Even as the London terror siege appears to be ramping up — and even though new prime minister Gordon Brown and his cohort acknowledge that what Britain is witnessing is, in fact, the work of terrorists with “Asian” ties (which, in Brit speak, means “Pakistani,” perhaps of the potentially home-grown variety) — former CIA member and DU hero Larry Johnson, along with his smarmy, truthy media enabler Keith Olbermann, spent last evening talking about the “non-event” in London.
Writes Allah of Johnson’s appearance on Olbermann’s “news” show:
It’s a segment six years in the making, starting with Crazy Larry’s now-legendary “stop worrying about terror†op-ed published in July 2001 and continuing through to this morning when he wowed the dKos faithful by pronouncing the car-bomb plot a “crock of crap.â€Â
[…]
…Larry […] sniffs about “yuppie terrorists†who drive Mercedes but naturally doesn’t mention that the Mercedes was ten years old, which means it probably cost considerably less than 10 grand assuming it was purchased recently. He also scoffs at the idea that a bomb this crude could have done much more than torch the car itself and maybe singe a few people within 20 or 30 feet. The (left-leaning) weapons experts at Danger Room, who are taking this very seriously, beg to differ, as does ABC News, which was told by British officials that the explosion would have been lethal within a “several hundred yard radius.†And then there’s this:
The cell phone had received at least two calls, which should have detonated several gallons of gasoline, but when the calls came in, the bomb failed to go off, the official said.
Had it done so, that blast then would have ignited six to eight tanks of propane in a mist to make a fuel-air explosion, creating a fireball the size of a small house and propelling 18 to 20 boxes of roofing nails around a large area at bullet speed, counterterrorism officials said.
The news organization responsible for that report? The same one that signs Olby’s checks.
It ends with a stirring note about the only thing we have to fear. Hint: It doesn’t involve a wild-eyed guy sitting on a pile of hurtling high explosives and muttering about Allah.
It used to be there came a time when even your most ardent supporters began to doubt you when you were so often wrong on the pronouncements you made as a result of extrapolating out from facts.
But it seems that nothing Johnson can say or do — remember his run-in with Seixon and, later, Rick Moran? — can disqualify him as an “expert” so long as he’s willing, regardless of the evidence, to maintain the positions that his ideological fellow travelers wish to hear.
It’s a strange cycle of enabling: Johnson, as expert, reinforces the beliefs of those who look to him for such reinforcement; and they, in turn, continue to prop Johnson up as an expert.
Me, I’m no expert on any of this stuff, quite frankly. But then again, I’m rarely invited on news programs to give “expert” analysis about how that the Brits are getting all stupid with fear over nothing, even as car bombs are turning up on the West End, and “Asian” men are trying to drive SUVs loaded with gas canisters into airport terminals.
Once again, Johnson’s wannabe-hipster pessimism — which is temperamentally tied to the grand conspiracy scenarios he and his acolytes like Olbermann cling to like Lindsay Graham might a victory sombrero — has led him to look like an utter “denialist” (hi, Commissar!), one who, if his track record is any indication, wouldn’t be able to spot imminent Islamic terrorism were it wearing a “Hi, I’m a Jihadist” name tag and galloping towards him on a camel wrapped in explosives and sporting a riding blanket made entirely from roofing nails and the severed heads of western journalists.
****
update: COBRA is meeting now, and the UK terror alert level is now at “critical,” meaning authorities believe a new attack is imminent.
Reached for comment, Larry Johnson reminded people that he is ex-CIA, and so who are they gonna believe — him? Or some hysterical government officials and their lackey “witnesses” in whose interests it is to scare the population with a lot of hooey about suspects running away from the scene while their skin falls off…?
Reality-based.
(h/t) Allahpundit, who has been updating continuously, and who will be keeping you up to date on the story long after I’ve left for Target to pick up some deli and dill pickle spears.
Larry Johnson is one of the reasons 9/11 happened. That the left has welcomed into their fold, fetes him, and act as if they listen to him says a lot about their intellectual honesty.
I’d suggest he should share the fate of the executives from the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation, but someone would probably take that the wrong way.
Oh, great. The psycho webstalker moonbat version of Greg Packer resurfaces. Where’s Jason Leopold, I wonder.
Incidentally, if I’m killed under mysterious circumstances — for instance, I don’t readily visit balconies or drive on mountain roads alone — please direct the authorities in the proper direction.
