And Emerson certainly was not flawless; reporting that the Murray Bldg bombing in Oklahoma City was the work of Muslim terrorists was a major gaffe. He has his critics and they are not all Arab or Arab sell-outs.
Well, Emerson can't really be blamed for mis-reporting the initial suspicions surrounding the Oklahoma City bombing.
On that day, I was in the middle of a year long TDY assignment working at a national military operations center, and almost EVERYONE surrounding me, including the intel and operations folks, were under the impression that IT HAD TO BE a repeat of the previous attempt on the WTC, except against a federal building.
It was almost identical in concept to that previous incident, as well as many other car/truck bombings by muslim extremists. That it plainly fit their "MO" was the consensus (if you recall, a Jordanian man was detained as a suspect since he has boarded a flight to London the same day).
Nothing in recent memory ever seem to indicate that an American would be motivated to commit such an attack.
But everyone was proven wrong by Timothy McVeigh.
So I don't fault Emerson. I personally was incredulous when the first reports about McVeigh being declared the prime suspect, and I recall many of us asking whether he had converted to Islam... etc, etc..
That was a wake up call to all of us.
As a final note, I would be willing to make a prediction, without being able to provide specifics, that the US is preparing to implement some form of covert action against Iran. I give it 4-6 months, should there not be some form of major thawing in relations between the two governments.
Btw, my sources are not the result of my reporting classified info, but my analysis of some "open source" information that came my way, and can be construed as a "leading indicator" that something's "afoot".
Hawk |
