The Terrorists Have Already Won

When Mooninites from a stupid cartoon can turn the entire city of Boston into one gigantic gridlock, you know the terrorists already won. That the ghosts from five and a half years ago can come alive in the form of florescent lights and a small marketing campaign is... to put it mildly... despicable. Some people would say, "it's better to be safe than sorry." Normally, I'd agree with you. However, today's example took it to the extremes. What's next? Should we close down the entire subway system because someone forgot to throw out their box of munchkins?

A lot of people are pissed - they had to wait in hours of traffic, so who could blame them? However, the profanity, cusses and attacks directed at Ted Turner and his company over at Blue Mass Group remind me of the song Flagpole Sitta: Paranoia, paranoia - everybody's comin' to get you.

So traffic was at a standstill in Boston for hours - annoying, sure, and someone should have to pay for that annoyance. However, target the people at fault: the people who are supposedly keeping us safe. Clearly, they probably couldn't tell a bomb from a popsickle. Does anyone have a shred of confidence in Boston's anti-terror capabilities if it takes them three weeks to find a florescent light bulb?

Without having any expertise in explosives, anti-terrorism or anything of the like, I can come up with some easy, useful guidelines for cops to use in the future. It's only sad that our bomb squad doesn't have such an ability to employ logic.

1. Terrorist attacks aren't generally something terrorists want to market, like Adult Swim, so they're probably not going to leave a bomb at one location for three weeks in plain site - with their middle finger sticking up at passersby.

2. They're going to hide the bomb as best as possible - and set it off as soon as possible - just like on 9/11. There was no billboard saying that was coming, just an equally flawed CIA/NSA that couldn't sniff it out beforehand.

3. You don't need to shut down the entire infrastructure of this state every time
something weird happens. Send someone out to initially investigate the situation next time, please.

4. Back off. 'Live free or die,' isn't exactly easy. If something as small as a few florescent bulbs can destroy anyone's freedom, even for the duration of a long afternoon commute, then we have some real problems - and it's not the terrorists.

Clearly, the terrorists have already won this war. We need to regroup, regain our composure and lose this irrational fear that's eating this country from the inside. It's not too late to fix things, but a whole new strategy must be developed if America is going to remain a free state.