Is this what it has come to in Homeland Security now?

Chertoff Claims “Gut Feeling” About Summer Attacks

I normally try and stay away from public commentary on DHS goings on, but this seems so devoid of reason that I just had to talk about it. So, here we go…

First off, I would like to see the true risk assessment behind the idea that terrorists prefer summer for attacks. I simply do not believe this and in my opinion, it smacks of a lack of reason. Do we really believe that if our enemies discovered a soft target that they could exploit that they would even consider waiting for a specific season to attack us? I mean, everything we know about terrorism shows patterns of exploiting identified weaknesses with haste. Even the attacks sited as references to the summer attack pattern talked about in the articles were performed with minimal planning and tactical processes. They certainly were not part of campaigns designed to be sustained over long periods like multiple seasons. What from these events and other recent attacks around the world do we leverage to gain the insight that terrorists attacks are more likely in the warm summer sun?

Secondly, the idea that we are now making public announcements about potential threats using the DHS leader’s “gut feelings” as a barometer makes me pretty crazy. Now, I understand that he might have intelligence that is not open to the public, or he may be privy to some other form of insight that can’t yet (or ever) be shared, but the idea that we as Americans should take any action based on his own described “gut feeling” is preposterous. With all of the money we are budgeting for DHS and the war on terror, is “gut feelings” seriously the best they can offer in terms of threat prediction? I mean, honestly, wouldn’t we all feel better if they even tried to make something sound more plausible – like increased chatter, new emerging patterns in a chaotic stream or even some super computer somewhere that raised the theoretical attack threshold versus the overall security against terror inverse logarithmic curve or something. Anything. What’s next, war strategies by crystals, cards and dice? We are supposedly the most advanced culture in the history of this planet, I really really want something more reasonable from someone who is in charge of protecting our way of life…

Again, sorry for the rant, but I just couldn’t let this one pass by without raising my hand and asking “Huh?”…