| GREG-STRANGE.COM |
"If you haven't found something strange during the
day, it hasn't been much of a day." -- John A. Wheeler
day, it hasn't been much of a day." -- John A. Wheeler
PROVIDING SUBSTANTIVE COMMENTARY ON THE
PEOPLE, POLITICS, EVENTS AND ABSURDITIES OF
OUR TIME. SERVED UP WITH ACERBIC WIT, YOU
SHOULD FIND IT QUITE SATISFYING.
PEOPLE, POLITICS, EVENTS AND ABSURDITIES OF
OUR TIME. SERVED UP WITH ACERBIC WIT, YOU
SHOULD FIND IT QUITE SATISFYING.
JFK Terror Plot? What JFK Terror Plot?
Another day, another deadly plot by freelance Muslim
radicals foiled. Oh, sorry. That’s the plot to blow up JFK
airport I’m talking about. Many of you may barely remember
given that it’s been over a week now and given the mainstream
media’s lackadaisical coverage of it and given said media’s
overwhelming wall-to-wall coverage of the far more compelling
Paris Hilton saga.
Anyway, this latest plot, coming on the heels of the foiled
Fort Dix Six plot, sounds like it would have been a real doozy
had it come to fruition. The idea was to plant explosives on jet
fuel arteries at John F. Kennedy International Airport, set off a
chain reaction that would blow up all the many jet fuel holding
tanks and obliterate the entire airport and everybody in it. It
would have been one big orgy of flaming destruction and mass
murder. Allahu akbar!
But as fate would have it, Russell Defreitas, the alleged plot
originator, befriended an FBI informant and thus began the
unraveling of another intended wanton act of jihad. Defreitas,
by the way, is an American citizen originally from Guyana and
a Muslim convert. He also happens to be a former JFK air cargo
employee who knows the airport like the back of his hand. Also
arrested were Abdul Kadir, a Muslim and former member of
Parliament in Guyana, and Kareem Ibrahim, a citizen of
Trinidad.
Trinidad? Guyana? What the heck is going on? I thought
Trinidad was a place where the locals languorously while away
the sultry hours entertaining loud-shirted tourists by playing
steel drums and doing the limbo. But here’s an interesting
factoid: Trinidad is the Caribbean’s leading producer and
exporter of oil. Another interesting factoid: Trinidad has a
small but significant Muslim population.
Hmm . . . Muslims, oil . . . Sounds like a sure-fire recipe for
trouble. In fact, did you know that in 1990 a radical Islamic
group known as Jamaat al Muslimeen staged a coup attempt in
Trinidad during which the prime minister and others were
taken hostage? Fortunately, the coup was unsuccessful, but it’s
highly doubtful that Trinidad has seen the last of its Islam-
related problems.
As for Guyana, it’s located on the northern coast of South
America not far from the island of Trinidad. It has no oil, but
guess what it does have. That’s right, Muslims, approximately
10 percent of the population. And as we have learned in recent
times, wherever Muslims go in any significant numbers, trouble
and/or jihad is almost certain to follow.
So, getting back to the JFK plot, it was a pretty big story
and you’d think the New York Times would have been all over it
like white on rice. But one day after the news came out, its
coverage was buried on page 37, while featured on the front
page was (surprise, surprise) yet another story about those
poor Club Gitmo detainees.
Well, hey, the Times seemed to be saying, what’s all the
fuss about? After all, JFK “was never in imminent danger
because the plot was only in a preliminary phase and the
conspirators had yet to lay out detailed plans or obtain
financing or explosives.” And anyway, “safety shut-off valves
would almost assuredly have prevented an exploding airport
fuel tank from igniting all or even part of the network.”
In other words, the whole thing was a crackpot scheme by a
bunch of bumbling losers that was still in the planning stages
and probably had a next to zero chance of ever being pulled
off. So why get the public all worked up over nothing?
Well, what about the people’s cherished “right to know,”
which the Times so often cites when publicizing information
that damages the Bush administration and its fight against
terrorism (see endless NYT stories about Guantanamo, Abu
Ghraib, secret Bush program to monitor terrorist financial
transactions, etc., etc.)? Even if it’s true that this particular
plot had little chance of succeeding -- and we don’t know that
for certain -- it rates front page coverage because it provides
profound evidence that the psychosis of radical Islam
continues to spread around the globe with the ferocity of a
biblical plague. Even the Caribbean, which most of us thought
of as an innocuous playground for vacationers, appears to be
seriously infected.
If the New York Times’ standard for newsworthiness when
it comes to terror plots is to be inextricably linked to their
apparent plausibility, then to what back page would the 9/11
plot have been relegated had it been foiled ahead of time?
Arabs in flight schools learning how to fly, but not to take off or
land, were going to commandeer commercial airliners with box
cutters? And they were going to take out both World Trade
Center towers, the Pentagon and possibly the White House or
the Capitol? Come off it! This story belongs on the funny pages.
