The "Chilling Plot" To Scare New York Senseless

The bogus terror scare we were sneering at on Monday turned out to be a big winner for the fearmongers at the New York Post.

Under the headline:

CHILLING PLOT FOR 9/11 II

New York Post readers found out that

Al Qaeda terrorists in Iraq planned to sneak into the United States with student visas and carry out a devastating new round of 9/11-style attacks [...]

Whoa! It's a major emergency, right?

Well, not exactly...

Details of the frightening copycat plot were discovered in documents found about six months ago when coalition forces raided an insurgent hideout in Iraq, ABC News reported.

OK, what do we know about this?

Lt. Gen. Michael Maples, head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, recently submitted written testimony to Congress based on a classified report that revealed al Qaeda "was planning terrorist operations in the U.S."

Maples gave no details but sources told ABC the plot may have involved as many as 20 terrorists slipping in to the United States using student visas - just like some of the 19 conspirators who carried out the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks.

Well of course Maples gave no details -- and it's not even clear whether the documents about which he spoke were found or fabricated.

But fortunately

The terror scheme was discovered in its early stages and there is no sign that any plotters reached the United States, the sources said.

So was the headline justified?

Elsewhere in the world, real news agencies reported that the so-called plot was "more aspirational than operational" and that the group was "years away from pulling it off".

And despite the hysterical headline, the "frightening copycat" aspect of the alleged "terror plot" seems to have consisted of nothing more than the notion that the would-be terrorists might try to slip into the USA on student visas.

Nothing about scheduling more than a dozen simultaneous war games in order to tie up the country's air defenses and create enough confusion to give their plot a chance.

Nothing about planting enough explosives in three skyscrapers so that they could be hyper-demolished -- not just knocked down but turned to dust!

Nothing about slamming a missile -- or a drone, or something small and extremely maneuverable -- into the Pentagon and then claiming it was a fully loaded jumbo jet.

Nothing about the awesome savagery of demolishing buildings full of fire and emergency workers.

Nothing about obtaining anthrax from a "secure" Army weapons lab, let alone arranging to have it sent to any politicians or newsmen who happened to be asking embarrassing questions.

Nothing about placing millions of dollars worth of put options on the very stocks which would fall after the attacks, and doing it through a bank run by a former CIA officer.

Nothing -- not even a hint -- about stirring the idiotic passions of a fat and stupid nation, boiling their blood with the most heinous attack imaginable, using the largest and most expensive propaganda symphony ever bought to whip them into a stupefied frenzy of hate, and using their oblivious rage as a pretext for starting the endless and limitless war the terrorists have always wanted.

In other words, it wasn't a "copycat plot" at all.

9/11 II? Hardly!

But what does the New York Post care? Fear sells papers, and since there are no longer any standards in American journalism, what's the harm?

If you had no independent thoughts of your own, if all you knew of this so-called "terror plot" came from media coverage -- not just the Post but the American "news" media generally, you might be tempted to think this so-called "terror plot" was surprising...

...as if we could invade and destroy a country of 28 million people, and occupy the place for nearly four years going on forever, without causing any of the natives to start thinking -- and maybe even talking -- about how fantastic it would be if just one small chunk of this great big awful war could be fought in the land of the invaders.