Thanks.
The denialists like LJ and Olby would be funny if they weren’t so dangerous.
[…] protein wisdom […]
Suppose it’s July 1, 2005.
What’s the difference between the 7/7 and the 7/21 bombers?
Both are just a bunch of morons with frigging household chemical bombs, no?
Ain’t that the truth.
Even after one of these things went off in Scotland, LJ still claiming it’s no big deal:
LJ won’t tell who his expert is, natch.
The Times of London, otoh, names theirs, like Andy Oppenheimer, editor of Nuclear, Biological and Chemical International, who said the blast radius could have been anything from 200 years to half a mile:
“It would have been a devastating explosion,†he said.
“With that amount of petrol and an unknown quantity of pressurised gas, the blast would have been about 200 yards. If high explosive was involved, the blast could have reached half a mile.
“Hundreds of people could have been injured if they had been in the area at the time. The knock-on effects of breaking glass are particularly devastating, for example.
“This would have been an explosion on the scale of those seen in the Middle East, although not as big as some that have been seen in Baghdad recently.â€Â
So there is Larry at his weaseliest. Not as big as some of the Baghdad bombs? True. Hundreds of people injured? Could have happened three times over, only Larry does not give a damn, because it doesn’t advance his political agenda.
One thing I’ve learned in my life, that has proven to be an ironclad truism: in the intelligence community, the amount someone talks about their work and/or position is inversely proportional to the importance of the work they were doing.
Thusly, Larry Johnson’s involvement in counter terrorism was probably limited to making copies.
BG Benton Partin (USAF ret.), perhaps, who claims that the OKC Murrah bomb only produced 500 pounds of force, an assertion that was recently disproven by the Discovery Channel’s “Conspiracy Test” show where they built a full scale ANFO bomb and measured the impact, registering at 5500 lbs (compared to the FEMA/FBI/ATF estimate of 5600 lbs.)
…”the blast radius could have been anything from 200 years to half a mile:”
I realize the “years” is a typo (in the original article, not by you Karl), but it’ll be at least that long before the “reality based” community gets it, if then.
Make that “one of the world’s foremost incompetent moron explosives experts”, RTO. Any friend of Scary Larry is a fucking idiot.
[…] protein wisdom […]
I posted this on a thread below:
‘Breaking news:
Terrorist attack reported at Glasgow Airport in Scotland.
Great, we went through there at the beginning of the year’
We (wife, daughter and myself) went to Glasgow for a wedding.
Scary.
Well, the reality-based community is right on it:
Funny how Pandagons can see the hairy hand of The Patriarchy oppressing womyn with its daddy-ego driven heteronormative bigotry in the most mundane of day-to-day life (like high heels and engagement rings)
but ACTUALLY take The Other seriously? Even when The Other is constantly threatening murder and mayhem?
Gotta be the fault of America or the Joooos.
Of course the car may have been stolen, as well. Odd that “CIA expert” Johnson would leap to the conclusion that the suspects are yuppies based on nothing more substantial than than make of the car used in the crime.
N O’Brain
Scary? If you feel that way, you must be a pantswetting racist.
There’s just no getting through to the highly-perceptive, Darleen. Or rather there might be, but not when it’s impossible to do so because it involves a miniscule alignment of one’s opinion with that of one’s political enemies.
Darleen,
If any Glaswegans been scared at the ho-hum prospect of a car bomb killing hundreds of people in their backyard, the compassionate Left would just lump them in as bed-wetters.
STAND UP AND TAKE YOUR CAR-BOMBING LIKE A WOMYN!!!
Great moments in Leftist national security analysis:
“There IS no terrorist threat, Mr. Bush!”
OK, when are we going to stop talking and start doing something about these damn Presbyterians and their bombs?
Jeffersonian
I’m getting the sinking feeling that these “fellow citizens” are the enemies I truly need to fight. The jihadists are clear on their goals, but idiots like the pandagons poo-pooing the threat no matter what are just as much a threat, because their willful ignorance is going to get me or mine killed!
What’s worse, is when that body count starts, they will NOT blame the jihadists, they’ll blame everyone who would say ‘I told you so!’
Believe me, if the bombs had been targeting abortion clinics the Pandagons would see the threat.
After emphatically denying the existence of a terrorist threat, and opposing every proposed counter-terror measure, they will blame Bush for “not connecting the dots” and not “doing something” to prevent the attack.
