Barber: NYC no less a terrorist target
Members of the New York Police Department patrol Times Square on May 2, as an added security measure after the announcement of Osama Bin Laden's death. Credit: Ramin Talaie/Corbis
Alleen Barber is deputy editor of the editorial pages.
Uneasy. That's the sentiment that kept coming up in conversations I had yesterday with others who live and work in New York City.
"I feel kind of unsettled today," my kids' teacher said. Preschoolers ran around her on the playground, oblivious and happy, so she spelled: "It makes me feel less s-a-f-e."
I agreed, "I'm more worried now than I was a day ago."
The specter of unspecified threat is such a way of life in New York that usually it goes unnoticed. But then you hear about a scheme to blow up fuel tanks at JFK, a foiled plot involving the subways, a botched car bomb in Times Square. Whether ill-conceived and amateurish or a frightening near miss, the possibilities are right in front of your face once again, and your mind wanders to all the what-ifs.
The killing of Osama bin Laden -- however important for our national esteem and, one hopes, for hastening the end of the war in Afghanistan -- doesn't bring this era to a close. By many reports, bin Laden's role in al-Qaida had receded, and his inevitable martyrdom may make him more of an inspiration now than he had been in years. Even if it doesn't, why would his death leave sleeper cells and freelance disenfranchisees suddenly uninterested in killing Americans? They're probably more motivated to send their despicable message.
So it was hard to watch the jubilant crowds outside the White House, at Ground Zero and in Times Square on Sunday night without imagining the bull's-eye over New York growing even more pronounced. In my household, we talked about emergency plans. We steeled ourselves for another round of uneasiness.
And then we did what New Yorkers always do: We got up and went on with our day.
