[Dazedcat]

"How about a Freeper rushing to post that the Pentagon and the White House say it is not terrorist activity.
(Personally I don't know how they can rule this out so quickly, but that's what they say)"

At this point in American life, a nuclear bomb could go off in mid-town Manhattan and the government would deny it as being terrorist related.

I doubt this incident is, but you're right.......the government issuing a no reponse so quickly makes you think or wonder just a little bit.

[COBOL2Java]

At this point in American life, a nuclear bomb could go off in mid-town Manhattan and the government would deny it as being terrorist related.

Pretty much agree. Just put a TSA Agent badge on Officer Barbrady and it'll be about right...

[BohDaThone]

You might examine the actual traffic of past "no terrorism" announcements. My recollection is that it is almost never the case that a named official immediately says, words to the effect of "we hereby declare that this is not terrorism."

Much more commonly, the news media corner somebody on the gov't payroll somewhere, badgers them with "Is it terrorism, huh, huh??" and reports "not that I know of" as "Gov't denies terrorism!"

I'm sure there are some cases to the contrary, but every time I have tried to drill down to source documents, that's what I find.

[weegee]

There was an outright denial that the Tampa teen stole and crashed a plane as any sort of terrorist act yet that is exactly what his suicide note says (with the word terrorist crossed out by someone) and praise for Bin Laden.

The letter was not published for several months.

I won't ever jump to a conclusion that something is the work of terrorists or saboteurs but I also refuse to believe any quick "not a terrorist act" declaration. CLEARLY there has been at least one incident where the authorities DID know that is what it was.

Also consider the messages from the DC snipers yet Moose had the public looking for white guys in a white van. They knew there were terrorists involved.