Off the Wall

 I knew it was going to be a pretty off-the-wall day when, first thing this morning, I found myself nodding approvingly at something John Ashcroft did, and thinking that I would have done pretty much the same thing if I were in his shoes.

 For 9/11/02, Ashcroft took his silly color-coded threat assessment and moved it up to orange, which Ashcroftese for “Ohmigawd, there’s a calico cat in the back yard!”  It means everyone should look mildly alarmed and avoid the Statue of Liberty while police are encouraged to detain anyone with a swarthy complexion for questioning for a few years.  It for use only when there is a credible threat for a terrorist attack, or when Putsch drops below a 60% approval rating.

 Well, it was 9/11, and of course Ashcroft is going to spaz out.  When it comes to abject superstition, the guy is a twitching and gibbering poster boy for why Xanax should be sold over the counter like candy.  In my professional judgement, the man ate far too much library paste as a kid.

 But then he announced today that the “Orange” rating would be maintained for at least ten days following 9/11, and to me, that makes good sense.

 You see, the psychology of terrorism isn’t to cause as much damage as possible – it’s to hurt morale as much as possible.  The terrorists would be very hard-pressed to top the shock they gave America last 9/11, so they have to come up with something comparatively modest – if that’s the word for it – that will produce as deep a blow to the public psyche.

 Now, everyone was a little twitchy on 9/11, and when midnight came and went, and no huge atrocities had occurred, the public heaved a sigh of relief.

 It’s right at that point when a terrorist should strike, this time where everyone is thinking, ok, we got past that, and they are starting to feel a little bit more secure.

 It’s human nature to expect terrorism on special dates, like 9/11, fourth of July, Christmas or whatever.  But from the viewpoint of a terrorist, it’s poor tactics.  You don’t strike when and where the enemy is fully prepared.  You “hit ‘em where they ain’t”.

 Not only does this severely disrupt the sense of security the public wants, but it makes the authorities ever more frantically reactionary, and of course, the main purpose of terror attacks against a foe that is indisputably militarily and economically superior is to provoke the government into ever more repressive measures to “control terrorism” in order to allay pubic anxiety.

 Hitting in the immediate interval following 9/11 would exacerbate this, since it would send the message that it was planned, and they can strike when and where they want.

 Someone in government thought of that, and responded sensibly.  I applaud that.

 Even without a “9/14" or some such, we managed to work up a pretty good case of anniversary jitters without any noticeable aid from Osama and his merry gang.

 In Europe, US embassies in Germany and Scandinavia received envelopes containing white powder in the mail.  At this juncture, there is no evidence that the powder was actually dangerous, but of course, nobody is taking any chances.  It’s being assumed to be anthrax or worse until proven to be nothing more than powdered sugar or whatever.  I suspect we’ll never know who was behind it. I also suspect it was more along the lines of a nasty practical joke, rather than actual terrorist intent.

 Of the coast of New Jersey – at least six miles off the coast – a Liberian-registry freighter named the Palermo Senator is being searched with a fine tooth comb after scans revealed traces of radioactivity.  It may be that the readings were false, or the ship had a valid reason for having some radioactive residue.

 Or they may determine that it had been carrying something quite radioactive that didn’t appear on any past bills of lading, and had been off-loaded some time in the past six months at one of a dozen ports around America.  At which point, everyone gets to panic, thinking a Bomb has been smuggled in, when in fact it might be nothing more than a couple of hundred pounds of depleted uranium that we scattered around Iraq and Yugoslavia during our little sorties there over the past decade.

 One of the oddest ones was the flight that got diverted because as many as five “middle-eastern looking” men had crowded into the bathroom on a commercial flight and were, according to reports, shaving off all their body hair.

 Well.

 I won’t speculate on what led the person(s) making the report to conclude that the males in the restroom were shaving off their body hair.  There are just some mysteries that are much better as mysteries.  Any answer would be more information than I need.

 Even more intriguing is the notion that five naked shaved adult males could fit into a single airplane restroom without one or more of those males becoming pregnant as a result.  For those who have never been in a plane, those bathrooms are just large enough to accommodate one dowager and her poodle, provided she removes her jewelry first.  If she cuts one, the plane crashes.

 You can get five people into an airline restroom - an area roughly the size of a phone booth – college students in the 50s proved that.  But those students were not peeling off their clothes and shaving themselves as they did the phone booth thing.  Even if it would make for an interesting entry in the Guinness book of World Records.

 Add to that the fact that such men would be religious fanatics with an exceptionally strong body taboo, and the whole scenario slips into the range of ludicrous.

 But it was enough to divert the flight.  Charitably, I can only hope that amused officials did it on the chance that they would open the restroom door to find five naked greased Moslems squirming about in there like a litter of newborn pups, and get some good pictures for the internet, and didn’t REALLY think...

 Oh, hell.  These are American right wingers with badges.  They really thought.

 In the meantime, war fever has gripped the American right, particularly the chickenhawk crowd, which consists of most of the elected officials in the GOP and all the wingnuts who write for such outfits as the Moonie Times, American Peckersniffer, and the Wall Street Urinal.

 On the web, they’ve been going out of their mind, and the Weasels as always, have been having fun potshotting them.  There’s nothing a Weasel likes more than a pen full of panicked and milling chickenhawks.

 When they start babbling about how much we need this war with Iraq, I always take a polite and diplomatic approach, and say something like, “So when are you signing up to get your ass shot off, hero?”

 After they get done huffing that we’re mocking the military and the victims of 9/11, they come up with some spectacularly stupid responses.  One actually asked me when I was planning to enlist.

 Well, you see, I’m against this war. That’s probably why I’m not planning to go and fight it.  In fact, I plan to encourage anyone I can to not go, too.

 For some reason that surpasseth understanding, the right wingers weren’t expecting that answer.  Gawd knows what they WERE expecting.

 The next one was even better.  One guy responded by saying, “Am I a coward because I'm not a secret service agent? Am I a coward because I'm not a fireman? Am I a coward because I'm not a police officer? There are a lot of dangerous jobs that a lot of people *don't* have. I'm not going to waste anymore time defending against this stupid assumption.”  Well, of course, he DID waste more time, going on to say “You a cop? Do you support the police? Thought so. I'll sign up as soon as you sign up for the Police Academy.”  Nobody called him a coward, actually.  But this guy is at least three eggs short of a birthday cake.

 OK, I had to puzzle that one through a bit.  Do I support the military?  Certainly.  Therefore, if I support the military, I should sign up, and then he would sign up.

 Ah.  I had it.  If I approved of what the firefighters and cops were doing, I should sign up, and then I could criticize this guy for not signing up.   At least, that appeared to be it.

 One problem.

 To make the analogy work, I would have to be calling for forest fires and crime waves.  Just like he was calling for war.

 I pointed this out, and haven’t heard back.

 It was a very silly exchange with a very silly person, but the war fever is growing.  And that’s a concern.  It’s amazing how many people are willing to kill just out of pep-rally patriotic fervor.  Scary, really.

 Don’t get me wrong.  I love chickenhawks.  Boiled, baked, sauteed, stewed, no matter.  They are high in calories and nutritionally worthless, which make them the ideal American diet.

 And for the health of the country, they should always be laughed at when they start popping off with their “if you aren’t with us, you’re a traitor” noise.  Keeps them in check, keeps the society rational. Chickenhawks are useless, socially destructive, and want you to pay the price  for their courage.

 Make fun of chickenhawks.