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Does NYTimes bury Terror Plots for political reasons? — Brooklynian

Does NYTimes bury Terror Plots for political reasons?

sevenoneeighty
sevenoneeighty
edited November -1 in Brooklyn Politics
Okay, so this isn't neighborhood specific but it does have an impact on the entire area. So was this whole terror plot a bunch or junk or was it real?
What was the follow up by NYTimes on this? I like the NY Times but don't read it as much as I used to one my subscription expired last year.

It is a little scary -even if this thing was only in the planning stages as they say. So when something DOES actually happen the NY Times will complain that no one "connected the dots"? . Plus the stories on the cover the Times went with instead the following Sunday seem to be geared towards making Bush look bad again (not that he needs help). I know the times leans left - no surprise, but where is all of this headed? They seemed to treat the military base terror plot and other reports the same way...?

I know this administration used terror as a political tool, but when do these things become real to us? We did get hit on 9/11/01 and there are people who still want us dead here and abroad...But because of politics it is not PC to talk about...ever...

--------------------------------

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2007/6/4/110440.shtml?s=tn

Monday, June 4, 2007 11:03 a.m. EDT
New York Times Buries JFK Plot Story

A major terror plot to blow up fuel tanks and a pipeline feeding New York’s JFK airport and nearby residential communities made front-page news this weekend across the nation. The terror story also led all the major network and cable news shows.

But The New York Times didn’t think the story was so important.

In fact, on Sunday the country’s leading liberal daily carried a simple one-paragraph reference to the story on its first page, buried in the news brief section. The Times brief said the plot posed "no imminent danger.”
The front-page brief referred the reader to a full story on Page 30 in the "New York Metro" section of the day’s paper.
Interestingly, the Times story acknowledged the seriousness of the threat, noting that one of the four suspects in the plot, Russell Defreitas, had boasted that the destruction at the airport would be so vast that "even the twin towers can’t touch it.”
The Times reported: "Officials said the four men determined to carry out their attack, having conducted ‘precise and extensive’ surveillance of the airport using photographs, video . . . and satellite images downloaded from Google Earth.

"They said the men had also traveled repeatedly to Guyana and Trinidad in recent months, seeking to obtain the blessing and financial backing of an extremist Muslim group based in Trinidad and Tobago called Jamaat al-Muslimeen, which was behind a failed coup attempt in Trinidad in 1990.”

But in downplaying the story, the Times stressed that the airport was "never in imminent danger because the plot was only in a preliminary phase.”

What did the Times deem fit to print on its front page? The two featured stories on the page were headlined: "A legal debate in Guantanamo on boy fighters” and "President’s push on immigration tests GOP base.”

See also:
http://www.aina.org/news/2007060493743.htm

Comments

  • pitu
    pitu

    Subject: Re: Does NYTimes bury Terror Plots for political reasons?

    SevenOneEighty wrote:
    I know this administration used terror as a political tool, but when do these things become real to us?
    when it's not just a political tool
    when it's not justifying fear mongering or homeland security $$
    when it's not entrapment by law-enforcement against some rube who has an unfocused anti-American thought but no means, and debatable will, to carry out a dangerous plan

    srsly
    even the good guys in anti-terrorism/policing will tell you so
  • sevenoneeighty
    sevenoneeighty

    Subject: Re: Does NYTimes bury Terror Plots for political reasons?

    pitu wrote: [quote=SevenOneEighty]
    I know this administration used terror as a political tool, but when do these things become real to us?
    when it's not just a political tool
    when it's not justifying fear mongering or homeland security $$
    when it's not entrapment by law-enforcement against some rube who has an unfocused anti-American thought but no means, and debatable will, to carry out a dangerous plan

    srsly
    even the good guys in anti-terrorism/policing will tell you so

    Fair enough.

    But what will that look like exactly?
    How will YOU know that this is the case?

    in 2001, 19 guys used $2 box cutters to hijack planes...and then crash them in to the WTC. Not very sophisticated means....but effective none the less in a free society.

    If the NY Times is suggesting it IS a fake - at least report that is is a fake story. Wouldn't that be prudent and more helpful to all of us too? Did someone in law enforcement contradict the NYPD and say it was a fake?
    It was clear that the NYPD thought seriously enough about it to infiltrate the scheme to prevent it from ever happening..

