BLOGS OF WAR has been on top of the terror-alert story — just keep scrolling. And read this, too.

I don’t know how seriously to take these warnings — the government is in a damned-if-you-do-or-don’t position, and of course the warnings may serve to discourage attacks all by themselves. But the fact that they were based in part on old documents is neither here nor there, as Al Qaeda was planning the 9/11 attacks as early as 1996, or, really, 1993 and — remember the “connect the dots” discussion? — had we put together information from old documents in 2001 we might well have figured out what was going on. Or not, but it’s hardly fair to fault them for trying to do that now.

As Jeff Jarvis observes:

Can’t have it both ways, folks: Can’t scream they they don’t tell us what they know — and then when they tell us what they know, it’s not good enough for you. It’s what they know. Can’t scream that they’re not connecting the dots and when they connect some, you scream because you don’t like the picture it draws.

Yep. I’m not overly impressed with homeland security, as regular readers will recall. But this sort of criticism merely serves to demonstrate the unseriousness of the critics.

UPDATE: Reader Richard McEnroe emails:

BTW, doesn’t the fact that these terrorist operations are planned years in advance tend to give the lie to the idea that the terrorists are merely responding to our _actions_ but instead feel an implacable and longstanding enmity for what we _are_?

Good point.