Fear Mongering from Jack Kelly's Desk

This week I posted this analysis of Trib editorial. And judging from Jack Kelly's column today, it looks like there's a better chance he read that editorial than he reads this blog.

But that's hardly a surprise.

But let's start at the source material. J-Kel first paragraph is about this front page (from June 3, 2007). Here's what he writes:

The FBI announced last weekend that three Muslim men had been arrested for plotting to blow up fuel tanks and pipelines at John F. Kennedy International Airport. The New York Times story about the plot ran on page 30 of the national edition. The front page was reserved for a sympathetic story about Omar Ahmed Khadr, a suspected al-Qaida terrorist being held at Guantanamo Bay.

As already noted, there was a one sentence teaser on the front page of the Times, but let's give J-Kel that one. The story about the bomb plot was on page 30. However, what of the "sympathetic" story about Omar Ahmed Khadr? From Kelly's description, you'd think the story was, well, sympathetic, and you'd also think it was the largest story there on the front page (he says the front page was "reserved" for it).

And you'd be wrong. The disgusting implication here is that the Times downplays a dangerous plot where thousands of Americans could have been killed, while being sympathetic to a suspected terrorist who's being charged with killing and American soldier. The traitorous fiends!

Go take another look at the front page. The article Kelly's talking about is above the fold, second from the right and it's titled:

A Legal Debate in Guantánamo on Boy Fighters

It's less about Khadr than it is about the legal arguments pro and con about charging teenagers with war crimes. It's only using Khadr as an example - he's been held at Guantanamo Bay since he was 15.

And how does this "sympathetic" story describe him? First three paragraphs:

The facts of Omar Ahmed Khadr’s case are grim. The shrapnel from the grenade he is accused of throwing ripped through the skull of Sgt. First Class Christopher J. Speer, who was 28 when he died.

To American military prosecutors, Mr. Khadr is a committed Al Qaeda operative, spy and killer who must be held accountable for killing Sergeant Speer in 2002 and for other bloody acts he committed in Afghanistan.

But there is one fact that may not fit easily into the government’s portrait of Mr. Khadr: He was 15 at the time.

That's sympathetic? Here's the thesis of the story. It's the next paragraph:

His age is at the center of a legal battle that is to begin tomorrow with an arraignment by a military judge at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, of Mr. Khadr, whom a range of legal experts describe as the first child fighter in decades to face war-crimes charges. It is a battle with implications as large as the growing ranks of child fighters around the world.

See, Jack? It's a story about the legal battle. Not a portrait (sympathetic or not) of a teenage terrorist. And about that word, "sympathetic", it actually shows up in the text:

Mr. Khadr may not be the most sympathetic figure for those pressing for the more forgiving interpretation of international law. He was born in Canada to a family with such deep Al Qaeda ties that some newspapers there have called them Canada’s first family of terrorism.

So even the writers of the article don't think he's a sympathetic figure - but Jack Kelly says they do.

But what about that page 30 article on the JFK plot? It's here.

Now you might ask yourself why the Times failed to put the article on its front page. Perhaps because in the same day's edition (June 3) there was this article. It starts with this:

Federal authorities said that four men were hoping to blow up Kennedy International Airport and a large swath of Queens by detonating a fuel pipeline and storage tanks, but oil industry executives and local officials said yesterday that such a plot was probably not feasible.

While it is true that the tanks at Kennedy Airport are connected to a network of underground pipes that run from New Jersey through Staten Island, Brooklyn and Queens, an exploding tank should not ignite the pipeline, they said. The pipes, which carry jet fuel, gasoline and heating oil, have valves that can be operated from headquarters in Pennsylvania to cut off the flow if sensors indicate that there might be a leak or rupture, said Roy Haase, an official of Buckeye Partners, the company that operates the pipeline.

So perhaps they were "downplaying" the plot, because they were also reporting on the same day that it had little or no chance of succeeding - certainly not in the way Jack Kelly was describing it:

Had the JFK plot succeeded, thousands of Americans could have been killed, and the economic damage might have made the $27.2 billion in direct costs resulting from the 9/11 attacks seem like pocket change.

I gotta wonder, though. If the Times reported last week that the plot was probably not feasable, why is Jack Kelly trying to scare us with thousands of deaths and Billions in losses and a result that could make 9/11 seem like "pocket change" this week?

The there's much more to deconstruct in Commando Kelly's column today. Take a look for yourself and google the "facts." It's astonishing (and a little scary) to see how far apart reality and Kelly-land really are.