The latest meme to emerge is that of skepticism of the British sky terror plot on the part of some bloggers. Arguments heard when the feds busted the amateurish Miami conspiracy earlier this summer have arisen -- that the supposed conspirators had no capability to carry out such a wide-ranging plot, or more often that the plot came from Pakistani torture and the desire of George Bush and Tony Blair to change the subject. The discovery of martyrdom videos on the laptop computers of some suspects appears to throw cold water on the conspiracy theories:

Police investigating an alleged plot to bring down airliners have found several martyrdom videos in the course of their searches, the BBC has learned.

Unofficial police sources said the recordings - discovered on laptop computers - appear to have been made by some of the suspects being questioned.

Scotland Yard has refused to comment on what officers are finding.

Police are continuing to search woodland at High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire and 14 addresses.

The Metropolitan Police, which is leading the inquiry, has said it has already completed searches of 36 business and residential sites.

If this proves true, then apparently the conspirators took this plot very seriously indeed. Martyrdom videos don't usually get made far in advance of the plot, either. If the police found several on laptops, it would strongly indicate that the plot not only was deadly serious, but about to launch.

British courts have extended the interrogation times for all 23 suspects, two of them for five more days and the rest for seven. This also seems to indicate that the judges have found some reasonable grounds for invoking the anti-terrorism laws regulating detention of suspects. The videos may form part of that basis, but the police have hardly focused solely on interrogation. According to the BBC, every single police force in the UK is taking part in the investigation -- an astounding level of mobilization.

All indications, then, show this plot to be as serious as advertised, perhaps even more so. Why do people exhibit such skepticism? One fair explanation is that we have had some false alarms before, but by this time in each of those the lack of a true threat had been determined. It seems as though some people want to believe that either the governments of Britain and the US make up these stories to scare people, or they haven't the capability to acknowledge the real and existential danger that terrorism presents.

Skepticism can be healthy. Foolish denial can cost lives.

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Terror police find ‘martyr tapes’ in the UK. An unofficial police source said the recordings - discovered on laptop computers - appear to have been made by some of the suspects being questioned. The martyrdom video of the 7/7 mastermin... [Read More]

Tracked on August 19, 2006 4:50 AM