Randomness

And I'm waiting
And I wait in vain
Nine while nine and I'm waiting
For the train.....
--Nine While Nine, Sisters of Mercy

Talk about a-travellin'
She's the fastest train on the line
It's that Orange Blossom Special
Rollin' down the seaboard line
--Orange Blossom Special, Johnny Cash
________

Not. From the annals of "needless efforts":

Our beloved hapless national rail system, Amtrak, which is struggling merely to exist, has just added another layer to their operating costs.

"Amtrak passengers will have to submit to random screening of carry-on bags in a major security push that will include officers with automatic weapons and bomb-sniffing dogs patrolling platforms and trains, the railroad plans to announce today ("Amtrak to Beef Up Security.")"

The last two times Ranger used Amtrak, the trains were over 7 hours late. Amtrak could not have a better protective posture than their own laggardly train schedules.

Randomness is key to preventing terrorist or other criminal attacks. Amtrak's schedule is so helter-skelter nobody would plan an operation against them.

Furthermore, a terrorist organization is unlikely to target inland areas trains service, which have limited ingress and egress. Peoria and Kansas City need not sweat a major incident. The threat remains to the central coastal hubs: Boston, New York, Miami, L.A., Seattle or San Francisco.

Terrorists will not target areas that cannot accurately be reconnoitered or prepped via intelligence gathering. Even al-Qaeda does not have the expertise or assets to carry out unrealistic attack scenarios.

An honest an unbiased assessment of 9-11 would lead to the logical conclusion that al-Qaeda expended a generation of operational assets with their balls-to-the-wall attack scenario. There have been no further 9-11-type attacks because al-Qaeda does not have the assets to carry them out, not because we have been frittering away our precious human and economic assets on two senseless wars. They may have the intent, but they do not possess the capabilities.

Once again the Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©) is perpetrated upon the American taxpayer, who pays with very un-phony tax dollars. This denial of his freedom is a far greater terror to him than that ostensible one which he is forced to protect himself against.