[Enchante]

I will never forget who Larry Johnson is because he is another version of Joe Wilson - a pompous, strutting, vapid careerist who asserts more than he can know about what he does not begin to understand. He wrote what should be one of the most notorious Op-Ed columns in history, appearing in the NY Times July 10, 2001, claiming that terrorism was a sharply declining phenomenon which should be far down the list of priorities for US policy makers. I recall reading this column that very morning and thinking "this guy is an utter fool and he is supposed to be one of the key US counter-terrorism experts!" It was a time of increasing alerts and terror threats before 9/11, though the focus of attention was mainly overseas, yet Larry Johnson's mission was to pooh-pooh any attempts to ratchet up our concerns. He was one of the clowns who helped the country to sleep before 9/11, and he was supposed to be the great expert on terrorism.


"Who is Larry Johnson? He's the author of one of the more poorly timed op-eds in history. On July 10, 2001, he wrote in the New York Times under the headline "The Declining Terrorist Threat" that "Americans have little to fear" from terrorism unless they travel or work in a few of the world's hotspots."

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/994402/posts

http://www.berg-associates.com/newpage11.htm

[Cecily]

In other words, he's about as useful to the CIA and our national security as Valerie Plame and Michael Scheuer. Total incompetents all.

[jblair]

Gee whiz, but Mr. Johnson had all those nifty charts to make his point in the Summer '01 piece...

I hope our government doesn't rely on such freshman level analysis. Ah heck, gotta stop kidding myself.

[Incorrigible]

Thanks for that link to the WSJ article. I suspected there was more to Larry Johnson and I'm not surprised that Mulshine chose him to quote for this article.

[syriacus]

Who is Larry Johnson? He's the author of one of the more poorly timed op-eds in history. On July 10, 2001, he wrote in the New York Times under the headline "The Declining Terrorist Threat" that "Americans have little to fear" from terrorism unless they travel or work in a few of the world's hotspots."

Poorly timed? I'll say!!

[Chgogal]

Here is another interesting short cut from Slate.

http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:kUqjiKvLe1wJ:slate.msn.com/%3Fid%3D1008336+The+Declining+Terrorist+Threat&hl=en

The title:

(Not Exactly a) Whopper of the Week: Larry C. Johnson
Written September 21, 2001.

It frightens the hell out of me that this country is dependent upon these so called expert CIA analysts. V. Plame's conclusion that it was "crazy" that Saddam was interested in "yellow cake" was dead wrong. And then to send her shallow, frivolous, vain husband over is even more bewildering. And his mission was approved! Then he writes an editorial that is chockfull of lies. Then the super secret agent woman appears on the cover of Vanity Fare. Who the heck is running that outfit? Unbelievable!