Condoleeza Rice Declares New Danger In Wartime,
As America Moves Forward Toward National Elections

By William Finucane

Around the middle of April the glowering eye of the Bush Administration’s National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice stared off newspaper pages and TV screens as she was quoted or heard in her own deadly serious tone declaring that there just might be another terrorist attack in the United States before the presidential election this fall.

Could it possibly be that Rice meant this to freeze the electorate in place, to put a scare into everyone that would work to the benefit of her boss, George W. Bush, the "wartime" president? Of course this level of commitment to the man and the cause shouldn’t be surprising. NSA Rice is the very same person that made a telling faux pas during a recent dinner party given by Philip Taubman and his wife, Felicity Barringer, respectively The New York Times D.C. bureau chief and a Times political reporter.

"As I was telling my husb…As I was telling President Bush," Ms. Rice stated. This slip of the tongue got a lot of attention, justifiably, and at the least its indicative of the depth of loyalty involved.

But Ms. Rice’s suggestion that another 9/11 should probably be expected prior to the national election in November certainly seems to beg several key questions; i.e., what is the background data to support such an assertion; what is gained by making a generalized statement regarding the possibility, and why suggest such a scenario at this point?

There is also the implication that the citizens of the United States are so naïve and blithe about world events that they do not expect another attack any time soon. That would mean that (NSA) National Security Advisor Rice, and others in the Bush Administration, don’t believe Americans are either perceiving what is happening in the world, or that Americans are viewing current events with the detachment of a TV viewer watching JAG or some similar drama.

Such cynicism, unfortunately, doesn’t seem improbable coming from the Bush Administration. But for those Americans who are in fact watching what is happening here and in the rest of the world, the facts do point directly toward the possibility of another attack. And for those who can put two and two together and come up with four, one of the most likely places for the Muslim zealots to try to strike is right in the middle of Boston, a particularly symbolic target that is all the more unique this year. Boston of course is about to host the Democratic Convention.

This awareness has led to all kinds of small and large problems being addressed and tackled in one way or another. A couple of highways in the Boston area will simply be shut down when the convention comes along in July. Massachusetts State Police and local officers are going to make sure traffic can somehow work its way into Boston despite the problem, at least so officials declare.

Some commuter rail stations will close for the duration. Hotels will be bulging. Delegates from throughout the country will all be staying in the city or neighboring suburbs. Lots of venues for feeding, transporting, entertaining and providing other bemusements all will be humming commercially along. But as is evident already, regular everyday people will be put out by the whole bustling business. Such people won’t be able to drive where they want; commuting will be disrupted, and regular day-to-day business will be off, to varying degrees, in direct relationship to the services provided.

Of course this will be a fabulous event for the Democrats and their presumptive nominee, Sen. John F. Kerry.

In the capital city of his state, Kerry will reach out and embrace all Democrats everywhere while launching the final phase of his run for the Presidency against an ever more vulnerable Republican, George W. Bush. One imagines blood rushing to the head of every Democrat at the very thought of electorally crushing the despised Mr. Bush.

Victory will seem just in reach.

As the hopeful and positive rhetoric of the Democratic Convention resonates with the public, the viciousness of the current war will start receding from the minds of Americans and perhaps even others in the world, especially in Western Europe. Peace, or at least steps toward it, will seem to be an attainable goal for all. If elected, such wisdom will declare, Kerry will bring a whole new approach to the international crisis; that of a sober, steady man, able to make wise but tough decisions. A man who, as a Naval officer in Vietnam, earned decorations and is credited with a number of enemy deaths, plus he killed at least one Viet Cong in direct combat. This is a man who is unlikely to be distracted from the principal goal of defeating terrorists.

This man is a serious challenge for Mr. Bush. This man is an equally serious challenge to Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. And that is why the Boston convention may in fact be a dangerous place. In this instance, Ms. Rice may be sounding the right bell, even if for the wrong reasons.

To a world disruptor like Osama bin Laden, dealing with a ‘bring ‘em on,’ and ‘blow ‘em all away’ cowboy with the intelligence of an oil salesman is far better than confronting the acute senses of a peace seeker with true combat experience.

It is logical to assume that somewhere a terrorist has a map of the American east coast and a blazing red target centered directly over Boston. Whether such an individual, or a group of such haters, will be able to mount an effort to disrupt the Democratic Convention by an attack meant to maim and kill is of course the central question.

The Muslim haters don’t have the options they had when they planned the attack on the World Trade Center – the United States isn’t asleep any more - and they don’t have the save level of resources since they have had to actually fight American forces, which has resulted in the loss of much of their capabilities.

And even if such a plan can be put into motion, it may well be foiled. Maybe the terrorists won’t have the ability to pull off even an attempt at disrupting the Democratic Convention, but if they try there is a good chance they will fail due to increased security measures. In all events, what is certain is that any such attempt will not fail for lack of funding, or for a lack of dedicated haters willing to die in the process of killing others. Nonetheless, a diminished capacity to inflict murderous horror on innocents and non-combatants may work to everyone’s favor, and this would a direct result of U.S. actions.

But logic plainly indicates such an attack has at the least been planned out.