At the very least. Going even further than Aldo, it’s clear that you will be actively implicated in the plot. This makes perfect sense given that there was no threat before, so any incidents will be a manifestation of the regime’s desire to manufacture consensus with a phantom bogeyman in the form of terrorism. QED.
Believe me, if the bombs had been targeting abortion clinics
Ding ding ding!!! Not long ago zuzu of feministe went on a tear about the “conspiracy” of the MSM (cause they really are in thrall of rightwingers and christian godbotherers) not to call such abortion clinic attacks “terrorism”.
When the left becomes outraged that someone blows anything up as a way to influence government policy (rather than participate in a democratic way – an election – as the method to forge change), then I will believe they are acting in good faith. When a lefty says, “If only if we weren’t in Iraq” it only reveals the left’s moral incontinence. I have no other way to describe it. And it makes me crazy.
Aldo describes it perfectly:
Which is itself darkly amusing given that I was told countless times at Pandagon that ALF and ELF bombings of electrical towers, scientific facilities, ski lodges, etc. wasn’t terrorism because it was only property being destroyed. But it would appear that some property is more equal than others…
Question being, will Live Free Or Die Hard get a bounce this weekend or will moviegoers find it redundant?
Actually his track tecord (or lack of one) goes back to 1996, when he was first on the scene in the earliest weeks of MSNBC’s debut, as a “State
Department counter-terrorism expert” the most accurate tag they have ever had for him, insisting it was a terrorist attack. Now mind you, this does
seen to be a minor scale of attack (unless there are some dirty bomb complications we don’t know about) A more aggresive version of the UNC SUV
attack: what did we ever do to the SUV? However, if such an incident happened in say Ft. Lee, NJ; to pick a totally random target, Keitherman
wouldn’t be so calm; of course this is hypothetical; because why would
terrorists attack the American version of Al Arabiya.
Other eyewitnesses supposedly saw fire on the Jeep while it was speeding towards the terminal.
I wonder if anyone saw a bumper sticker on the Jeep.
I wonder if anyone saw a bumper sticker on the Jeep.
“My other car is also a smoldering wreck.”
“I wonder if anyone saw a bumper sticker on the Jeep.”
You’re thinking it had a War on Terror bumper sticker, aren’t you?
I think that the bumpersticker was “Edwards/Edwards ’08” with their slogan “Terrorism is a bumper sticker slogan”.
I wonder if anyone saw a bumper sticker on the Jeep.
Warning! This Car Brakes for No One!!
–
Prep My Virgins, Beyotch!
–
It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time
–
Never happen. It would threaten their mythology about the ’60s and figures like Che, require them to confront the ALF/ELF/Black Bloc types, and would run counter to their faith that willingness to commit violence is evidence of commitment to a cause.
So has Larry the thug threatened anyone lately?
Rob – That is an interesting observation. One of the left’s tenets is that they “care” more, and that is certainly one way in which to measure it.
Did anyone ask Rosie O’Johnson if this is the first time that fire had melted a Jeep?
Doesn’t that asshat Larry Jonson have any common sense (DON’T ANSWER THAT!). The items that the “freedom fighters” put in the vehicles are items that would not raise any eyebrows (gasoline, propane cylinders and nails)…stuff that you can get at the local gas station and Home Depot/Lowes, right. Stuff, that if exposed to heat, can create destruction and mayhem.
The CIA must have been desperate on the day they hired Larry – he must have been the “last qualified applicant” for that month. As for his “explosives expert friend”, the dude must have the IQ of a dead wombat…
“Darleen, a burning car and another impossible-to-function bomb. The driver and passenger were burned, no one else even injured. Don’t like to see it but I doubt Glaswegians are shaking in their boots.”
I mean, it isn’t like Bill Donahue posted mean things on the internet about them.
“the left’s moral incontinence”
THAT is just about perfect
I don’t suppose anybody has pointed out to the moonbats that the reasons these fools are playing the roles of fools is that the first team is in Iraq getting killed like proper jihadis?
Yes, this is “flypaper strategy” is working.
And that we’ve done a fair job of cutting these plots off before they have a chance to hatch.
Come on Pablo, you would think it AQ was behind this they could spare at least one experienced suicide bomber to come over and teach these kids how its done.
