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My personal musings about anything that gets on my radar screen--heavily dominated by politics.

2006-11-23

Interesting Question

Raised by, of all things, a television show.

Warning: quota of hypotheticals soon to be vastly exceeded.

One of the few shows I find worth watching on television is Criminal Minds. It strikes me as smart, with a good ensemble cast, and a little bit of a darker take on the traditional crime drama.

Tonight's show was particularly compelling. It centered around the cast trying desperately to thwart a terrorist attack by, on one side, interviewing a detainee at Gitmo, and on the other side chasing down leads and nearly getting blown up by a false lead.

It is television, so, of course, there were the obligatory mindless references to the "inhumane" conditions at Gitmo and the nobility of the FBI insisting on doing things by Marquis of Queensbury rules.

But the interesting thing for me was how, at the end of the episode when the FBI, of course, thwarted the attack, they showed a clip of a news report mis-reporting the thwarted attack as a failed robbery. And it led me to this question:

How many successful interdictions has the government covered up, and, if so, why?

It seems to me ludicrous to think that we haven't stopped any attacks, since, of course, we haven't been attacked. So why haven't we heard too much about them? Have all of the plots been stopped in the early stages, like Lackawanna?

And I was trying to imagine why the government would cover up such an attack, if they have. I suppose the obvious answer is to prevent a panic. We've seen how the economy grounds to a halt and behavior patterns change; so maybe the smart thing would be to cover up.

On the other hand, we do seem to be slipping far far back into a September 10th mentality, so maybe it would be good to now just how dangerous the world is. And I don't think its possible that the world will be getting any safer now, given how the Middle East seems to be slipping towards regional conflict.

So it brings me to the thought that maybe, just maybe, it would behoove the administration to reveal a little bit about what sort of threats it has stopped in the last five years. Complacency is an easy, happy--and dangerous--mindset, but it does seem to be the default position for the media, the Left, and much of America.
Posted by: Michael / 11/23/2006 12:54:00 AM

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