After the last “big scare” that got the western world all riled up about terrorism, Ze Frank pointed out that you can’t have terrorism w/out terror. Last week, network security pro Bruce Schneier said the same thing:
Imagine for a moment what would have happened if they had blown up 10 planes. There would be canceled flights, chaos at airports, bans on carry-on luggage, world leaders talking tough new security measures, political posturing and all sorts of false alarms as jittery people panicked. To a lesser degree, that’s basically what’s happening right now.
Our politicians help the terrorists every time they use fear as a campaign tactic. The press helps every time it writes scare stories about the plot and the threat. And if we’re terrified, and we share that fear, we help. All of these actions intensify and repeat the terrorists’ actions, and increase the effects of their terror.
. . .
Another thought experiment: Imagine for a moment that the British government arrested the 23 suspects without fanfare. Imagine that the TSA and its European counterparts didn’t engage in pointless airline-security measures like banning liquids. And imagine that the press didn’t write about it endlessly, and that the politicians didn’t use the event to remind us all how scared we should be. If we’d reacted that way, then the terrorists would have truly failed.
So simple, so true.
And while we’re going thought experiments: Imagine what a different world we might be living in today if Bush had not been president on 9/11/01—if we’d taken time to think and act deliberately and w/a real plan other than, “we were attacked, a bunch of people are going to have to die.” Imagine we’d reacted with even a small fraction less hysteria and hyperbole. Imagine…
And finally, imagine what the history books are going to say about this time in 20-30 years. I really have no idea, but I suspect that the story history tells will be almost as unkind to us as it is to the terrorists.
Finally finally: Do you think that if the Democrats take a majority in Congress in November that things will change much in terms of this whole “war against terror” which just creates and perpetuates terror thing? [tags]terrorism, bush administration, fear, war[/tags]