The British have been pressuring the jihadis pretty hard with measures that would send the Democrats apoplectic if the Bush administration were employing them. Surveillance, phone tapping and detention w/o hearing ( Brown is going to ask for 90 days again after these incidents ). Unfortunately, the British have been running short of police resources to watch their rather large set of jihadis. I think we’ve been lucky in that the worst of the jihadis have been quaranteened in Europe rather than reaching the US but that’s not likely to hold forever.
B Moe – experienced suicide bombers tend to be worm food ;-)
Larry loves publicity. He’s gotta be loving all the attention he’s been getting over the past few days. Keep showing him the love he deserves!
Suicide Squad Leader: We are the Judean People’s Front crack suicide squad! Suicide squad, attack!
[they all stab themselves]
Suicide Squad Leader: That showed ’em, huh?
Suicide bombers are a harmless lot. It it the homicide bombers you have to watch out for.
These attacks were ineffective because the efforts that the US and Britain have made in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as in other areas you seldom hear about like Somalia, Yemen, Ethiopia, many of the ‘stans, Georgia etc., have paid off by killing off the better trained and better experienced Al Queda middle and upper tier leaders.
Can someone cho-toshop Larry’s mug on a Baghdad Bob image? Please? Pretty please? “There is NO terror threat” caption.
“He also scoffs at the idea that a bomb this crude could have done much more than torch the car itself and maybe singe a few people within 20 or 30 feet.”
As a long time Ordnance Corps officer, when I hear things like this I literally cringe. If they didn’t set the detonation conditions up properly, we may be thankful for that – but to wave the danger off with a nonchalant hand is willfully ignorant.
Bah.
The bottom line is that if you pay attention to what Larry Johnson’s actual career experience is, he spent most of his time in the State department, got briefly seconded to the CIA in what was mostly a liaison role. He’s a cookie pusher and his stupid comments are always better understood when considered in light of his ‘don’t rock the boat’ cookie pusher mentality.
Topsekret9,
Look here.
Topsecretk9,
And ocf course I trashed spelling your handle–sorry.
Comment by RTO Trainer on 7/1 @ 10:19 pm #
Topsekret9,
Look here.
Thank you, Thank you, Thank you. Perfect.
And RTO – sorry it took me so long to check back in so I could say thanks in a timely fashion.
It used to be there came a time when even your most ardent supporters began to doubt you when you were so often wrong on the pronouncements you made as a result of extrapolating out from facts.
Insert any of the thousands of outlandish claims about the Iraq War made by conservatives.
I think the main premise Keith makes is correct: Terrorism is not something we should be freaking out over. Good police work and timely intelligence are the best means of combating this tactic.
How many of which continue to be trotted out by the Establishment Media as experts, their pronouncements passed along uncritically as though they’ve always been right about everything, all along?
Insert any of the thousands of outlandish claims about the Iraq War made by conservatives.
Such as?
I think the main premise Keith makes is correct: Terrorism is not something we should be freaking out over. Good police work and timely intelligence are the best means of combating this tactic.
So you want to go back to the way we “combatted” terrorism prior to 9-11?
Insert any of the thousands of outlandish claims about the Iraq War made by conservatives.
Such as?
Are you kidding? How much time do you have? That the war would be short and inexpensive and we could do it with few troops. Bill O’Reilly predicted the war would be over in a week. In those halcyon days a couple weeks after the invasion some conservatives were actually demanding apologies from people who were opposed to the war. Meanwhile, five years, thousands of American lives, and hundreds of billions of dollars later no end is in sight.
So you want to go back to the way we “combatted†terrorism prior to 9-11?
Hell no! Bush should have fired about half of the CIA if for no other reason than to scare those still getting a paycheck to start doing their jobs and start cooperating with the other intelligence services. One of our biggest problems is a huge shortage of qualified linguists. This is something not easily or quickly remedied but that’s where I would start if I had a say.
Are you kidding? How much time do you have?
Plenty. Go ahead, with links please.
Hell no! Bush should have fired about half of the CIA if for no other reason than to scare those still getting a paycheck to start doing their jobs and start cooperating with the other intelligence services.
Uh, they weren’t allowed. See “The Wall”, starring Jamie Gorelick.
I heard “long hard slog” — though, of course, some people were more optimistic than others. But then, I watched FOXNews at the time — and I’m painfully aware that troubles with Turkey and with the melting away into the civilian population of Saddam’s forces made the early push to Bagdhad fairly easy, while prolonging the guerilla aspect of the war — so Paul Krugman would remind me that I’ve been brainwashed, and that the government needs to step in and protect citizens from taking in such propaganda.
