Hmmm. The Washington-area commentators referred to above may all be "on board" with "the story".
It'd be just like LE, trying to PR a situation like this.
Chief Moose looks at times like he is under a tremendous strain. If he knew it was terrorists and the feds were leaning on him to keep it under his hat while the terrorists slaughtered his people one at a time, it might tend to ruin his week.
If it's true, how to respond? People have a right to defend themselves.
And if I were Bush, I'd just start turning the Arab-American community upside down until I got to the guys with recent powder burns.
Second thought: the first attack on WTC was obviously intended as a severe provocation. As in, let's have a big War Against Islam -- just like Bin Laden and Zawahiri have been running their mouths about.
This looks like it's an engraved invitation to beat up on every Arab on the East Coast.
When the Marxist-Leninist students at Harvard pulled their sit-in and goaded the police to riot in 1969, commentator Roger Rosenblatt was there and reminisced years later that when the police action began, he happened to be at the back of the occupied building when the Communist students bailed out the back way. He stopped one of them and asked him why they were leaving, while their followers and fellow-travelers were inside, taking a beating from the police. The Leftist snot coolly replied, "The leadership always has to preserve itself." They were leaving their followers to absorb a drubbing, provide a spectacle for the news, and get seriously "radicalized" by the experience.
The shooter(s), if it is indeed a terrorist cell, could be acting on Al-Q'aeda's instructions, instructions intended to produce something very like a radicalizing experience for Arabs in America and elsewhere, by severely provoking the U.S. citizenry to come down hard on Arab immigrants.
Oh, and over on the other thread, Saudi immigration authorities announced a tit-for-tat policy on foreigners traveling there.
I think the Chief, although he may be a great cop, is way out of his league on this one.
Why is this investigation not being handled by Homeland Security. I thought we were making such a big deal out of the need to have a threat indicator going at all times, and a single government department to deal with situations such as these. It seems to me that whatever this is, domestic or international terrorism, this was custom ordered to come under the homeland security department.