and met my wonderful wife. We moved back to Philadelphia, where I studied philosophy some more and became a teacher. Online and off, I'm looking for ways that we can be better citizens and build stronger communities.