Here we go again

[redbird]

The "terror alert level" is back up to

If it ever hits Elmo, should I head for the hills? And are we still supposed to believe that the capture of Saddam Hussein somehow made anyone outside Iraq safer?

(That link fetches the current alert level, which presumably will change at some point; when this entry was posted it was at Ernie (orange))

Comments

[allyson13.livejournal.com]

Personally, I don't understand why it was raised.

[ex-erikvolso370.livejournal.com]

Poll results, I'm sure.

Just what's needed before some of the busier flying days of the year.

[whumpdotcom.livejournal.com]

Um, you have to read the rationale in that Snuggle Fabric Softener teddy bear voice (I apologize for any trauma caused by hearing the Snuggle voice.)

"Because there are bad people who don't like Baby Jesus!"

[dglenn.livejournal.com]

Officialy because of increased Al Queda chatter, some of which sounded like threats instead of propoganda.

Thing is, even with that explanation in mind, I can't help the cynicism ... Gotta make sure people stay just scared enough to remain cowed; can't let the major travel period go without a reminder of why things are the way they are; make sure people look to The Administration That's Protecting Them Really We Mean It Don't You Feel Safe so they don't think too hard about what "jobless recovery" actually means or whether we'll all be better off with one of The Candidates Without Experience Taking Care Of Us In These Dangerous Times in the White House.

So I'm having trouble feeling as scared as I'm "supposed" to feel. I probably wouldn't feel it at all except that sometime in the wee hours of tomorrow someone I love is getting on the first of a series of planes to take her from Maryland to visit her family in Turkey. The terror alert is just in time to wake up the little voices in the back of my head that say, "What if they try planes again? Please, please, not the one she'll be on..."

They're saying something is apparently in the works "bigger than 9/11".

On the one hand, they don't want to interfere with the economy and scare people away from shopping malls now, so maybe they'd only be doing this if there's really something to worry about. On the other hand, it's a perfect time psychologically, reminding people who've been thinking about Christmas instead of terror or politics, so we'll be thinking about how Our Government Is Protecting Us as we look for conversation topics at family gatherings, so it's too convenient-looking for me to trust. On the gripping hand, this would make sense for a time to attack, from a terrorist perpective...

[allyson13.livejournal.com]

On the one hand, they don't want to interfere with the economy and scare people away from shopping malls now, so maybe they'd only be doing this if there's really something to worry about.

Good point.

I don't think the Govenment wants folks not to spend money. Too many retailers are counting on a green holiday.

cynical bitch...

[elynne.livejournal.com]

"Increased chatter." "Big threat" of "indeterminate nature." "Plans in place." You know what my cynical self says? That they have an idea, anywhere from a glimmering to a pretty shrewd one, of what is being "planned"... and they deliberately aren't revealing what the actual threat is. Generously, because they don't know exactly where/when it will happen; less generously, because they do know, but don't want to spook the populace off their holiday spending any more than nessecary.

*sigh*

[allyson13.livejournal.com]

Answering myself...

OK, I checked the various news websites and so far, I've come up with "increased chatter."

Oh...Kay...

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

If it ever hits Elmo, I doubt we'll be allowed to head for the hills. I read something ages ago about red alert plans, and I believe they included what was essentially a lock-down, essential personnel out only sort of deal.

Mer

[dglenn.livejournal.com]

Yup. :-(

So far we've only seen "be nervous" and "be a little more nervous", and I suspect that unless we ever do get to "we don't want to call this martial law but it is", those two are all we'll ever see. That is, "blue" and "green" exist only to have something to compare "yellow" to, and no matter what the risk level really is, we're never supposed to feel safer than yellow ...

... so that if "red" ever does get imposed, we'll be conditioned to think it's for our own good, and so that we never relax enough to stop and think whether the guys in charge are the ones we're safest under.

Here's hoping we never see Elmo.

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

Plus there's the "cover your ass" factor. If they knock it down all the way to safe and then something happens, they look like idiots.

alert level "ernie"

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

oh, i love that sesame street alert system! i am completely cynical about those alert levels, and perceive the actual alerts merely as a tool for the administration to remind the populace that there is terror to fear, so they can be continuously conned into feeling their government is actually doing something about potential threats, and bush & co feel like their collective asses are sufficiently covered should something actually happen (since they have managed to fuck with the middle east situation, i now view that as more likely than before 9/11). considering how much money and effort has been thrown at iraq which has nothing to do with al-qaeda, i just roll my eyes and ignore the official alerts.

just more reason for me not to travel to the US to not give them a chance to fuck up my life.

[holyoutlaw.livejournal.com]

I've added the Sesame Street terror alert level indicators to my userinfo page. Hah!

[papersky.livejournal.com]

The Gazette says that the increased security is making border crossing into the US slow. Canada is not increasing security.

This all feels strange to me, it feels subtly off, it feels as if it's being taken seriously only at the wrong level.

I lived most of my life in a country where terrorism happened regularly. Nobody liked it, but people got used to it. To take one tiny symbolic thing, I'm not used to litter bins in railway stations -- they are an artifact of peace, you can only have them if hiding a bomb in them is unthinkable, if nobody would want to do that. There were a lot of bad civil rights things done in the name of Prevention of Terrorism, though on a one year renewable basis, and every year it was a political issue when they were renewed.

But we didn't have terror alert levels, though we did have times when security was increased because someone knew something it was usually quietly. Thinking about why we didn't have IRA terror alerts it's immediately obvious -- it would have been giving them what they wanted, it would have been showing them they were in fact succeeding in terrifying us. It would have given conceded to them a major battle in the psychological war.

You haven't removed your litterbins, and equivalent, and the signals being sent are just weird. The signal you want to send to terrorists is "This isn't going to do you any good", and there are a pile of ways of sending that.

I don't know what they're thinking.

Just that. It could be cynical manipulation with their eye on elections and power at home, and in a way I almost hope it is because that's wicked folly but it's comprehensible. If I don't ascribe to malice, it's even more terrifying -- in the way that people want conspiracy theories because they want to believe that someone really knows what's going on. If this is blundering things look very bleak ahead.