Mixed media: The politics of fear

The heightened warnings against terrorism attacks in America have aroused controversy over election-year point-scoring.

A KEY ISSUE

BRITISH SUSPICION: The acrimonious to-ing and fro-ing about the latest security alert, announced by Tom Ridge, the United States Homeland Security supremo, is a mere foretaste of the slanging matches to come between the Bush administration and its opponents.

And this time around, at least, the Republicans surely have a case to answer.

Maybe it was pure coincidence, but Mr Ridge's warning of new al Qaeda plans came just in time to push John Kerry's post-convention road-show out of the headlines and put George Bush back on the screen in full nation-protector mode.

It also yanked the political agenda from an incipient discussion of the economy right back to trusty old national security - the one portfolio where Mr Bush polls consistently higher than his challenger. - Editorial in The Independent, London

AMERICAN WEBSITE: I don't believe the country is going to be attacked by al Qaeda anytime soon.

I don't care how specific the so-called threat is. I don't care how many targets have been identified.

I don't care how solid this new information is. I don't buy any of it.

What I do believe is whenever Bush's approval ratings start slipping the President's administration issues a terrorist warning saying an attack is imminent. Coincidence? I don't think so. - Jason Leopold on opednews.com

VIEW FROM IRAN: US President George W. Bush and the White House neoconservatives are trying to create an atmosphere of fear to scare US citizens ...

The neoconservatives believe that inflaming the country's security atmosphere is the last card Bush has left to play in his re-election campaign.

However, under the leadership of US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, the neocon's excessive focus on military and security matters over the past few years has not guaranteed security for US citizens. - Tehran Times, Iran

SOCIALIST SLANT: The widespread talk in Washington about a possible terrorist attack and its political consequences should be taken as a serious threat to the American people. There is an obvious question raised by these discussions: Are top officials in the Bush administration planning to allow such an attack in order to reap political advantage?

Anyone who would dismiss this possibility as an outlandish conspiracy theory underestimates both the depth of the Administration's crisis and the criminality of those who set its policy. - World socialist website

WARNINGS DEFENDED

AMERICAN NEWSPAPER: Top Bush administration officials denied any allegations that the public release of the information now and the raising of the terror alert were politically motivated. "We don't do politics in the Department of Homeland Security," Tom Ridge said. "Our job is to identify the threat." - San Diego Union Tribune

SOUTH AFRICAN WEBSITE: The administration appeared to counter-attack in the media as the New York Times cited anonymous intelligence officials as saying that the alerts stemmed from new intelligence.

An official said one report pointed to a possible attack "in August or September" while another said "all the information wasn't from one source; there was new information introduced late Friday night". - News24 website, South Africa

GLOBAL TV: The Bush team certainly is well aware that people are questioning their motives and that there's a perception that perhaps there was a political motive out there. They understand it is, people think, perhaps time to change the subject on Iraq. I talked to an official about Iraq earlier and started asking questions about that. Sarcastically the official said, 'Why are you calling me about this? Don't you know that we changed the subject?"' - CNN's Dana Bash

RIGHT-WING TALKSHOW: Panic is setting in on the Democrat side, because of their lack of significant bounce coming out of their convention. So we now have serious threats that have been uncovered ... and yet the Kerry campaign has to say it's not enough, it's too late, and it's only happening because Bush has made us more at risk. - Rush Limbaugh's American radio show