Our columnist argues that if the
government really wanted to help prevent another attack in New York, it would
issue more funds for the state—not just terror warnings
WEB EXCLUSIVE
By Gersh Kuntzman
Newsweek
Updated: 12:40 p.m. ET Aug. 9, 2004
Aug. 9 - A little over a week ago, the Homeland Security
secretary made a very frightening-sounding announcement that five buildings in
New York, Newark and Washington, D.C. were in Al Qaeda’s sights. The rare,
highly specific warning made many of us briefly believe that an attack was
imminent.
Predictably, New York’s city fathers reacted—over-reacting,
predictably. The Holland and Brooklyn Battery tunnels, as well as the
Williamsburg Bridge, were closed to Manhattan-bound truck traffic. That may not
sound like a big deal, if you don’t live in New York. But truck traffic in
this town is like water; block it in one area and it cascades somewhere else. In
this case, every truck heading into Manhattan had to go through my usually quiet
neighborhood. Tom Ridge’s terror alert was my traffic jam.
I don’t
point this out to be petty–hate to disappoint you, but even this liberal New
Yorker is willing to put up with vast inconveniences to avoid having another
iconic building turned to rubble–but to make a larger point about the futility
of terror warnings.
Look,
nobody understands better than New Yorkers the difficulty in balancing “better
safe than sorry” with the urge to yell “wolf!” every time someone finds a
picture of a skyscraper on some arrested Pakistani’s hard drive. But being a New
Yorker makes me preternaturally incapable of taking something at face value. How
can I? The very morning that the enemy was supposed to be attacking, Laura Bush
and the twins showed up at one of the five supposed Al Qaeda targets for a photo
op with the brave workers there.
The mayor’s spokesman called her
appearance “an incredibly strong show of solidarity with New Yorkers to appear
at a place that is on the cover of every newspaper as a target.” Um, I think the
mayor’s flack got it wrong: Wasn’t the entire point of Sunday’s terror warning
to put a high profile building on the front page on Monday and then Laura Bush
(isn’t her husband running for president?) on the front page on Tuesday? And how
imminent can an attack really be if tourists are flocking to a New York building
to take pictures of the soldiers defending it? I realize that people are getting
bored with Ground Zero, but when tourists are posing with cops in riot gear in
front of supposed terror targets, haven’t we crossed into parody?
See,
the point in all this color-coded terror talk is not only to prevent the next
attack–and I’m not questioning the Bush administration’s sincere desire to do
that–but to give the appearance that something is being done. That’s why the
government hysterically releases three-year-old information and that’s why the
Citigroup building was ringed on Monday with cops toting menacing machine guns
(which is no doubt a deterrent to a truck bomber, who would only be mildly
inconvenienced by having to drive a block uptown to find another suitable
target).
In making these warnings, the government isn’t really informing
us so that we will avoid being in the wrong place at the wrong time, but merely
trying to brace us for the inevitable attack. Again, I wonder what the point is:
If you can’t prevent the attack, does it really soften the blow if the Feds can
later say, “Well, we told you we were going to get hit again”?
•
Kuntzman: Making Iraqi TV More Real The launch
of a new home-improvement TV show in Iraq inspired our columnist to
come up with some program ideas of his own
•
Kuntzman: It's Not Easy Being Green The Green
Party's presidential candidate speaks out against the war, fossil
fuel dependence, and the Patriot Act—but is anybody
listening?
It
has become an article of faith in this country–even at the supposedly liberal
New York Times–that the war on terror is President Bush’s strong suit. But this
traffic-addled New Yorker finds the president’s record on terrorism downright
Clintonian. After all, what terror network caused last week’s warnings? (Hint:
It wasn’t based in Iraq.)
My problem with President Bush is not the
ideology, it's the incompetence. The president not only distorted intelligence
to serve a political end that had nothing to do with terrorism, he not only
frittered away a world's worth of compassion and support after 9/11, he not only
sent the secretary of State to the U.N. with a vial full of white baby powder–he
failed Job #1 of the post-9/11 world: Catch Osama bin Laden.
He has
done nothing while Iran and North Korea have beefed up their nuclear ambitions.
And he did nothing to rein in the worst instincts of his Republican-controlled
Congress, which treats the homeland security budget like it’s some kind of
highway bill to be larded with local pork. Where’s the presidential veto when
Congress sends an estimated $38.31 per person in terror security funds to
Wyoming and only $5.47 to New York–which not only was hit twice by terrorists,
but was also home to a supposed terror cell in Buffalo and that Muslim cleric in
Albany who got busted last week? We all know North Dakota is a vital bulwark of
our security, but does the state really need $30.42 per person to make it safe
from terrorists when California only gets $5.21?
Is it asking so much
that the president at least encourage Americans to consume less fuel–which props
up a dictatorship in Saudi Arabia (home to 15 of the 19 September 11
hijackers)? This irony-loving New Yorker couldn’t help but smile, though,
watching the Washington, D.C. police pulling over several gas-guzzling SUVs at
their myriad checkpoints: Finally, something to discourage their
use!
Gersh Kuntzman is also a reporter for The New York Post. His
website is at http://www.gersh.tv/
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