Who's taking the bet on terror? MIKE ARGENTO 02 August 2003 York Daily Record A06 OK, we have thousands of spies. We have the CIA. We have the NSA. We have the FBI. We have spy satellites that can spot moles tunneling in your yard. We have the ability to eavesdrop on cell- phone and regular phone calls. We can monitor the Internet and intercept e-mail. We can keep an eye on Muslims. We can find out who's checking out the Koran from the library. In short, we have the means to keep track of just about everything and everyone on the face of the Earth, and what do the geniuses in charge of keeping us safe come up with? Gambling. Until Tuesday, when the Defense Department crapped out on it, the government was planning to sell terrorism futures. In essence, the government was planning to set up a bookmaking operation to take bets on where and when terrorists will strike next. It was called FutureMap shorthand for Futures Market Applied to Prediction. What it would do is permit "investors" to buy terror futures. Atrocities that attract the most investment would then be deemed to be more serious than long shots. So the odds of al-Qaida bom bing a U.S. Embassy in Saudi Arabia would be much lower than the odds of an attack on, say, the Amish Market in Shrewsbury by Lutheran separatists. How it would work is you would pick an atrocity embassy bombing and a date, and if the attack didn't happen by then, you'd lose. But if it came in, whoa, baby, we're talking jackpot. Woo hoo! The idea is that such "investments," or "wagers," would assist those in charge of keeping us safe assess the threat of certain attacks. If a bombing of the American embassy in New Zealand by September 2003 was attracting a lot of "investment," or "action," as it's called, then, the government would take steps to protect the house from losing the wager. The genius behind this idea is none other than retired admiral John Poindexter, the head of the Pentagon's Total Information Awareness program who's best known for his role in that other brilliant government program called Iran-Contra. Here is clearly a government servant who has our best interests in mind. First, he works on a plan to sell arms to our avowed enemy to raise money for murderous thugs who sell cocaine to Americans. And now, he's running a bookie operation on terror. And you thought people named "Poindexter" were smart. Anyway, this should come as no surprise to anybody. Gambling is, of course, the answer to all of our problems. Why pay taxes to pay for silly things like education and prescription drugs for seniors and defense when we can prey on people who have more money than sense? State lotteries lure suckers with promises of huge payoffs at astronomical odds. Casinos take money from peop le who are impressed with bright lights and shiny objects. And now, in Pennsylvania, we're told that the answer to our inequitable tax system and inability to pay for education will come from senior citizens pumping their children's inheritance into slot machines one quarter at a time. So why not permit gambling on terror attacks? When I first heard about this death lottery on National Public Radio Tuesday morning I thought either I hadn't had enough coffee yet or that NPR had been "Bambied," falling prey to an elaborate hoax such as the one in which a guy in Las Vegas convinced the gullible that he was letting guys hunt naked women with paintball guns. They were called "Bambi Hunts" and were pure fiction, intended to fool TV stations into putting naked women on the evening news. But you can't make up stuff like this. FutureMap was outlined on the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency Web site, dressed up in fancy language that made you think that it was a legitimate investment opportunity rather than a grotesque game of chance. "Futures markets have proven themselves to be good at predicting such things as elections results; they are often expert opinions," the agency said in a statement. "Analysts often use prices from various markets as indicators of potential events. The use of petroleum futures contract prices by analysts of the Middle East is a classic example. (The program) refines this approach by trading futures contracts that deal with underlying fundamentals of relevance to the Middle East." "Underlying fundamentals of relevance to the Middle East" apparently refers to suicide bombers and assorted wingnuts. Don't start handicapping whether a missile strike in Israel is a better bet than a suicide bombing at a McDonald's in Paris just yet. The no-fun squad in Congress eighty-sixed the notion. Imagine, some senators wrote to Poindexter, saying setting odds on atrocities is "ridiculous," "grotesque" and "repugnant." Spoil sports. (Actually, I was ready to put five bucks on Yasser Arafat being assassinated. It looked like a pretty good bet. Sure, it's a long shot, and he's escaped before, but I think he's due.) Gambling, though, is only one small part of how our government is keeping us safe. Tuesday, the Department of Homeland Security issued a warning that terrorists might be planning something involving an airliner this summer. Also, on Tuesday, the Department of Homeland Security announced it was cutting back on airport security. Apparently, the Department of Homeland Security's Bureau of Irony had the day off. OK, well, at least we've found those elusive weapons of mass destruction. Tons and tons of the most deadly substances known to man, including sarin gas and other nerve agents, are stored in a secluded site. The site is believed to be very unstable, as some of the rockets containing the gas are leaking. The military, though, has come up with a program albeit untested to dispose of the deadly gas. The only problem is this huge store of potentially dangerous chemical weapons is in Anniston, Ala. So does this mean we're going to be sending troops to Alabama soon? Bet on that and you could win Powerball money. Mike Argento, whose column appears Mondays and Thursdays in the Living section and Saturdays on the editorial page, can be reached at 771-2046 or at mike@ydr.com.