Citizen Journal

I just wonder if we will, in fact, prevail. That thought struck me when I saw a news clip of a NYPD patrol boat "escorting" a Staten Island ferry in the waters off New York City. I just wondered what purpose that patrol boat served--to pick up body parts if there were a bomb on that ferry? I had a similar thought when I heard stories of little old ladies being patted down and strip-searched at airports. What purpose does THAT serve? Likewise, when the government raises or lowers those color-coded alerts, are we really to believe them anymore? All this rhetoric and symbolism and inanity just seem a tad absurd when we have porous borders and millions of containers arriving in out ports annually-- and we inspect all of 1 % of them!

Will we prevail? Or are Tony Blair, George Bush, NYPD harbor police, airport patter-downers, and Homeland Security simply paying lip service to national and international security since they, as the Brits would say, bloody well know terrorists can hit us at will?

There are solutions to this war we're in, and I'm not referring to Iraq or Afghanistan. Those solutions are grim and ugly, but I fear we won't address them until we're hit a few more times, hit with devastation that will make 9-11 seem all but insignificant.