Red Alert

The World Socialist Web Site suspects that there may be a politically-timed terrorist attack coming up this fall, and that the Bushies are preparing to capitalize on it.

In a piece published May 20 entitled “Beware of any stretch-run surprises,” Wall Street Journal columnist Albert Hunt writes that the November elections could hinge on “unanticipated events.” First on the list of such events is a terrorist attack. Hunt notes: “The Bush administration and outside terrorist experts repeatedly have cautioned that another attack on the homeland is likely. The White House, politically, has it both ways: taking credit for avoiding any assault since 9/11, while at the same time warning that another is likely.”

There is a more sinister subtext to Hunt’s column in the suggestion that the Bush administration would like to “have it both ways” in another manner: it would like to benefit politically by presenting itself as the strongest force against terrorism, while preparing to politically exploit any future terrorist attack. He quotes Charles Black—a Republican strategist and close confidante of President George W. Bush—as stating that “my instinct is there likely will be a rally around [the incumbent] effect” in the event of another attack.

It's interesting that Hunt and others are claiming that there haven't been any terrorist attacks since 9/11. Obviously, they must mean attacks in the U.S., since Bush himself referred to attacks in Madrid, Istanbul, Tunis and Bali just last night. But what about the anthrax mailings and the Beltway snipers? (Domestic terrorists don't count, apparently.) Well, what about the October 3, 2001 Greyhound bus crash where the driver's throat was cut and six people died? The July 4, 2002 shooting which killed three at Los Angeles International Airport? Or two very suspicious plane crashes which have yet to be adequately explained: American Airlines flight 587, which crashed in Rockaway Beach in New York on November 12, 2001, and the crash which killed Senator Paul Wellstone and seven others on October 25, 2002. And to be thorough, how about the brutal police response to peaceful protesters at the FTAA meeting in Miami last November?

Since Islamic fundamentalists crashing airplanes into the World Trade Center is apparently the only domestic event that the Bushies consider to be terrorism, you'd think that Condi could have seen it coming.