Americans bored with terrorism?
In the Washington Post’s Planet War discussion forum, Peter Feaver asks readers if we’re bored with terrorism;
…the failure to find the large stockpiles of WMD in Iraq, and the discovery that Saddam Hussein was pursuing a complex bluffing game, and the various revisions in intelligence estimates about Iranian nuclear programs — all of these things have led some to argue that the United States, or more particularly the Bush Administration, has exaggerated the threat of WMD terrorism. Do you agree? I am not asking whether you agree with the policy responses of the Administration. Rather, I am asking whether you think the threat is more grave than, less grave than, or roughly as grave as the Administration has claimed?
He gets the usual responses from the signature readers of the Washington Post; Bush lied, the planet died, etc…. More steeped in their own politics, the commenters would prefer to take cheap shots at the administration rather than take into account the countless terrorist attacks that were halted before they came to fruition. If you’d asked Americans about terrorism on September 10th, 2001, they’d have placed their worries somewhere behind the economy and tax cuts.
So here we are closing in on seven years since the attack and there have been none on American soil, because the Bush Administration has made it too costly for terrorists to successfully prosecute their nefarious plans here or overseas. Instead they’ve targeted our allies, hoping to split us. Does that mean we won’t be attacked – no, certainly not. When you plug a hole in a dike, another leak springs, but the Bush Administration has done a yeoman’s job staying ahead of the leaks.
And that’s their downfall – Americans have become complacent about the terrorist threat because there have been no attacks. Of course when it does happen again, it’ll be instantly blamed on the Bush Administration. But, did anyone truly believe we’d have gone seven years with no successful attacks on September 12th, 2001?
I think it’s less boredom and more complacency, unfortunately, the only cure for that is another attack.
Category: Politics, Terror War
I think it’s less boredom and more complacency, unfortunately, the only cure for that is another attack.
Wonder if that’s a bit harsh? Doesn’t mean it isn’t true, but I’d argue that ignorance is as large a factor. There’s a substantial chunk of the population that have been led to believe that 9/11 was a fluke, and that fear mongers created an unnecessary bugaboo out of the perpetrators and their ilk.
Perhaps that amounts to complacency, but I’d rather hope not. There’s something inherently salvageable with the ignorant, the complacent – not so much.
“When you plug a hole in a dike, another leak springs, but the Bush Administration has done a yeoman’s job staying ahead of the leaks.”
FIRE THE CIA
HIRE THE FREE CLINIC
At least they know how to stop a leak
The best tactic in fighting terrorists (excluding the all-out and necessary war in Afghanistan, where the terrorist group was itself a state actor) is using the inverse of their own publicity-seeking methods, one used with considerable success by the Israelis: in the shadows, outside of public scrutiny, making use of bombings, assassinations, proxies, kidnapping and all other manner of discretionary warfare. Those techniques aren’t subject to the tastes of a capricious and easily bored and fatigued public. In fact, something often overlooked by my colleagues in the anti-Iraq war movement, extraordinary rendition was conceived and implemented during, and with the full support of, the Clinton Administration.
I don’t, however, think we have to resort to torture to extract information from suspected terrorists. Everyone has a price. And the other methods I mentioned above, provided the targets are not the elected officials prohibited from attack by that old Executive Order issued by President Carter, are entirely legal, as long as they occur outside our borders.
Degrees of grave??
Peter Feaver deserves an honorable mention at this year’s Darwin Awards.
Ponsdorf- these same complacent people are the first to bitch about not being asked to sacrifice if there is indeed a war going on. Give them names and numbers or organizations to “support” the troops and they run as fast as they can to the nearest Starbucks, a traitor to the troops. F*** em and the boats they’ll be riding out on for their complacency.
No, I’m still fighting.
d_USA:
The reason I’m still fighting is that the alternative is ugly. To believe that most will opt for the ‘do nothing’ stance after clearly being presented with the facts means the battle is lost. Jonn suggested that it’ll take another attack to break through to the sheep. I’m gonna keep on thinking that there’s a magic turn of phrase (or something) that will open enough eyes to salvage what’s left of this country before that happens.