Wednesday, January 12, 2005

Is the Terrorist Threat Exaggerated?

Like all weak men he laid an exaggerated stress on not changing one's mind.
Somerset Maugham (1874 - 1965), writer

The Misanthrope urges you to read Robert Scheer’s column in Tuesday’s Los Angeles Times, “Is Al Qaeda Just a Bush Boogeyman?” Considering how the Bush administration is allowing ports and chemical plants to go under protected, maybe they know that the threat of continuing attacks is not an overwhelming threat.

Scheer writes: to even raise the question amid all the officially inspired hysteria is heretical, especially in the context of the U.S. media's supine acceptance of administration claims relating to national security. Yet a brilliant new BBC film produced by one of Britain's leading documentary filmmakers systematically challenges this and many other accepted articles of faith in the so-called war on terror.

"The Power of Nightmares: The Rise of the Politics of Fear," a three-hour historical film by Adam Curtis recently aired by the British Broadcasting Corp., argues coherently that much of what we have been told about the threat of international terrorism "is a fantasy that has been exaggerated and distorted by politicians.

3 comments:

Jack Steiner said...

I think that the threat is very real, but the question of magnitude and the ability of the terrorists to execute is something that I am not sure about.

911 was an incredible act of terror. A monstrous group murder.

The beheadings and mass executions in Iraq. The attacks in Saudi Arabia, the attack on the USS Cole, the embassies in Africa, the first attack on the WTC.

The millenium bomber who wanted to attack LAX was stopped, so was the shoe bomber.

There are an awful lot of examples of terrorist activities that were leveled towards America. There are people who want to kill us, sadly I have no doubt about it.

The Misanthrope said...

We agree with you. Even Dick Cheney during the campaign agreed with you. As we recall, he mentioned nuclear attacks if they were not re-elected. So, why would they take money away from the Homeland Security grants given to Washington, D.C. for a party?

Jack Steiner said...

I don't understand why they would do that, stupid and silly. But at the moment I am not paid to make policy, but that could change, ah yes, that could change. ;)