Terrorists Deserve a Headache -- Not Us

There’s not a lot to do while you’re home heroically battling a big-league headache, which is how I spent most of last week. It did leave me with a fair amount of time, however, to think about the color-coded war on terrorism and John Wayne Airport.

Conclusion: The feds don’t quite have things figured out.

For a week that ended Thursday, authorities severely limited access to the airport after the federal government raised the national terror alert to orange. That meant there was a “high risk of attack.”

You’ll note that during that “orange” week, no terrorist attack occurred at John Wayne Airport or any other site in the country.

After putting much headache-riddled thought into it, I developed a theory: Maybe terrorists won’t strike during high risk periods.

Mind you, it’s just a theory at this point, but I’m starting to think that maybe terrorists read the papers and realize that during high-alert periods, everyone is paying more attention. I’m wondering if -- after reading that two of four entrances to John Wayne would be closed and that authorities were randomly checking cars -- terrorists might decide to put off any deadly plans.

Makes sense to me, and I’m not even a terrorist.

Now, the terror alert has been downgraded to “elevated.”

At the new “elevated” status, all four John Wayne entrances are open again and vehicle searches, presumably, will be scaled back. Unfortunately, this brings into play another prong of my theory: Reducing the announced terror alert will only increase the threat.

That’s the problem the government has. Raising the threat level would seem to minimize the danger; lowering the threat would seem to increase it.

Assuming that terrorists will retract into their shells during heightened alerts, the only people inconvenienced are law-abiding citizens, such as those who tried to get into John Wayne during the week on orange alert.

On my last trip to the airport during a normal alert period, a sheriff’s deputy ordered me to open my trunk to take a look inside. Seeing a golf bag but no readily identifiable weapons of mass destruction -- only weapons of misdirection -- he let me through.

I can only assume that had I entered during an orange alert period, he would have opened some of the pouches in the bag.

Applying my theory, the obvious answer might be to color every day orange. If every day were labeled high risk and searches were heightened, the terrorists would never strike. Sadly, the rest of us soon would go nuts over protracted searches. Or, the government could declare every day orange or red, thinking that would deter terrorists, but not actually step up security. Of course, the terrorists eventually would figure that out.

Thus, the quandary.

That’s why I’d scrap the color scheme and announce that security will be at levels that seem appropriate. Let the terrorists try to figure out what that means.

Why not think of ways to make them worry, instead of the rest of us?

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Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Parsons can be reached at (714) 966-7821, at dana.parsons@latimes.com or at The Times’ Orange County edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626.