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On July 30 of this year, the Homeland Security hype artist Juval Aviv made the right-wing media rounds talking about “chatter” on “terrorist networks” — really, postings on websites — that led him to predict a major terrorist attack in America against “six, seven or eight cities simultaneously” within “ninety days at the most.” Aviv’s assertions helped to create a climate of fear in Washington, DC which led to the passage of the Protect America Act with minimal review and meager constitutionality. Remember Senator Trent Lott’s chicken little call for everybody to pass the bill, grab the kids and leave Washington before They got Us all in August?

The fearmongers continue to use the cries of people like Juval Aviv to drive people into hysterics. Consider this Op-Ed piece in Investor’s Business Daily yesterday:

One in that camp is Juval Aviv, a former Israeli agent who consults on counterterrorism. He says the next attack will not involve plane hijackings, since airlines’ increased cockpit security has made that a nonstarter.

He says it will be as simple as a terrorist walking up to a busy airport check-in counter and detonating two suitcases full of explosives. Or hitting subways, malls, casinos and amusement parks in several cities simultaneously. Rural areas, with virtually no protection, would also be targets, according to Aviv.

Others think by “mass extermination,” al-Qaida means to use radiological weapons, possibly nukes….

But our enemy doesn’t want to coexist. And they don’t just want the “infidels” to leave Muslim soil, as has been claimed. They hate us and want to destroy us because of our “decadence” and “affluence” — which means our culture, which means our religion.

We value life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. They value death. They think they have the advantage in the long run. If they can just sow enough fear and keep attacking, we, too, will get used to the violence and stop fighting it, stop pre-empting it.

But we must endure not the violence, but the threat of violence, by remaining on guard, always listening, watching and disrupting, and always staying on the offensive. Even if we have to keep doing it for decades.

You know, some people like to characterize business publications as stolid and sober, but pieces like this are beyond the bend. My goodness, somebody who calls himself an “expert” comes around to your place and tells you a story, and you’re ready to endorse a pre-emptive surveillance society for decades? That’s an example of writing while intoxicated on one too many panic cocktails.

Look, Juval Aviv has done what any smart fake expert should never do. He’s staked his reputation on a prediction with a date attached for the second time in two years. Yeah, he made the same prediction in 2005 and it never came to pass then either. But he couldn’t resist the temptation, and he made his date-specific prediction again, with 38 days left for Aviv’s prediction of a major terrorist attack against “six, seven or eight cities simultaneously” to come true. If those 38 days come and go and his little heebie-jeebie routine falls flat, then every right-wing rag and gullible mainstream newspaper that printed his assertions should also publish a notice that their pet “expert” was wrong. I don’t think that’ll happen, though. Instead, they’ll just find some new “expert” to freak everybody out all over again.