The United States issued an extraordinary global travel warning to Americans Friday about the threat of an al-Qaida attack and closed down 21 embassies and consulates across the Muslim world for the weekend.
Perhaps the sight of jihadis recently attacking well-guarded prisons in Iraq and Pakistan is a little unsettling. I guess al Qaeda isn't quite on the run, after all. Next you'll tell me General Motors isn't a thriving automobile company.
But hey, at least we are reacting to threats. Perhaps we should remind all the people in those 21 cities about that Cairo speech by President Obama reaching out to the Islamic world that he expected would set things right after the outrages of George W. Bush, who insensitively liberated 50 million Moslems from despotic thug rulers.
Clearly, we need more cow bell.
UPDATE: So after 5 years of hope and change, a Cairo outreach speech to the Islamic world, and the banishment of George W. Bush from our political world, we have to close diplomatic facilities even in Bengladesh?
If, after all this non-Bush effort we still face murderous rage, will our left finally admit that we are dealing with fanatics who need to be killed?
But seriously, we have a world-wide travel alert too? The first in two years on the 10th anniversary of the original 9/11 attacks? What has intelligence heard? What the Hell is going on?
Are the jihadis interested in seizing an embassy to announce a trade for Guantanamo prisoners? Zawahri pledged to rescue them, after all.
But as I wrote, if I was in charge, I'd attack Gitmo itself. It would be futile. But lots of attacks are futile and only intended to be TV operations. That would be a massive TV operation.
UPDATE: So Sunday we find out that the chatter about a pending operation was pretty intense:
"The part that is alarming is the confidence they showed while communicating and the air of certainty," the official said, adding that the group - Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula - appeared to have a media plan for after the attack.
Authorities do not know the exact target of the planned attack, according to the official.
We don't even know the category of target they were talking about. But I'll remind you again that Zawahri said he'd do something to free Guantanamo Bay prisoners. If embassies are the target type, that implies a hostage-taking plan.
