Once again, the sensationalist media has struck. The latest? The recent attempted attacks on U.S. Navy ships near Jordan.

Let's clear one thing up: it was not a missile attack as initially reported. It was not a "rocket" attack either. I mean, technically it was a rocket, but it was a rocket only in the purest sense of the word. To you and me, it was a mortar. What's the difference? When Joe Average hears the words "missile" or "rocket" he thinks of a jet propelled device that flies in a straight line. An attack of this type would be referred to as direct fire, because the enemy is shooting directly at you.

Unfortunately for the ratings mongers at CNN and company, the attempted attack was carried out with a mortar. A mortar works by dropping an explosive shell into a tube, which then launches the shell into the air. The shell arcs through the air, falling back to earth and exploding (hopefully) on whatever it hits. This is called indirect fire because, while the enemy may be trying to hit you, they are not shooting directly at you.

Think of it this way. Direct fire is like playing the traditional game of darts, the kind you see played at bars and pubs. Indirect fire is like playing lawn darts, or maybe horse shoes. And we've all seen how good most people are at horse shoes (beer consumption not withstanding.)

Even the best mortar teams rarely hit their intended target on the first try. Mortar teams are trained to aim as best they can, then adjust their aim based on where the initial round lands. They use mathematical equations to calculate how far to raise or lower their mortar tube (as well as taking windage into effect) in order to fire more accurately with each successive round fired. This is called "walking rounds into the target." They fire a round, see what they hit, adjust, then fire again until they hit their intended target.

So what do we really have in this latest attempt to attack a Navy ship? We've got a couple of Arabs trying to lob an explosive of questionable quality through the air, hoping they hit their intended mark. A well trained mortar team can be quite effective, but that requires training and competence, something most terrorists do not have. There's a reason they use car bombs and suicide bombers - they don't require much precision or practice to be effective.

So let's all relax, ok? The Green Zone in Baghdad is mortared pretty much daily and no one bats an eye about it. Why? Because most mortar attacks by Arab terrorists are nothing more than some punk kid taking a pot shot with a mortar tube and a couple of old Soviet rounds that are older than he is. His skill level amounts to little more than pointing the tube in the general direction of his target and hoping he gets lucky. More often than not the mortar rounds are so old they don't even blow up on impact.

I mean, for chrissakes, they were shooting at a ship! As we saw, they managed to blow up a storage warehouse, hit a hospital, put a crater in a road, and scare the shit out of an Israeli cabbie - all while completely missing their target. A big ass stationary target, I might add.

So much for those dastardly and dangerous criminal masterminds trying to destroy the very fabric of American life (you should read that last sentence with a vaguely British accent and an extremely grave look on your face.) Sometimes I think we ought to send everyone in America over to the Middle East for a couple of months so we can get a better sense of just what kind of individuals we're up against. Everyone might sleep a little better at night.