    But why bury the story - any of it?
    What will a real terror warning look like?
  • boygabriel
    boygabriel

    Subject: Re: Does NYTimes bury Terror Plots for political reasons?

    SevenOneEighty wrote: in 2001, 19 guys used $2 box cutters to hijack planes...and then crash them in to the WTC. Not very sophisticated means....but effective none the less in a free society.
    There's no comparison. You could hi-jack a plane with a water gun probably. That's because there's no weapon physics involved. You're not making a fake gun shoot real bullets.

    The JFK plot was the equivalent of making a fake gun shoot real bullets. They had no means whatsoever to set off a huge explosion. And quite a few experts have said that even if they could create an explosion in the gas line, it would not have blown up the airport or Queens.

    The NYTs without question has bias issues in reporting its news, as pretty much every news source in the country does. But so many of these "terrorist plots", while helpful in reminding us that there is a real threat of violence out there, are not significant threats to my or your life.

    These JFK "terrorists"? The Miami/Sears Tower plotters? Jose Padilla, who reportedly planned to "separate plutonium from nuclear material by rapidly swinging over his head a bucket filled with fissionable material"? (source here) These jerks are not the real threat.

    Our senses are bombarded daily with so many shallow and harmfully simplistic reports of terror and violence and anti-americanism and hate, that at some point we need to start filtering out the loud, obnoxious b.s. and start having a more nuanced debate on the threats that face our nation and face me every day when I ride the subway to work (or take a flight out of JFK).

    The JFK plotters, the Sears tower bombers. Jose Padilla. These guys are not news. They're one step above a World Weekly News cover story. If Homeland Security and GWB were really concerned about our security, they would not be wasting their time hyping these insignificant arrests in the national media. Instead they would be rallying support to get the chemical industry to end their opposition to security restraints on shipping dangerous chemicals right through our major metropolises, including within miles of the Capitol.

    /rant
  • sevenoneeighty
    sevenoneeighty

    Subject: Re: Does NYTimes bury Terror Plots for political reasons?

    Boygabriel wrote: [quote=SevenOneEighty]in 2001, 19 guys used $2 box cutters to hijack planes...and then crash them in to the WTC. Not very sophisticated means....but effective none the less in a free society.
    There's no comparison. You could hi-jack a plane with a water gun probably. That's because there's no weapon physics involved. You're not making a fake gun shoot real bullets.

    The JFK plot was the equivalent of making a fake gun shoot real bullets. They had no means whatsoever to set off a huge explosion. And quite a few experts have said that even if they could create an explosion in the gas line, it would not have blown up the airport or Queens.

    The NYTs without question has bias issues in reporting its news, as pretty much every news source in the country does. But so many of these "terrorist plots", while helpful in reminding us that there is a real threat of violence out there, are not significant threats to my or your life.

    These JFK "terrorists"? The Miami/Sears Tower plotters? Jose Padilla, who reportedly planned to "separate plutonium from nuclear material by rapidly swinging over his head a bucket filled with fissionable material"? (source here) These jerks are not the real threat.

    Our senses are bombarded daily with so many shallow and harmfully simplistic reports of terror and violence and anti-americanism and hate, that at some point we need to start filtering out the loud, obnoxious b.s. and start having a more nuanced debate on the threats that face our nation and face me every day when I ride the subway to work (or take a flight out of JFK).

    The JFK plotters, the Sears tower bombers. Jose Padilla. These guys are not news. They're one step above a World Weekly News cover story. If Homeland Security and GWB were really concerned about our security, they would not be wasting their time hyping these insignificant arrests in the national media. Instead they would be rallying support to get the chemical industry to end their opposition to security restraints on shipping dangerous chemicals right through our major metropolises, including within miles of the Capitol.

    /rant

    These are all good points.
    But none answer the question or the basic premise:
    Given the overall simplicity of physical requirements/elements in the 9/11 attacks, in this "war on terror", what will a real warning look like?

    Forget about politics for a minute, forget about GWB, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Bremer, etc. With all of our cynicism, What will it take to convince any of us ( including me) that a plot is "real" and that we should be concerned?
    Let's not forget, there are people who do mean it when they say " Death to America? They are very real.

    Will our (and the media/NY times) hatred of the Bush F-ups, keep us from seeing and believing a real warning when it is given? Have there been ANY real warnings since 9/11 or are they all fake and politically motivated? I really am concerned that we won't and it will be a fatal irony.

