I was just reading this article from the Associated Press about the new steps the NYPD is taking to screen for commercial trucks that might be used in terror attacks — with conventional explosives, radioactive material for dirty bombs, even chlorine which has become a weapon of choice of late in Iraq. Since I and my family live in Manhattan, this is a subject of real interest to me. And it’s reassuring to the extent it sounds like the NYPD is on top of scanning for radioactive materials being brought into the city.
But the experience of reading that article put me in the mind of an email I received late last week from an acquaintance who’s involved in counter-terrorism policy. This person wrote to take me task, gently, but take me to task nonetheless for what he felt was the ‘dismissive’ approach I have taken on the site to the threat of homegrown domestic terror. And as evidene he pointed to the posts I did about the JFK bomb plot over the last couple weeks.
Now, just to give a little more information. This isn’t some Fox News whack job ‘terrorism expert’ ranting at me. This is someone who comes out of the Democratic policy world and would probably call himself a fan or at least a regular reader of the site.
And I confess that every time at the beginning of one of these new plots is discovered I feel a certain unease. I don’t want to be seen pooh-poohing a real threat and a very serious issue, which of course it is. And it’s certainly not my intention to imply that the police shouldn’t be scrutinizing and rolling up plots even when the plotters seem like whackjobs who couldn’t screw in a light bulb. Intentions to kill hundreds of people are plenty for me.
In the final analysis though the criticism doesn’t add up for me. There’s no denying the fact that the administration, often the prosecutors and always the media are in a tacit conspiracy of nonsense to take virtually nonexistent or purely notional ‘plots’ and fool everyone who doesn’t read the details into thinking that a major terrorist plot has been foiled. I don’t see how we can remain sane or balanced as a society, or maintain our equilibrium in the face of the threats we do face without simply calling these things as we see them. The little lies, the avoiding saying the obvious for some larger purpose, is just too corrosive. We can lampoon the nonsense and take the threat seriously at the same time.
