Tomorrow morning I'm hopping on the bike and taking off for a few days. I've been making a mental list of things I want to try to fit into the saddlebags. There's precious little room after essentials like extra clothes, rain gear and a tent. For my reading pleasure I'm bringing along a little paperback I picked up a while back called What We Believe But Cannot Prove: Today's Leading Thinkers On Science In The Age Of Uncertainty. I'm sure it's a thriller. The title alone has got me going off on my own little thought exercise.

I believe (but cannot prove) that al Qaida was really just what they looked like. A few hundred nut-job religious zealots bwahaha-ing in the desert about their grandiose plans of ruling the world. I believe 9/11 was essentially a Hail Mary pass that a complacent America wasn't bothering to defend against. I believe al Qaida as an organization was rendered all but irrelevant within months after 9/11 by our invasion of Afghanistan and the seizing and freezing of their assets world-wide. I believe that the entire War on Terra from that point on has been nothing but a sham. I believe this because it is the only explanation I've been able to come up with for some of the most glaring inconsistencies of dubya's prosecution of that war.

I believe our government figured out right away (or already knew) that there really wasn't much of an enemy to pursue in Afghanistan. They dropped some monstrous fucking bombs in the desert which I'm sure made some impressive holes in the ground and they rounded up all the remaining religious kooks they could find and shipped them to Gitmo, but then what? They basically just classified Gitmo and everybody there as double super top secret and forgot about them. Why? Why no high-publicity trials for the worst offenders? It seems odd for a preznit that likes to boast about protecting Amurka. I believe the answer is very simple. I believe that the only truly dangerous people held at Gitmo will turn out to be so very obviously insane that the idea of a public trial for them is ludicrous.

I believe this lack of a coherent and powerful enemy led our government to it's current policy of what it calls preemption. All the Axis of Evil and WMDs and "you're either with us or against us" bullshit is really just camouflage for a create-your-own-enemies program designed to project American military strength abroad.

I believe this explains why we've not seen any serious attempts at subsequent attacks in this country. It's not that our government is capturing the bad guys and not telling us. They trumpet every arrest they do make. Remember the half-dozen homeless doofuses in Miami who were led to believe they could take out the Sears Tower? Or the Fort Dix dumbasses? Or the more recent New York guys who thought bombs travel down pipes. I believe it also explains our government's distinct lack of haste in beefing up security at our nation's ports and other sites like chemical plants, nuclear plants, dams and reservoirs.

I believe, in reality, our Terrorist Threat Level forecast color is Clear ... with occasional scattered mythology-based craziness.