Code-red alert

Yesterday, British police foiled a plot by 24 British to blow up U.S.-bound flights would been as horrific as the September 11 attacks that killed almost 3,000 people.

For the first time in the 5-year-old antiterror campaign, US declared a red alert, the highest threat level.

The suspected plotters were "a couple days from a test, and a few days from doing it," according to a U.S. intelligence official. U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said the plan would have involved coordinated multiple suicide bombings.

"If these plotters had succeeded in taking down multiple jets carrying hundreds of people, we would have seen a disaster on a scale comparable to 9/11 with hundreds and maybe thousands of people being killed," said Chertoff. [...]

The bombers planned to hide explosive gel or liquid in a sports drink and then detonate it with the flash from a disposable camera.

There’s a broader lesson here, and it speaks to the Bush administration’s present jam throughout the Middle East and in other danger zones.

If the British had adopted the same policy toward dealing with "perceived evil regimes" that Bush has adopted toward dealing with "perceived evil regimes" (your guess should be as good as mine), then a lot of passenger planes would have shattered and spilled into the ocean, hundreds or thousands of people would have died, and the world would have suddenly been plunged into very scary territory.

It’s time to ask: What’s the "moral" course to shun down terrorism?

Do bear in mind, the more of war on terrorist act in a brutal way will only help push the terrorism into a greater height, but reducing the terrorist family, not even a bit of it.