Don’t know if the previous poster is a DU troll, but to give him the benefit the doubt, he may not have meant “justified” in its literal sense. And I agree with him that there was a fair amount of hysteria after 9/11 - particularly in the NYC and DC areas which were most directly affected.
There are many in positions of power in our government who believe that information should be kept from us for “our own good.”
I have personally had discussions with people who bragged about how various systems or agencies have kept us safe or prevented terrorist attacks. When I asked why they don’t publicize that information (for positive PR with Americans, to demoralize the enemy, to alert Americans to be aware of similar attempts) even when there would be no compromise of intelligence secrets, they claim there would be mass hysteria if the public knew about the near misses. I disagree. I don’t believe that Americans are such big sissies that they can’t handle truth. So either those in power disagree with me OR there are few, if any, prevented terror attacks to brag about. They just need to justify their jobs and their budgets. The BentOne isn’t the only one who was willing to cover up to protect his job.
I have a couple of people in mind and I couldn’t tell you their politics. My best guess is left-leaning, but pretending to be more conservative than they really are - at least when they are talking to me.
There is only one reason that all senior officials in both parties would echo the fuel tank story as they did - to protect the reputation and good name of the United States military.