The horrifying news is that three suspected terrorists in Germany were apparently poised to conduct some very deadly acts. The encouraging news is that German officials apprehended the would-be killers and disrupted their plot.
The police in Germany have arrested three Islamic militants suspected of planning large-scale terrorist attacks against several sites frequented by Americans, including discos, bars, airports and military installations.
The suspects — two German citizens and a Turkish resident of Germany — were in advanced stages of plotting bombing attacks that could have been deadlier than the terrorist strikes that killed dozens in London and Madrid, police and security officials said Wednesday. They said the possible targets included the busy Ramstein air base and the Frankfurt international airport.
“They were planning massive attacks,” the German federal prosecutor, Monika Harms, said at a news conference, outlining a vast six-month investigation. She said that the suspects had amassed huge amounts of hydrogen peroxide, the main chemical used to manufacture the explosives used in the suicide bombings in London in July 2005.
Now, after having been misled on a variety of instances, it’s only natural to be at least a little skeptical about some of the details, such as whether the planned attacks were really in “advanced stages.” We’ve heard that before about various disrupted plots, only to learn later that the terrorist plans were not as far along as we’d been led to believe.
But given what we’ve learned this morning, this plot was far more serious than those other ones. The suspects were trained at terrorist camps in Pakistan and, according to reports, they’d already acquired 1,500 pounds of hydrogen peroxide to make explosives, which they had hidden. In fact, they were taken into custody after trying to move the materials yesterday.
By all appearances, this was a major success story. It’s the culmination of a six-month investigation by German officials, involving 300 people from the police and prosecutor’s office. U.S. officials have, naturally, thanked Germany for their terrific and successful efforts.
It does raise a politically-salient point, however.
After another such thwarted terrorist plot a year ago, Will Bunch raised an argument that I’ve emphasized a few times myself.
Makes you wonder, doesn’t it? Most of the big victories in “the war on terror” have been racked up by cops, not by soldiers. Why, it’s almost as if terrorism is a law-enforcement problem — and less of a threat when it’s handled well in that fashion.
Bingo. The same thing with Germany this morning — the good guys won after months of meticulous intelligence-gathering and an efficient law enforcement operation. With this in mind, it’s worth thinking back to the 2004 presidential campaign and one of the president’s favorite stump-speech moments — in which Bush expressed an inordinate fondness for the derisive use of the phrase “law enforcement operation.” Bush, for example, told a Florida audience on March 20:
“Kerry said, and I quote, ‘The war on terror is far less of a military operation and far more of an intelligence-gathering law enforcement operation.’ (Audience boos.) I disagree. I disagree…. After the chaos and carnage of September the 11th, it is not enough to serve our enemies with legal papers. With those attacks, the terrorists and supporters declared war on the United States of America — and war is what they got. (Audience applauds.)
Bush, pleased with himself and the reaction, used almost the identical words again and again and again. Cheney used it a few times himself.
It was pretty easy to see the image Bush wanted the public to imagine. Bush believes in sending the most powerful military in the world to battle terrorists, Kerry was satisfied fighting al Queda with cops and lawyers.
Today, however, helps highlight exactly what Kerry was talking about, and what Bush derided as nonsense to considerable Republican applause.
As for other political reactions, John Cole noted, “[T]here is a link-fest at memeorandum. The usual ‘ZOMG TERRORISTS ARE GOING TO KILL US ALL TIME TO GIVE BUSH MORE POWER’ suspects are all in full-scale investigative mode.”
And Andrew Sullivan’s thoughts are also worth reading: “Congrats to the Germans. Some obvious points: these men are educated, two of three are German nationals, all seem to have been trained not in Iraq, Iran or Afghanistan, but in Pakistan, a putative ally. It is hard to see how the Iraq war – whether a failure or a success – would have any impact on this tiny cell’s attempt at mass murder in the name of God. This is simply the religious violence we have to contend with for the indefinite future. All we can do is what the Germans did: keep up surveillance (with protections against abuse), and run as many to ground as we can.”