{"id":77,"date":"2004-08-03T11:32:00","date_gmt":"2004-08-03T15:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scaredpoet.com\/wordpress\/?p=77"},"modified":"2004-08-06T13:41:32","modified_gmt":"2004-08-06T17:41:32","slug":"let-the-panic-begin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scaredpoet.com\/blog\/?p=77","title":{"rendered":"Let the panic begin"},"content":{"rendered":"

Once again, Bush and his administration are resorting to “Duck & Cover” tactics<\/a> to instill fear in the hearts of Americans while still imploring them to live life “normally.” And, as can be predicted, people are starting to create their own F.U.D<\/a>. to fuel the bonfire that Bush has lit as the election draws near.
\n<\/p>\n

So now, even though the press claims that life goes on despite the current Orange Alert on financial centers<\/a>, there is a subtext: people watching out, once again, for “suspicious activity.” Who needs big brother, when the neighbors will check to see if you’re acting suspiciously for<\/em> Donald Rumsfeld?<\/p>\n

Enter the mysterious case of missing fertilizer<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Nearly three tons of stolen ammonium nitrate are unaccounted for in North Carolina, even as the U.S. braces itself against a possible al Qaeda truck bomb attack.<\/p>\n

Mixed with fuel oil, ammonium nitrate is a favored ingredient used in al Qaeda truck bombs. Nearly a month after the theft was reported, 59 bags of the volatile fertilizer are still unaccounted for. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Of course, the article later discloses how much fertilizer is in each missing bag, and when you do the math, it’s not three tons. More like 1.4. Still a sizeable amount, but I guess 3 tons will incite twice as much fear in readers as one and a half, or something like that.<\/p>\n

Of course, the article virtually demands that we be fearful and vigilant. So why am I not worried? Well, for starters, while terrorists have used fertilizer for truck bombs in the past, you would think that security agents would know to look for that sort of thing by now. Do we expect that anyone would be able to nonchalantly drive a heaping truckload of wired, detonatable fertilizer near the World Bank anytime soon without someone questioning it? I certainly don’t. And I think al-Qaeda might be smart enough to know that a ton and a half of fertilizer would be too obvious a thing to bring in when bomb sniffing dogs are around. They knew this even before September 11, and they also know from their first attack on the World Trade Center<\/a>, that while truck bombs work great against the relatively low-profile buildings of the middle east, they’re a bit hit or miss against urban structures. That’s probably why al-Qaeda’s plans for that day were a bit, well… creative. If they are in fact planning something soon, I would expect their M.O. to be equally, well… creative; something we haven’t yet thought of.<\/p>\n

And besides, if we really ARE that stupid enough to miss someone hauling a truckload of stinking manure and detonation material this<\/strong> late in the game, then maybe we were asking for it.<\/p>\n

Can you tell I have my doubts? I doubt the credibility of the Bush administration at a time when it wants to scare voters into re-electing it. I’m skeptical that they waited till after<\/em><\/strong> the Democratic convetion, but before<\/strong><\/em>the Republican convention to start beating the terror drums again. Almost as if to imply that al-Qaeda fears Bush but not Kerry, and a vote for Kerry is to side with al-Qaeda.<\/p>\n

Or, maybe I’m just being paranoid. But then, isn’t paranoia (just aimed a little bit differently) the intent here?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Now that th threat level has been raised to Orange, poeple are freaking out over “possible terrorist activity.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-77","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sociopolitical-rants"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scaredpoet.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scaredpoet.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scaredpoet.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scaredpoet.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scaredpoet.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=77"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/scaredpoet.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scaredpoet.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=77"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scaredpoet.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=77"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scaredpoet.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=77"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}