We Arm Ourselves Against Terrorism--and Fear

I went down to Joe’s Market yesterday and was stopped by an armed guard at the door. He had a pistol at his waist, an M-16 cradled in his arms and two shrapnel grenades hanging from his belt. Nearby was a shoulder-mount surface-to-air missile launcher and a modified M-18 tank killer.

“What’s your business here?” he demanded after examining two photo IDs.

I took out the list my wife had given me and read from it. “A pound of butter, a loaf of sourdough French bread and three cloves of garlic.”

“OK,” he said, waving me through the metal detector. “Garlic bread. Go on in.”

“You guys are sure careful,” I said, glancing at the concrete barriers in place around the building. I suspected that a field leading to the store was probably mined.

“Not careful enough,” he replied sternly. “Monday we start strip-searches.”

I can understand the concern. These are not usual times. The enemy we face is as furtive as field mice and a million times more dangerous. Field mice, for instance, do not mail letters laced with anthrax organisms.

When I left the store I noticed that the guard was dragging an old lady away. There were traces of a white powdery substance on one of her hands. She was sobbing and saying, “I swear, it’s baking powder. Please let me go. I have a cake in the oven.”

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Well, it’s not quite that bad. Yet. But one has to be blind not to notice the guards, barriers, metal detectors, scanners, baggage checkers, security cameras and soldiers all over town. It makes a person feel safe just to see them there--but security experts warn that’s all they’re doing, making us feel safe.

To begin with, they pretty much agree with my old friend Michael the Cat, a former burglar, who once suggested, and often proved, that there wasn’t a door or window that could keep him away from his intended goal.

We think of terrorists the same way.

“Where they can’t do one, they’ll do the other” is the way Elaine Carey puts it in reference to their efforts to do us in. She’s senior vice president of Control Risks, a Southern California-based firm that does international political risk analyses. “As long as someone is willing to kill himself to get the job done, there’s no way to stop him.”

Another security expert, Mark Llewellyn, agrees that “barricades and magnetometers are more for the peace of mind of the good person than actually stopping a bad person.” He tempers that a little by adding that a terrorist might at least be discouraged from attacking if security is tight. “Why go into a locked house,” he asks, “when the house next door is open?”

A former FBI agent and co-owner of L.A.’s Executive Shield Inc., Llewellyn suggests that we’ve got to rethink the way we perceive terrorists. They don’t need guns, knives, chemicals or explosives to cause damage, he explains. There are other ways to destroy or immobilize us.

When one realizes that a mattress in the fast lane can paralyze the world’s most sophisticated freeway system, one understands what he’s suggesting. The possibilities are endless.

Both say that public awareness is an essential element of stopping an attack before it starts. Joseph Teti, chief executive of Las Vegas-based International Security Consultants, estimates that 85% of intended attacks in Israel are prevented by the people.

“We need to increase awareness to a level where if an old lady sees a truck parked near her house that she’s never seen before, she’s going to call someone. We’ve got to teach everyone from a 7-Eleven clerk to the CEO of a billion-dollar company who the terrorists are, how they think and what they want.”

A former special operative in the Army and Marines, Teti has developed a course called Individual Terrorism Awareness Training that is being offered in Las Vegas and is expected to expand into other areas.

Carey, Llewellyn and Teti agree that in order for guards and civilian surveillance teams to do any good, they have to be trained.

“Even receptionists, parking attendants and cleaning crews should know what they’re looking for and who to tell about it,” Carey says. “It’s as much their jobs as ours.”

Despite a new effort by gun lobbies to cash in on the current crisis, none of the experts suggests that everyone go out and buy a weapon. And they also don’t ask that you build a bunker, quit work, give up attending events or cancel your daughter’s sweet 16 birthday party.

The Emmy Awards ceremony, the traditional celebration of witless sitcoms and female breasts, should also be held, even if it is at a military base circled by F-18s. America’s cultural treasures must be preserved.

I’m hoping that my apocryphal description of security at Joe’s market will never occur, but then who knows? There are guards at hardware stores, discount houses and sporting events, even at children’s soccer games. Why not at the little store on the corner?

A chill has descended over us reminiscent of the Cold War, when we found Communists hiding behind every bush and under every rock. As they scurry off into history, have their places been taken by Muslim terrorists? Are they everywhere too?

Time will swallow Osama bin Laden as it has all of the other demons that have plagued the Earth. But meanwhile, we’ve got to be careful not to allow fear, described by poet Robert Browning as “the mist in my face,” to destroy us. Liberty is fragile. It will take commitment to see that the Bill of Rights is still in place long after the mists have lifted and the likes of Bin Laden have secured their caves in hell.

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Al Martinez’s column appears Mondays and Thursdays. He can be reached online at al.martinez@latimes.com.