    Seriously, if all of the people you named above were all BS (I am always suspicious of the Gov't too, mind you), what are your criteria for a real threat: a man running down the street with C4 in an explosive vest...anything else is BS?I can only imagine the criticism of the FBI had they stopped the 9/11 plotters and the way it would play out on 9/10 in the NY Times ( on A37) - and this board...I wonder...
  • boygabriel
    boygabriel
    You raise great questions. The thing is, I'm not really sure we, as the general public, are in any position to know when there's a real threat.

    In theory wouldn't a real threat be hatched in super secret terrorist hide outs and if its thwarted isn't it done by super secret US special forces? You know what I mean?

    If all of these fake-threat-nutjobs had plans that could actually work, they would be threats I suppose. But none of them have the means to do anything real. And even if they did, most of their plans are literally physically impossible (See Padilla, Jose).

    If the 9/11 plotters had been exposed, I must admit I would have laughed if I heard their plan was to hijack planes with boxcutters. I would have thought that impossible given our basic airline security. Clearly I overestimated our security in airports and in the air.

    However if I heard their plan was to use the planes as weapons, well, that would be a very real and potential threat.
  • pitu
    pitu
    We need apolitical competent law enforcement.
    Instead we have smart dedicated people pushed aside and sent to the back office, or left to write their memoirs at a later date or do an expose in the press. Take someone like Richard Clark, or the tragic and very well-known case of John O'Neil who was head of the NY FBI office before 9/11 (who had just left in frustration to go into private security, but died in the WTC.) He took the real threats seriously, and tried to learn something from the USS Cole, the embassy bombings in Africa, etc. He was almost in a position with enough power to do something about it.

    When you look at what's been happening at the Justice Dept. you know that this administration has taken the political appointee game to a whole new level. Even Ashcroft was objecting to what they were trying to ram through!

    All that to say, you can't forget about the politics, because politics is standing in the way of competent threat assessment.

    And I think it's incorrect to say The Media or the NYT hates the administration with some sort of agenda that prevents them from reporting.

    [gak. way too complicated stuff for Brooklynian! or anyway, for my ability to bang out a few paragraphs and get anywhere . . .]
  • pitu
    pitu
    Boygabriel wrote: You raise great questions. The thing is, I'm not really sure we, as the general public, are in any position to know when there's a real threat.
    We are however occasionally in the position to know when there is NOT a threat,
    and extrapolate from there....
    like
    how the NYPD treated non-violent activists leading up to the RNC. I guess because I know some of the people, I feel very clear that any detective worth his/her salt would check things out and move on, IF there wasn't an agenda. For me that's a very clear example of the nonsense that's been going on in the name of Homeland Security, and I think GREAT, that's where they are wasting their time instead of going for the real threats, and we almost all think there's GOT to be some real threats. Now that it's two years later, we're seeing the documentation -- where ridiculously harmless theater people and housing activists and thousands of other good citizens were under surveillance and even arrested. Check out some of the articles http://brooklynian.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=31459

    /pet peeve rant over

    :D
  • sevenoneeighty
    sevenoneeighty
    So here we are again - 2 bombs set to detonate in London with remote control (apparently cell phone trigger) have been found. these bombs were crude and were made from common items found at home depot. It wasn't elaborate or sophisticated but could have caused injury or death to dozens if not hundreds.

    I know London has a different demographic and we still do NOT know who planted theses bombs yet, but it brings to mind the whole idea of "proof" required by folks looking at terrorist plots. This was an actual bomb constructed to detonate but had you caught whoever did this the day before it could have been nothing more than common items found at a home depot. If arrests were made the day before with the NY Times headline of "Terrorist Plot Stopped" (appropriately on pg A32), what would the reaction of Londoners (or NYers) be????

    I don't want to get completely paranoid, but like the 9/11 attacks this proves you really don't need that much by way of "proof" to be a terrorist and cause great harm. I think we do a terrible disservice to the many hard working people in the NYPD, FDNY, FBI, CIA and NSA working behind the scenes to prevent this crap ( they don't all vote for Bush) and we ( the people) shouldn't Sh*t on all of their effort and hard work for political reasons ( because Bush is truly an idiot).

    IMO the media should either report that is is a minor or no threat or that it is a real threat/plot, but burying the story is not helping any of us and is completely GUTLESS.

    I gotta' go watch the Paris Hilton interview recap now.
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