As one might readily expect, the media frenzy surrounding the tenth anniversary of 9/11 has been unparalleled. Countless articles and news stories have revisited the fateful hours on that fateful day. Journalists have described, often in fits of hyperbole, how the world changed in a matter of minutes and how it will never be the same, as if 9/11 were the day America lots its innocence. Indeed, journalists have exhaustively documented the stories of cancer at Ground Zero, the plight of the 9/11 widows, and other myriad human interest stories while also seeking any new angle to a sordid story—journalists jonesing for a juicy story, if you will. In their haste for a new angle to an old but ongoing story, the journalists have missed the juiciest story of all: the rise of the new breed of terrorist.
The death of Osama bin Laden was a crushing blow to Al Qaeda and its underground operatives, a loss that was felt from the caves of rural Afghanistan to the airwaves of Al Jazeera. Given the slow, plodding progress in the search for Bin Laden, it is perhaps fitting that Americans have rejoiced in the sudden dismantling of bin Laden's terror networks, taking comfort both in the belief that an attack on American soil is now less likely and the fervent hope that the day will soon come when they will be able to walk through the airport without having to expose their nutsacks to the ever-watchful eyes of TSA employees. Our country can ill afford, however, to be complacent. A new breed of terrorist is coming to replace the cave-dwelling radical killed in Abbottabad, and we must not underestimate their ability to wreak havoc on all our lives as we once knew them. Behold the new breed—the toddler terrorists are here!
The new terrorists have eschewed the Al Qaeda training camps filled with like-minded extremists for the equally dangerous pre-school playgrounds filled with like-minded toddlers. They have discontinued the use of RPGs (formerly known as rocket-propelled grenades) in favor of rocket-propelled gastrointestinal goop. They have forsaken caves for cribs, and replaced love for Allah with love of all things Nickelodeon. They have jettisoned sleeper cells for slumber parties, and their once secretive meetings have moved from the remote and rugged mountainous terrain of Pakistan to the public parks in a town near you.
As these budding terrorists well know, nearly all efforts to contain them have failed miserably. All known counter terrorism techniques have been woefully (and comically) inadequate. The toddlers have turned the tables on their parental interrogators, constantly responding to probing questions with more (and seemingly endless) questions of their own. Anecdotal stories from the front line of parenthood have revealed that these toddler terrorists are impervious to criticism, instead responding with erratic and uncontrollable outbursts that leave their interrogators in emotional shambles. (It has been rumored that some intrepid interrogators/parents have resorted to Rovian tactics of waterboarding and torture, though it is also rumored that some of those toddlers have simply responded with taunts that such torture didn't hurt and that they then refused to go to bed for the next three hours.) While politicos from the left and the right all claimed that it was their respective policies responsible for eradicating Osama, not one of those self-aggrandizing shitheads has been even remotely successful in taming the toddler terrorists. In fact, all of the political blowhards are now busy blaming others for the nascent terrorist movement, as if borrowing a page in blame-shifting from the toddler terrorist handbook.
What then to do? How does one tame this new threat to our collective safety and sanity? It has been said that the price of freedom is eternal vigilance. Fair enough, I suppose, but I'd like to impart some of my hard-earned wisdom to those charged with the duty of protecting our country from this new threat. I've learned that parental freedom can be earned with a few too many dollops of Dimetapp and/or the assistance of gullible grandparents. Parents must also plot their own counterinsurgency, never letting their guard down even if the terrorists are seemingly sound asleep in their bassinets and cribs.
I must remind you, however, to proceed at your own peril, for this new breed of terrorist is resourceful, surreptitiously plotting their next move under the watchful eyes of adults all around them. Pity the poor parent who fails to see the terrorist in his midst and instead naively believes that the toddler dragging his truck all over the new cherry wood floors just needs a timeout. Such a parent, deluded by his love for his devil spawn, is the easiest mark in the new war on terror. I have been a victim of the new terrorist, and you will be too. Guided by my love for this country, however, I will share with anyone brave enough to read this blog the secrets to negotiating with the toddler terrorist. It is both a thankless and Sisyphean task, and I will no doubt fail miserably. I nonetheless hope that my readers will learn something helpful in this common battle we will wage, or maybe—just maybe—by reading my musings from the front line of the new war against terror, they will simply learn that celibacy, vasectomies, and tubal ligations ain't all bad.
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