Clinton’s Grandstanding, US Overreaction on Times Square

[tekisui]

Source: Views Times

WASHINGTON: Senior US officials “jumped their gun” on the Times Square suspect Faisal Shahzad when they claimed that he was a trained member of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, The Washington Post wrote on Tuesday.

In a regular column titled ‘Spy Talk,’ which reports on the activities of the US intelligence community, the Post named two senior officials, Attorney General Eric Holder and White House terrorism adviser John Brennan, who it believed rushed to judgment on this issue.

“The attorney general’s remarks, echoed by White House terrorism adviser John Brennan … smack of politics,” wrote columnist Jeff Stein.

He recalled that Gen David Petraeus, who, as the top US commander for the Middle East, “presumably possessed the best intelligence on the area”, declared that Shahzad acted as a “lone wolf” who was “inspired by militants in Pakistan but didn’t have direct contact with them”.

Yet Gen Petraeus’s “judgment has gotten far less traction than a week’s worth of White House-supplied leaks, and now outright declarations, that Shahzad was an agent of the TTP, and by extension Al Qaeda — the original reason for invading Afghanistan”, he wrote.

Former CIA Middle East counterterrorism operative Robert Baer agreed.

“The TTP knows how to make car bombs, set off explosions,” he told the Post. “So why didn’t they teach him ? And why didn’t they give him some scratch to pull this off?”

“Petraeus,” Mr Baer said, “seems to be the only one these days feeling secure enough to tell the truth.”

Mr Stein noted that “conspiracy sells so much better on TV than lone-wolf” and that’s why the US media ignored the general’s assessment.

The columnist also blamed internal US politics for “jumping the gun”.

“It’s also an irresistible narrative for a White House that has to constantly fend off posturing critics and right-wing nuts on Fox News.

Message: We know who they are. We’re on the case.”

more: http://www.viewstimes.com/?p=39