| Laughable but Pitiful |
29 December 2003
|
America Snoozes Through Code Orange
The Yuletide Christmas colors of red and green were displayed in the US against a backdrop of orange, the second
highest threat level in the Bush administration's spectrum of terror risk. The highest, red, is reserved for instances
when an actual terror attack is underway, and so, the White House has told Americans that the current state of threat
is just this side of an ongoing strike against the country. It is a good thing that the enemy has little capacity to strike
because America is asleep at the wheel.
Any decent strategist can analyze America's current defenses and see that the aircraft-into-buildings approach won't
work a second time. Yet, more and more effort is focused on preventing another such attack. Indeed, Air France
canceled 6 flights because there was some "credible" threat related to its LA-bound flights. If the bad guys try again
in the US (a remote possibility), there are other ways that would be more effective.
Moreover, the US spending on anti-terrorist efforts appears to be in proportion to the electoral needs of legislators. A
terrorist attack in Wyoming would not do the same harm as an attack on a major city, but on a per capita basis, the feds
are spending seven times as much defending the Grand Tetons, Jackson Hole and Cheyenne as they are keeping
Manhattan safe. One wonders if Al-Qaeda could find Wyoming, much less harm it.
Beyond the Keystone Kops approach by the feds, the locals are not doing their job either. On December 28, 2003, at
3:25 Eastern Standard Time, a small black package was found on an "R" train between Roosevelt Avenue and
Woodhaven Boulevard in Queens by a group of passengers. One of them alerted the conductor who came to inspect
it, and then radioed for help. It arrived in a few seconds; a single man in an Metropolitan Transit Authority Uniform,
who picked up the heavy object and took it off the train.
The car should have been evacuated, if not the train and the station. The passengers should have been escorted away
by staff, and the bomb squad called to deal with it. Instead, the package was manhandled out of the car which held
several people including two infants in strollers.
The Russian anarchist Mikhail Bakunin said that, given 100 dedicated men, he could make any country ungovernable.
Al-Qaeda lowered that number to 19. America seems to have done little on the homefront to raise that figure. Good
thing the other side doesn't seem to have a dozen and a half in the US.
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