Which, I suppose, means forcing everyone to buy a subscription to the New York Times.
For our own good.
And no, I don’t me people like you, Ronaldo. You’ve already been healed. Perhaps you can get a volunteer as a re-education coach.
Larry Johnson: So wrong so often that he’s actually becoming a nearly-pitch perfect predictor of what’s right
Oops! Might want to recheck this with Scotland Yard. :)
Christine is back !
Oops! Might want to let the rest of us in on just what the fuck you’re talking about. :)
I think the main premise Keith makes is correct: Terrorism is not something we should be freaking out over. Good police work and timely intelligence are the best means of combating this tactic.
Nice work on discrediting leftist terror czar Richard Clarke.
And the 9-11 commission really was an unnecessary waste of time and taxpayers dollars sham demanded by the diaper wearing “connect the dots” Democrats – thanks for clearing that up – it’s a shame the Democrats campaigned on implementing all the unnecessary “freak outs” recommended by them – but then we should have known the Democrats would over hype the “fear” by setting up a phony group to prevent future non-events.
To Topsecretk9:
Huh? Me thinks that you are too clever to be understood.
Huh? Me thinks that you are too clever to be understood.
Still waiting for those links, ronnie.
Take your time, I’m sitting on my balcony overlooking the beach for the next week. I’m not going anywhere.
And what about that “wall”?
So Cheney never said that the insurgency was in its last throes? Memory loss must be a requirement to still be in favor of the war. About the only good journalism that has come out of Iraq has been done by James Fallows in The Atlantic–or is that too commie for you? He was dead on from the start. Go back and read his stuff. Where do you folks get your news? I’m curious? Everything I read pretty much says that the war is a big shit sandwich without much bread. We are creating terrorists rather than fighting terrorism. In sailing terms we’d say it’s time to change tack, or better yet, completely change direction.
Insurgencies generally last how many years? So last throes is relative, I guess — though some people were clearly more opportunistic than others.
Too, it was hard to expect that after 911, many US citizens would have an attention span that needed to be coddled by those running a war. But such is where we are now.
Christine —
Huh? Britain is saying al Qaeda was indeed behind the plots, that more attempts are likely (given the chatter) — though I think most of us here would be happy if they were all carried out as ineptly as these past 3.
You might want to read Strategy Page. Sure, it might not give you as keen an insight into how the military and counterinsurgencies work as, say, Paul Krugman, but give it a go anyway. Just for shits and giggles.
Incidentally, in case some of you haven’t heard, another MD was arrested in connection to the Britain terror attacks. The 8th suspect and third doctor.
Evidently, they just don’t make impoverished terrorists fighting against economic injustice like they used to.
When has an occupying power ever won out over an insurgency? And it’s not that I have a short attention span, I just happen to think this war is having a disastrous effect on America’s interests around the world. I would love to hear if there was a single conservative pundit who predicted early on that the war would play out as it has. All I remember were the folks saying how easy and affordable it was going to be and how oil revenues would pay for the reconstruction.
How’s the Irish Republican Army doing these days?
How’s “Shining Path” doing these days?
How are the Colombian Marxist guerrilla groups doing these days?
“When has an occupying power ever won out over an insurgency?”
Where do you live, ronaldo?
When has an occupying power ever won out over an insurgency?
Quite often.
Since when has a group that has the support of the majority of the people been called an “occupying power”?
All of the examples you gave were false unless you actually feel that Britain “won” in Ireland. Shining Path and the Colombian guerrilla groups are not examples of an occupying power winning out over an insurgency. Try again. A more analogous historical situation would the French in Algeria, or (whispering)Viet Nam.
An occupying power is an occupying power. It’s not up to opinion polls.
MSNBC and Larry Johnson (and the VIPS clan) are thick as thieves. Matthews, Olbermann, and Shuster have a gang bang with the VIPS posse on a consistent basis. Oh, Tim Russert works with these gentleman? The guy who lied to the jury and changed his story about his conversation with Libby in order to prop up Fitzgerald’s case? Well isn’t that nice.
Those groups and their supporters would certainly argue that the governments ruling their respective countries were occupiers, or at the very least illegitimate.
As for Ireland, you didn’t answer the question: how is the IRA doing these days?
“When has an occupying power ever won out over an insurgency?”
Do you live in the United States, ronaldo? Ever read about the Reconstruction after the War Between the States?