Chertoff's indigestion

Michael Chertoff, secretary of Homeland Security, tells us he has a "gut feeling" that the United States may suffer a terrorist strike this summer. He doesn't have any specific information on when, where or how, but he has a gut feeling.

His comment can be taken either from a positive perspective or a negative, and it is hard to tell which is the appropriate perspective in this instance.

On the positive side, the comment can be understood as a call for greater vigilance as we enter the summer months, when a number of attacks have occurred, and following the recent spate of attacks in London. But if this was the message that Mr. Chertoff wanted to convey, he could have said so without bringing last night's pizza into the discussion.

He could be saying, "I have specific information, but I can't reveal it because doing so would jeopardize intelligence sources and methods." But people who are seeing the same intelligence as the Secretary are denying that such specific information exists.

There are plenty of interpretations on the negative side. In particular, the statement seems to coincide conveniently with the debate in Congress over the possible withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. The statement could have been timed to influence that debate. It's possible.

Or it could be that Mr. Chertoff doesn't yet understand how he needs to speak and behave in the context of his role as Secretary of Homeland Security.

In a bygone era it was said that when America sneezed, the rest of the world came down with the flu. It was an expression of how effects of events in the United States were magnified elsewhere in the world.

Today, it seems that when the Secretary of Homeland Security has indigestion, the rest of us are expected to run and hide.

Will Bush also sort out the junk mail for me?

The Senate Intelligence Committee says it will look into a report that President Bush has signed a document giving the government the right to open the mail of U.S. citizens without a warrant during certain emergencies.

The White House, in one of those statements that are intended to assure us that nothing is amiss but actually scare us even more, has said the President was not claiming any new authority. OK, so just how long has the government had the right to open my mail?

Have we just slipped a little further down the slippery slope from democracy to despotism? Have we just handed the terrorists another victory as they try to undermine the pillars of U.S. society? Let's stay tuned to what the Senate Intelligence Committee has to say on the matter.

Let the peace talks continue

By now it's a familiar and predictable cycle, only this time it happened in Spain.

First, a government announces it will engage in peace talks with a group that believes terror and violence are acceptable means for advancing its cause.

Then, elements in the terrorist group decide they want to derail the talks, so they go blow something up and kill or injure innocents.

And, sure enough, the government involved calls off the talks, naming the terror attack as the reason.

No one blames the Spanish government for calling off the talks. Once it was reported that ETA was blamed for the attack on Madrid airport that killed two men who were sleeping in their car while waiting for relatives to arrive by plane, it was a sure bet that the government's response would be to call off the talks. That's the way these things are done. Politically, announcing the break off was a no-brainer.

But if the goal is peace, the government in this case needs to continue contact with ETA on some level, in spite of the terrorist attack. A message needs to be sent to the terrorists that they do not get to decide when peace talks occur and when they do not. They cannot just push a button on a detonator every time they decide that peace talks should be halted.

To neutralize the terrorists' power, Spain needs to continue talking peace with ETA.

This may be a politically unpopular move that will require astute leadership. But astute leadership is exactly what is expected of leaders.