When the story first broke, it was the Brits and the Pakis who followed and caught these supposed baddies. (I say supposed because this could still turn out to be one of those wet firecrackers, some Muslims sitting around sucking on a hookah talking about all the shit they're gonna blow up, caught on tape by some supersleuthing anti-terror squad.)

Then the news morphed quickly into how the Americans were on top of these terriorists all along, been tracking 'em like forever.

I don't know, I suppose I've gotten cynical in the last five years, but I can just hear the secure phone calls, Bush begging Blair to let his people in on the collar.

...and just one day after Lamont's stinging victory that read as a rebuke to Bush's failed all-fear-all-the-time policies.

Am I just a teensy bit jaded?

Yes, and I can thank Bush's past behavior for feeling this way.

And, not to get too chummy with the Brits...it wasn't that long ago they followed an innocent electrician onto a train and blew his brains out in front of horrified passengers.

"Oops, my bad," was the official response.

The men had not bought plane tickets, the officials said, but they were in the process of perusing the Internet to find flights to various cities that had similar departure times.

A senior congressional source said it is believed the plotters planned to mix a British sports drink with a gel-like substance to make a potent explosive that could be ignited with an MP3 player or cell phone. "There are strong reasons to believe the materials in a beverage like that could have been part of the formula," the official said.

We have been given no details. Best I can figure is that these guys have not mixed any explosives, have no lab, and had not even bought tickets for the "dry run," that we are told was about to happen.

All we have is talk and cruising the internet for tickets - according to people who have lied to us before to scare us into politically useful places. (It's amazing that those losers in Miami, who were supposed to represent a major bust, don't even figure into the reporting.)

Shame on the news organizations, including NPR, who take this as god's truth. Bush and his sidekicks have lied so often - on such important matters like war - that without proof the story should be: "Bush claims...history of exaggeratoins...wait and see"

The first letter writer is right to bring up the coming elections. Wake up America - you have to fact-check your own world.

I wonder whether Americans as a group belive that "if ignorance is bliss, then it is folly to be wise."

Since last year, Britain has been arresting so called terrorists and

then releasing them without even an apology. People like Mark Benjamin should ask himself what he would do as a leader if he is under attack for lying to his people and allowing their chidren to be killed in a foreign country and the destruction of Lebanon by his proxy but he wants to join his family in Barbados for an annual vacation (probably a freebie like previous vacations from either an Arab government or Cliff Richards) or clear leaves in his so called ranch without worrying about whether he would have a job for one more year what else Mr. Benjamin would do but to scare the wits out of his citizens by some cock and bull story!

The same plot made it further in 1994, and the authorities foiled the plot without having to confiscate people's toothpaste at every airport. In that case it WAS real terrorists who were making real bombs. Funny how the new people, who had been watched for months and didn't have any bombs or plane tickets, suddenly became an imminent threat right after Lieberman loses a primary with anti-war sentiment being a factor in his loss.

The U.K. is certainly better at creating marginally credible terrorist storylines.

"We have nothing to fear but fear itself." - FDR

"We have nothing but fear." - GWB

seeing as the plot would not have even come to light without General Mushypeas' intelligent forces. Very intelligent men too they are the way they infiltrate themselve at times and find a flea or two here and there to throw over the fence when it suits them.

After reading the previous posts I'm beginning to think that the authorities should just allow more terrorist successes in the UK and the US. Maybe after a dozen more thousand deaths in these countries will these stupid bleeding-heart liberals and traitors in our midst shut up.

What isn't mentioned in the article is that European law-enforcement - and the public, including politicians - have decades of experience with terrorism. In the case of Britain, IRA. So it's not that far-fetched that the UK in fact would be "better at stopping terror".

I'll reserve judgement on whether this was in fact a big plot foiled in the nick of time, or cynical over-hyping of something else. But the extreme, TEMPORARY, measures taken at British airports do point to something of a credible threat-scenario. Idiotic "safety measures" seems to be much less tolerated on this side of the Atlantic (the metros in Madrid still run, the Underground in London isn't plagued by security searches... ).

I'm a UK resident and many people here, not just Moslems, are furious at US foreign policy. This policy is supported by the UK goverment so people are furious with it as well, and with Tony Blair in particular for being so uncritical of the Bush government.

The difference for many of the Moslem population is that they, through friends, relatives, religion, feel more directly connected to events in the Middle East than most of the rest of us, so it isn't surprising that the anger they feel sometimes drives a (small) number of warped individuls to terrorism.

I don't know why US Moslems (and most mainland European Moslems in a recent survey) appear to be less disaffected than UK Moslems but an article I read in The Guardian recently (www.guardian.co.uk/britain/article/0,,1840857,00.html) suggested that one factor may be that a high proportion of UK immigration has been from the Kashmir region of Pakistan which has its own "particular religiosity".