Look at the possibilities. First, Boston has been a haven for terrorists for years, not because of anything inherently different about the city itself, but because of the world class universities and colleges in the city and its environs. Students from all over the globe have historically studied here, and in recent years some of those students were in fact Islamic extremists. And of course two of the jumbo passenger jets that were turned into weapons on 9/11 were hijacked after they left Logan Airport.

Since then security has been tightened, yet tests have shown that it is still possible to get knives and other items through the airport. So the airport is not quite safe. But that is just one of many spots terrorists can hit.

Remember, radical students and dedicated terrorists have headquartered themselves in Greater Boston for a long while, so it is reasonable to assume they know about the area’s dependence on the Quabbin Reservoir in the western part of the state. The pure water for many eastern Massachusetts communities emanates from one source, which obviously means that poisoning that source would be one of the easiest and most horrible terrorist attacks thinkable. It isn’t rocket science; a small plane with some chemical or biological agent would do the trick, or even more simply, a hiker with a backpack.

And what about the simple sabotage of commuter trains? Recently this was the very successful modus operandi used to sway the Spanish elections and get the few Spanish troops out of Iraq. No matter who did it or why, the resulting act of terrorism had a palpable impact on the nation’s presidential election: blow-up trains, win elections!

Terrorists everywhere must have pictures of the bombed Spanish trains lining their walls, since this was such a complete vindication of their sort of bloody politics.

Of course a terrorist attack could also involve something breathtaking, like the destruction of one of the huge gas/fuel tanker ships that regularly come into the Boston Harbor. But no, the mayor might decide to keep them out at sea. Yet still, a tanker exploding on the Atlantic horizon would be quite something for the many hundreds of suddenly very vulnerable Democrats to witness, along with the many thousands of local residents and the rest of the world through the news media.

Many other terrorist tricks could also be tried.

Legionnaire’s Disease or some other biological agent could disable or kill everyone in a building, say for example the convention building; or perhaps an explosive device could be activated to take out just a couple of highway interchanges and prevent travel into Boston. And then there is the low-tech possibility of a kidnapping, either of some ranking Democrats or some family members, and so on.

Surely there are hard working secret service and anti-terrorism experts who have thought of all these permutations and hundreds more as well. Just as surely, they have undoubtedly made preparations to prevent such scenarios from happening. And obviously the security forces stand ready to defend the Democratic conventioneers and the general public no matter what dangers are lurking. Right? Isn’t that what is expected from the anti-terrorism forces?

Of course the problem is that the normal Bostonian and Conventioneer will never know about any of these unthinkable, treacherous acts at all, or how they were attempted or thwarted, unless they should actually take place. Yet it is reasonable to assume that Ms. Rice is right about one thing; that is, one or more of such plans have probably been made by the hate-filled Muslims, and only good fortune and the sterling efforts of the secret service, the FBI, the CIA, the state and local police and other security people can stop them from being successful.

Should the Democratic Convention unfold as a mere happy celebration of John Kerry’s victory over other Democrats, some individuals whose names will never be mentioned will have earned the unfathomable thanks of all Americans because through their actions and diligence the evildoers could not initiate a disaster.

Bostonians, and others who come and go to work, shop or do business in the historic capital of Massachusetts, shouldn’t become paranoid, despite the minor inconveniences that will be presented by the Democratic Convention. And they and other Americans shouldn’t be scared by NSA Rice’s warnings, nor should they automatically assume that the incumbent president must be supported without question during wartime. This is particularly true in this instance, when unlike virtually all other conflicts the nation has engaged in, it can be asserted that a large part of the current ‘war’ was created by President Bush and his administration.

Mr. Bush and his administration took pre-emptive action in Iraq. When the United States went to war against Saddam Hussein it did not do so to retaliate as a result of an attack.

But when the U.S. went into Afghanistan, the outlaw state that was headquarters for the international terrorist organization of Osama Bin Laden’s Al Queda network, it did so as a response to an attack and the action was in perfect conformity with American history. Yet immediately following this justified military action, the Bush Administration, perhaps filled with hubris, selected a new enemy and arbitrarily decided to invade the country of Saddam Hussein, who after all was assumed to have been the architect of an assassination attempt against George H.W. Bush.

Perhaps how this is playing out should not be too surprising; that is, the U.S. under the Bush Administration walked away from American principles and history and put the United States in the posture of an aggressor nation. Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, et al, did so by proclaiming the presence of ‘Weapons of Mass Destruction,’ WMD’s, as the rationale for a preemptive invasion. But when such chemical or nuclear weapons were not discovered, Mr. Bush and his administration tried to shift the focus to the realities of Saddam Hussein’s regime; that is, the brutalities of a fascist oriented dictatorship, which are now served up as the primary reason for the invasion.

All of this is facile, and the world perceives it. Worst of all, it has played into the hands of the Muslim haters, and now America is enmeshed in an intellectual and religious quagmire that is being played out with weapons.

And in the midst of this an event of world importance will take place in Boston this summer, but while some of the possible offshoots of it may be deadly because of the plans and hopes of Muslim haters, the fact is that the processes of democracy, with a small ‘d,’ will move forward, for everyone in the world to see and appreciate. This will happen despite the comments of Ms. Rice, which seem to be patently unnecessary and therefore are fairly questionable as examples of political opportunism; an opportunism that would seem to perfectly reflect the cynicism that has so often been the hallmark of the Bush/Cheney Administration.