John Edwards recently said that the global war on terror
was nothing more than a “bumper sticker” slogan used by Bush
to justify everything from abuses at Abu Ghraib to the invasion
of Iraq. The New York Times is in wholehearted agreement and
believes that when it comes to foiled or alleged terror plots, it’s
all inconsequential silliness and BushCo scaremongering. At
least, it is until the next time thousands are slaughtered. Then,
you can count on page one headlines screaming about
intelligence failures and demanding to know why Bush didn‘t
protect us.
Another day, another deadly plot by freelance Muslim
radicals foiled. Oh, sorry. That’s the plot to blow up JFK
airport I’m talking about. Many of you may barely remember
given that it’s been over a week now and given the mainstream
media’s lackadaisical coverage of it and given said media’s
overwhelming wall-to-wall coverage of the far more compelling
Paris Hilton saga.
Anyway, this latest plot, coming on the heels of the foiled
Fort Dix Six plot, sounds like it would have been a real doozy
had it come to fruition. The idea was to plant explosives on jet
fuel arteries at John F. Kennedy International Airport, set off a
chain reaction that would blow up all the many jet fuel holding
tanks and obliterate the entire airport and everybody in it. It
would have been one big orgy of flaming destruction and mass
murder. Allahu akbar!
But as fate would have it, Russell Defreitas, the alleged plot
originator, befriended an FBI informant and thus began the
unraveling of another intended wanton act of jihad. Defreitas,
by the way, is an American citizen originally from Guyana and
a Muslim convert. He also happens to be a former JFK air cargo
employee who knows the airport like the back of his hand. Also
arrested were Abdul Kadir, a Muslim and former member of
Parliament in Guyana, and Kareem Ibrahim, a citizen of
Trinidad.
Trinidad? Guyana? What the heck is going on? I thought
Trinidad was a place where the locals languorously while away
the sultry hours entertaining loud-shirted tourists by playing
steel drums and doing the limbo. But here’s an interesting
factoid: Trinidad is the Caribbean’s leading producer and
exporter of oil. Another interesting factoid: Trinidad has a
small but significant Muslim population.
Hmm . . . Muslims, oil . . . Sounds like a sure-fire recipe for
trouble. In fact, did you know that in 1990 a radical Islamic
group known as Jamaat al Muslimeen staged a coup attempt in
Trinidad during which the prime minister and others were
taken hostage? Fortunately, the coup was unsuccessful, but it’s
highly doubtful that Trinidad has seen the last of its Islam-
related problems.
As for Guyana, it’s located on the northern coast of South
America not far from the island of Trinidad. It has no oil, but
guess what it does have. That’s right, Muslims, approximately
10 percent of the population. And as we have learned in recent
times, wherever Muslims go in any significant numbers, trouble
and/or jihad is almost certain to follow.
So, getting back to the JFK plot, it was a pretty big story
and you’d think the New York Times would have been all over it
like white on rice. But one day after the news came out, its
coverage was buried on page 37, while featured on the front
page was (surprise, surprise) yet another story about those
poor Club Gitmo detainees.
Well, hey, the Times seemed to be saying, what’s all the
fuss about? After all, JFK “was never in imminent danger
because the plot was only in a preliminary phase and the
conspirators had yet to lay out detailed plans or obtain
financing or explosives.” And anyway, “safety shut-off valves
would almost assuredly have prevented an exploding airport
fuel tank from igniting all or even part of the network.”
In other words, the whole thing was a crackpot scheme by a
bunch of bumbling losers that was still in the planning stages
and probably had a next to zero chance of ever being pulled
off. So why get the public all worked up over nothing?
Well, what about the people’s cherished “right to know,”
which the Times so often cites when publicizing information
that damages the Bush administration and its fight against
terrorism (see endless NYT stories about Guantanamo, Abu
Ghraib, secret Bush program to monitor terrorist financial
transactions, etc., etc.)? Even if it’s true that this particular
plot had little chance of succeeding -- and we don’t know that
for certain -- it rates front page coverage because it provides
profound evidence that the psychosis of radical Islam
continues to spread around the globe with the ferocity of a
biblical plague. Even the Caribbean, which most of us thought
of as an innocuous playground for vacationers, appears to be
seriously infected.
If the New York Times’ standard for newsworthiness when
it comes to terror plots is to be inextricably linked to their
apparent plausibility, then to what back page would the 9/11
plot have been relegated had it been foiled ahead of time?
Arabs in flight schools learning how to fly, but not to take off or
land, were going to commandeer commercial airliners with box
cutters? And they were going to take out both World Trade
Center towers, the Pentagon and possibly the White House or
the Capitol? Come off it! This story belongs on the funny pages.
John Edwards recently said that the global war on terror
was nothing more than a “bumper sticker” slogan used by Bush
to justify everything from abuses at Abu Ghraib to the invasion
of Iraq. The New York Times is in wholehearted agreement and
believes that when it comes to foiled or alleged terror plots, it’s
all inconsequential silliness and BushCo scaremongering. At
least, it is until the next time thousands are slaughtered. Then,
you can count on page one headlines screaming about
intelligence failures and demanding to know why Bush didn‘t
protect us.