Politics Before Public Safety

NBC is reporting that the US was putting strong pressure on the British government to make arrests earlier than British police officials wanted. The British police wanted more time to gather evidence. The British government was successfully resisting this pressure -- until its hand was forced by one of the conspirators being arrested in Pakistan.

Meanwhile, Bruce Schneier, writing in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, tells us:

The new airplane security measures focus on that plot, because authorities believe they have not captured everyone involved. It's reasonable to assume that a few lone plotters, knowing their compatriots are in jail and fearing their own arrest, would try to finish the job on their own. The authorities are not being public with the details -- much of the "explosive liquid" story doesn't hang together -- but the excessive security measures seem prudent.

In other words, the US effort to make swift arrests resulted in conspirators being left at large, when they very may well have been rounded up when the careful. professional police work of Scotland Yard was complete.

Air travelers were placed unnecessarily at risk because the Bush Administration once again screwed the pooch.

Why did they screw the pooch? The obvious speculation is that they needed to highlight a dramatic terrorist threat in the wake of their water-carrier Joe Lieberman's well-deserved defeat in the Connecticut Democratic primary. The sudden hysterical claims that the Lieberman loss was a victory for terrorism, just before the arrests, seems like too much of a coincidence to think otherwise.

It's as plain as daylight: George Bush and his stooges think winning elections is more important than your safety. It is more important to the Bush people that you be afraid of terrorists than that you actually are protected from them.

(Hat tip: Avedon Carol)