The Sound of Crickets and Cicadas

...as fireflies drift at the end of a Michigan summer.

Fortunately the drill didn't go live.

We'll probably never know the whole story.

I like what that Rod Serling wanna-be Jeff Wells says about this kind of thing.

..."When the other shoe drops, it probably won't be the one we're expecting. But you know what? After all our studious anticipation, we'll know enough to know it's a shoe, and who dropped it. And there's also this: there is the possibility that public expectation - raising our own terror alert over "chatter," suspicious movements and exercises - could possibly forestall synthetic terror events. Why not? It's the same logic Tom Ridge applied to measure the success of Homeland Security. It can never be verified but I have to wonder what might have not happened if, before 7/7, someone had got wind of the drills and posted "Look out, London: the morning of July 7 there's an 'anti-terror' simulation of simultaneous detonations of three bombs at the following stations." (A "fear-mongerer" might have added "OMG, Giuliani's going to be in town!") If the news of the drill had entered public conciousness beforehand to the degree that Fort Monroe's drill has in Charleston - this was a front page story - it's difficult to imagine the bombings proceeding as planned. And so, when no bombs exploded, those who had sounded the alarm would likely think they'd gotten excited over nothing, and might be reticent to do the same again. In such a scenario, this is the price of success: ignorance.

"So we shouldn't be shy on Thursday, after the world hasn't blown up more than usual on Wednesday, about sharing what we see, next time we see an ominous convergance of opportunities. It's not forecasting - we've already done that to the limits of our knowledge when we say Americans can expect 90% probability of more of the same - it's saying This is probably nothing, but - Heads up. We're not crying wolf here. After all, we know there is a wolf, and we know him well enough to know he'll strike again when he has the chance and the need. But perhaps, the closer we observe him, and the more vocal we are about it, the more we reduce his chances. His need - there's not much we can do about that..."

No, we can't do much about his need. A wolf is a wolf. We can pen up his pack where they can do us no harm. We can if we have the resolve.

And if every progressive blog has at least heard of the possibility of an opportunity for an attack, it makes it much less likely.

Why do suppose there was so much noise about Y2K terror- and none apparently appeared? Far from being foolish, there was at least one real terror plot that was discovered and aborted. I think it was the vigilance that blocked the violence.

Once Bu$hCo gained control, for whatever reason, the vigilance was lacking.

To disasterous effect.

You can believe it: if we took our eyes off of what Cheneyburton has in store for Iran, and quit our shrill incessant noise about the Iraqi war, Bu$hCo would be sending in private contractors to seize every oilfield from Syria to the Afghanistan border. They would do it under the cover and spending the lives of American soldiers.

But if the Company is watching us, we're watching them, too.