Does Rosa Brooks Believe 9-11 Was 'Fictional and Entirely Implausible'?

NewsBusters ^ | Mark Finkelstein

[governsleastgovernsbest]

Does L.A. Times columnist Rosa Brooks think 9-11 was "fictional and entirely implausible"? I ask, because in the GOP's Torture Enthusiasts today, that's how she describes a similar scenario that Brit Hume sketched during this past Tuesday's GOP presidential debate.

In inviting the candidates to discuss their views on interrogation during this past Tuesday's get together, debate moderator and Fox News DC Bureau managing editor Brit Hume said the following:

The questions in this round will be premised on a fictional, but we think plausible scenario involving terrorism and the response to it. Here is the premise: Three shopping centers near major U.S. cities have been hit by suicide bombers. Hundreds are dead, thousands injured. A fourth attack has been averted when the attackers were captured off the Florida coast and taken to Guantanamo Bay, where they are being questioned. U.S. intelligence believes that another larger attack is planned and could come at any time.

Brooks sniffed at the scenario, calling it "the kind that most intelligence experts consider fictional and entirely implausible."

Really? Entirely implausible to imagine three targets hit by suicide bombers and another attack planned? Let's see, if I recall correctly, on 9-11, three targets [the two WTC towers and the Pentagon] were hit by suicide bombers. A fourth attack, possibly on the White House or the Capitol, was planned. It was averted thanks to heroic efforts of the passengers aboard United Airlines flight 93,which crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

Brooks mocked the candidates for their responses, calling them "a group of middle-aged white guys competing with one another to see who could do the best impersonation of Jack Bauer." For good measure, she claimed that Brit Hume "appears to have been watching too much '24' himself." Aside: why do liberals gratuitously drag race into these discussions? As for being "middle-aged" [which I suppose septugenarians McCain and Paul would take as a compliment], the Constitution does require presidents to be at least 35, and even Obama would be 47 by inauguration day, so what's Rosa's point?

In any case, it's not that the Republicans have been watching too much "24." It's that Brooks has apparently forgotten our recent history.

Contact Mark at mark@gunhill.net

[massgopguy]

Did David Copperfield make the towers disappear?

[Calpernia]

I actually posted that same question to the Yahoo message board back in 2001.

[PGalt]

FReeper comments BUMP!

[elhombrelibre]

Good points. Krauthammer was pointing out that Liberals amnesiacs as well recently. They’ve forgotten nearly everything they said about Iraq, for instance, and what Clinton did (Operation Desert Fox, for example), and they’ve acted as if Bush just went after Iraq for personal reasons.

[PreciousLiberty]

“Like we already haven’t crossed this line?”

So your prediction is that after the our response to the next terrorist attack here, Saudi Arabia, Dubai, Pakistan and our other Islamic ‘allies’ will immediately declare war on us?

Do tell...

[Fledermaus]

They harbor and fund terrorist groups already and we “wink” at them like they are helping. We give billions in aid to Egypt and Pakistan while they knowingly allow the Islamic facists to ferment on their soil.

Saudi Arabia alone is responsbile for the most fanatical whabbist around the globe.

They are at war with us. Wake up.

[Fledermaus]

No link. No one reporting. But I cleary remember the story on the two guys here in Franklin on the local news just after 9-11.

And I can remember the talk of similar Muslim men in other cities.

I also remember there were some stories of Muslim men “disapperaing” not long after with their wives and landlords that said they just left.

I believe many cells were activated if not to attack in some form at least to mobilize knowing we might respond. Remember all the bridge and tunnel plans they thwarted not long after that day?

They are more coordinated it seems.