[T]error

This is merely a placeholder.

I'm getting tired of the government's lack of straight talk concerning the likelihood of another terrorist attack on American soil (which any rational thinker would know is 1). Most recently, the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security told the Chicago Tribune that there was an increased risk of such an attach this summer. How does Michael Chertoff know this?

His gut told him so.

The next day, the Chairman of the Homeland Security Committee sent Chertoff a letter. It asked, "what color code in the Homeland Security Advisory System is associated with a 'gut feeling'?" The letter also went on about the tens of billions of dollars that have been spent to increase capacity to secure the "homeland." Blah, blah, blah.

I work in a building where a few years ago, an Al Qaeda operative sat for several days, tallying how many children played in the atrium at certain hours. The building sits on stilts and rises more than 50 stories into the air in midtown Manhattan. It's existence was even erased from Google Maps for a while. I also take the subway to work, which according to Ron Suskind came within 45 days of a hydrogen cyanide gas attack using a mubtakkar (Arabic for "inventive"). The attack was called off, and there was no public explanation for why. Except this: the media got one thing right after the story broke: it contacted the appropriate experts and reported casualty estimates for such an attack: 3,000 people if the several "inventives" functioned according to spec. This was simply not catastrophic enough to follow September 11th. Al Qaeda, and Osama bin Laden in particular, has always underscored the importance of incrementally increasing the pain endured by the United States until it is forced to reassess certain geopolitical stances. Given this simple logic, and the network's track record for patient planning across many years, one might ask, what did the organization decide to wait patiently to execute that would prove more damaging than a subway gas attack? And what does our man in charge's "gut" have to say about this?

Of course, everything that I just wrote might be complete fantasy. After all, it comes from books and reports and hearsay. Such sources, in the right combination, fail to conjure the legitimacy they once held over the American public. But the question remains: New Yorkers were possibly days away from being gassed and my building's blueprints were found on a laptop in a cave in Afghanistan - what should we do about this elevated gut?

I intend to take a first step: since libraries are out of vogue, crumbling, abandoned, or seriously out of date, I will go to Barnes & Noble, gather a handful of the best sources I can find in plain view, and sit in a chair for 90 minutes. From there I intend to compile a more realistic assessment of my city's threat level than has been provided by the media. Of course, I won't come close to the data mining capabilities of our Department of Homeland Security. But that isn't the point. The point is to simply outperform the media. To provide you, Dear Reader, with better intel than CNN, MSNBC, and others have shared with you.

Consider the most current reporting on CNN's website, which represents some of the best coverage in that it asks a couple of tough questions. The story is called "On the Scene: The bottom line on threat reports - Is America safer?" The writer tried his best to get answers. He "pushed" a Bush aide on the most recent National Intelligence Estimate that "Al Qaeda will probably seek to leverage the contacts and capabilities" in Iraq to launch an attack within the U.S. The reporter added that a Senate Intelligence Committee report mentioned that Bush was warned before Operation Iraqi Freedom that preemptive war with Iraq could give Al Qaeda influence within Iraq, influence that the network historically did not have. The aide answered:

"every time you poke the hornets' nest they are bound to come back and push back on you"

That's right, kids. An admission from the White House Homeland Security Advisory that we're dealing with not one head, or even a hydra, but a hornets' nest. In Iraq. That didn't exist prior to the war. And that cannot be stopped by a decapitation strike (setting aside for the moment our failure to do even this much in Tora Bora).

Next up, the article recounts an exchange between one of the author's colleagues and White House spokesman Tony Snow (former guest host of the Rush Limbaugh Show and the O'Reilly Factor) about Bush's claim that Iraq is the "central front in the war on terror." Whither Northern Pakistan? Tony was asked. And why don't we pursue the terrorists where we know they will be found, along Pakistan's border with Afghanistan? Tony replied:

"When you talk about the U.S. going in there, you don't blithely go into another nation and conduct operations."

Ahem.

The former talk show host later mused for all to hear that Al Qaeda is "weaker" than it was in the past, even weaker than "a month ago." Yet the new Intelligence Estimate says that the group has for the most part reconstituted. And the National Counterterrorism Center recently reported that Al Qaeda has "regrouped to an extent not seen since 2001." And then there is this elevated gut indicator (GI). What led to Secretary Chertoff's indigestion? No specific intelligence, we are told. Only "several factors," which were reported as (a) the group's increased freedom to train; (b) an increase in public statements by their leadership; (c) their proclivity for Summertime attacks; and (d) increased activity in Europe and Africa (more attacks, more "homegrown" operatives in those regions). Factors that have lined up many a time before, with the possible exception of "increased freedom." Where is this increased freedom: in IRAQ and PAKISTAN. Why is there increased freedom for the evildoers within those two nations? Because we invaded one and chose not to invade and diverted attention and resources away from the other. This is about all we can deduce from the media for why we should be extra worried this summer.

So to recap: Al Qaeda as strong as in 2001. New leverage in Iraq. Increased freedom of movement within Pakistan and Iraq, among other places. Many of our spy satellites repositioned over the Iraqi theater to focus on the surge (which, by the way, was announced months ago but the White House argued this week is only "three weeks old"). Resources stretched thin. Elevated gut. What do municipalities do to prepare? How should they optimize resource allocation? What do we do?

Meet me at Barnes and Noble.

To be continued...

Vaya con Dios - Ordinary Skill