Because You Never Asked

 

     (4/08. This essay is the companion to “Terrorism, I” and should be read with it.)

     The events spoken of in the previous essay quite logically upped the ante with regard to “terrorism”. It now became a hyper-conscious element in the American mind set. The paranoia level was not only naturally increased by all this, but consciously stimulated by political interests taking advantage of it. The somewhat “Hitlerian” term, the “homeland”, made its debut in American patriotic rhetoric. Protecting the “homeland” has now become fashionable terminology, much like the word “dude” has become a signature word for our younger generations. “Hey dude, have you heard about the new Department of Homeland Security?” In the same way the weatherman gives us a daily rundown of air quality (good, not so good, don’t breathe), we now awake to a daily color code for terrorist danger --- yellow  (you can go play golf); orange (you can go out, but carry a baseball bat); red (lock the door and hide under your bed). TERRORISM! They are out to get us. Watch your neighbor, report anything suspicious, do you know anyone named Abdul?

     But whatever you do, do not, I repeat, do not stop shopping. We’ll show them.

     And yet, regardless of this emotional escalation, we seem no more “terrorized” now than we did before all this happened. As the old saying goes, “shit happens”, and it could very well happen again, but the general level of such terrorist behavior --- its rhythm, its tenor, its metaphysical presence in the atmosphere --- has changed very little, not just since 9/11, but going back 15 to 20 years. This seems puzzling for a number of reasons.

     Although, as I write, this essay was born just yesterday, its conceptive womb-spark occurred 10 months before while on my beloved island in the Spanish Mediterranean. The local airport, which is the hub for a thriving tourist industry, is a fairly large one that services thousands of direct charter flights from all over northern Europe. One day, it received a bomb threat. By now we all know the ritual: thousands of people were evacuated from the premises for many hours. It was hot, there was little shade, and the merciless Hellenic-Roman sun beat down like a sledgehammer on the ghostly white northerners. The local forces of law and order, as well as the various agencies of health and sanitation, had to be mobilized. Hundreds of flights were disrupted and some facsimile of normalcy did not return for days.

     That’s right, the usual chaos such an occurrence engenders.

     One has to wonder why these bomb threats do not happen more often? With a minimal amount of risk, those interested in bringing down the Occidental world could inflict such wounds with a methodical jab-jab-jab to an eventually bloodied, worn down, swollen-faced target. The economic system, which is the center piece of the Anglo-Euro concept of happiness, would be severely stressed in dealing with such disruptions. It would seem easy pickings for the enemies of the developed world.

     Who knows, perhaps the authorities have begun to ignore the vast majority of these threats, but if we cast aside such theater and dwell upon the kind of real death and destruction a terrorist could so easily inflict --- and quite possibly with impunity --- the peculiar lack of such action becomes a head scratching riddle.

     Two months after this essay’s womb-spark, its development was accelerated further by the following circumstances: Every September, I go north to visit my family. The last weekend of such is always reserved for a stay at a sibling’s summer home on one of those duney-beachy barrier islands that are so heavenly beautiful in the summer, the kind of island where, in the movies, adolescent boys have virginal affairs with bored,  experienced women. Like all vacation spots of this kind that are worth a damn, one must get there by ferry.

     Everyday, for about 4 to 5 months, perhaps as many as 50 trips are made between the various points of connection. Each boat will carry up to 200 people, crossing and re-crossing in an endless ping pong of transportation. The terminal on the mainland is not extravagant, but it is swarming with hundreds of people at almost all times of the day. In addition, there is a vast plain of parking whose closest vehicles can be parked no more than 30 yards from the terminal.

     In all this landscape of care free summer fun and relaxation, there is not the faintest hint of a security presence anywhere --- not in or around the terminal; not while boarding the boats; not in entering the parking lot. Both on the boats and in the terminal, there is luggage strewn about carelessly, usually the kind of weekender handbag pieces that could be so convenient in carrying an explosive device. Nobody ever checks any of this. An early bird SUV with a similar cargo as that which destroyed the federal building in Oklahoma, could be anonymously parked well within super destructive range.

     Get the picture?

     In such an environment of “lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer”, where everyone’s guard seems to be completely down, there’d be no need for suicide bombers and other such fanaticisms. Get in, get out, get away, boom! Hundreds are horribly killed. Some radical group claims responsibility. America is shaken down to the pith of its marrow. Die infidels, we will do it again soon.

     How many places do you know like this? Look around. The easily attacked targets could almost be called infinite. A similar run of attacks would have as much impact as the more spectacular but singular strike on 9/11. They are amongst us. When will they do it again? I’m not going out.

     Once again, I ask the obvious question: why not? Operations of this nature not only would not need high levels of expertise nor elaborate planning, they would require very little in funding.

     There is no need to pretend I have an adequate response to this question. And that is why this all seems so peculiar. The most obvious answer would be the fear of a massive, unified, Occidental military response to a serial string of terrorist attacks. But who do you attack? It is relevant to mention here that the invasion of Iraq was not premised upon a response to terrorism. That was only a pretense, the securing of a natural resource being the true catalyst. If an attempt to quell terrorism is the sincere  goal, do you simply declare war on the whole Arab-Moslem world and try to militarily subdue it all? Is that a reasonable expectation? Can it be paid for? Might it not be the same trap the Americans have fallen into in Iraq on a grander scale? And the nuclear option? Can you start killing hundreds of thousands of people for the actions of a handful of desperados?

     None of this seems feasible. In fact, it could even play into the hands of the fundamentalist zealots --- a showdown, on their turf, on their terms.

     It makes you wonder why --- why aren’t there more terrorist attacks?