Politics of Fear: Getting the Facts Straight
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A post by "J. Mal" To see more posts click here |
The current administration is fighting a “global war on terror”. Food for thought wants to know just how well we are doing, and if it’s as terrifying as the Bush administration would have us believe.
I’m very happy to see this article posted on Washington Post.com; the author’s background provides the credibility I look for when someone is attempting to analyze foreign policy and the potential danger our nation faces.
I believe it is important for all Americans to at least hear this perspective. If you are a rational person please give this point of view some thought as to how we should think about the “Terrorist” threat we face as a nation. It’s about time someone started to put this perspective in the mainstream. And please give me your comments below. This is a great topic to talk about even if you don’t agree with this very qualified and knowledgeable author.
Below are some points from the Article that I found informative and logical.
- “Sen. John McCain has repeatedly characterized the threat of “radical Islamic extremism” as “the absolute gravest threat . . . that we’re in against.” Before we simply accept this, we need to examine the nature of the terrorist threat facing our country. If we do so, we will see how we have allowed the specter of that threat to distort our lives and take our treasure.
- “…We have been called to arms, built fences, and compromised our laws and the practices that define us as a nation.
- The inclination to trust our leaders when they warn of danger is compelling……
- I spent 23 years in the CIA. I drafted or was involved in many of the government’s most senior assessments of the threats facing our country. I have devoted years to understanding and combating the jihadist threat…..
- We all “support the troops.” Yet the first step for any commander is to understand the enemy.
- We do not face a global jihadist “movement” but a series of disparate ethnic and religious conflicts involving Muslim populations, each of which remains fundamentally regional in nature and almost all of which long predate the existence of al-Qaeda.
- Osama bin Laden and his disciples are small men and secondary threats whose shadows are made large by our fears……… Al-Qaeda is the only global jihadist organization and is the only Islamic terrorist organization that targets the U.S. homeland.
- Al-Qaeda remains capable of striking here and is plotting from its redoubt in Waziristan, Pakistan. The organization, however, has only a handful of individuals capable of planning, organizing and leading a terrorist operation. Al-Qaeda threatens to use chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear weapons, but its capabilities are far inferior to its desires.
- No other Islamic-based terrorist organization,…..targets the U.S. homeland, is part of a “global jihadist movement” or has more than passing contact with al-Qaeda.
- There are and will continue to be small numbers of Muslims in certain Western countries — in the dozens, perhaps — who seek to commit terrorist
acts, Some may have irregular contact with al-Qaeda central in Waziristan; more will act as free agents for their imagined cause…………. But they do not represent a global movement or a global threat.
- The threat from Islamic terrorism is no larger now than it was before Sept. 11, 2001………..these efforts, however, will never succeed in neutralizing every terrorist, everywhere.
- This administration has heard what it has wished to hear……
- We must not delude ourselves about the nature of the terrorist threat to our country. We must not take fright at the specter our leaders have exaggerated. In fact, we must see jihadists for the small, lethal, disjointed and miserable opponents that they are.”
speak on it and udothedishes . . .
I find nothing small in the number of US citizens (2,974)that were murdered on September 11, 2001. Maybe if Mr. Carle and the CIA perceived them as a larger threat during his 23 years of service Al-Qaeda would not have been as successful.
This is a tough call. Overstating the threat keeps everyone on their toes and alert for the next possible threat but it also creates an inherent fear in everybody. Conversely, understating the threat lessens the inherent fear but may raise the risk of falling victim to another attack.
I don’t know rather to exhale or to think “maybe someone like Carle was in Bush’s ear telling him there was no real threat before 9/11.”
In August 2001, former CIA analyst Larry Johnson wrote an article for the New York Times saying that al Qaeda was not a threat. We all know what happened the next month.
If you champion yourself an informed and educated citizen then how can you even write that. First of all, it wasn’t simply the CIA that dropped the ball on 9/11, rather the entire intell community as a whole which starts at the top with our Chief. Second of all, I don’t think Mr. Carle downplayed or lessened the value of the 2,974 lives lost in 9/11 or any of the millions lost on either side of this war on terror in this whole article. Yes, 9/11 happened but what about the other dozens of 9/11’s that never happened b/c of the men/women in the CIA, FBI, NSA, DIA, and the like?
“Osama bin Laden and his disciples are small men and secondary threats whose shadows are made large by our fears.” Isn’t that the definition of terrorism? To put fear in the hearts of those you hate. It isn’t always the actually terrorist act which makes them scary but the assumption of an impending attack. Although, ambiguous threat levels don’t help.
I think that the main point to take from this article is that, yes, the terrorist threat is real, however it’s not the imminent daily fear that we should all constantly worry about. The people who wish to do us harm spend years and years to plan things, and even then it’s a shot in the dark that their plan will work. 9/11 was a tragedy, but in our long history we’ve had one major attack where less than 3000 people died. I’d say we’ve been doing a pretty damn good job at keeping our people safe before 9/11. Our nation should not police the world in the Name of fighting terror. That will just make even more people hate us and want to do us harm. We should aim to fight against al-Qaeda but that is not going to happen in Iraq. We should also not fear for our lives and give the government the power to slowly strip away historic freedoms that make America the great nation it is. Carle is not by any means saying there is not threat or that we shouldn’t take this seriously, he is saying that if you don’t know who you’re fighting, you’ll never win.
The war on terror is a marketing slogan. It is something that can never be won, a perpetual war. There will always be people who don’t agree with our nation’s freedoms, and people who wish to take what others have. The war on terror is a fear campaign. .
The main accomplishments of this war on terror have been
1. Yes I’m sure more terror plots have been learned about and stopped which Is a very good thing.
2. The military industrial complex is the wealthiest sector of our nation while the rest of the economy struggles to hold on
3. Gas is at an all time high price and an oil man is in the white house. ( If The owner of KFC was president and chicken went up to 15 dollars a wing, I’m sure we’d be pretty skeptical of the presidents motives.)
4. You have less civil liberty freedoms today than 8 years ago.
5. The Nation still lives in fear that we are going to be attacked.
So lets conclude. What will it take for the fear of attack to subside? Complete Police state? Constant ID checks of every person in America? Blow up the middle east?
I’m looking for an end game but I just don’t see one.
I wonder how much they “fear” us attacking them? Or do they not fear it and just expect it and learn how to work around it?
We’re like a bear trying to kill fire ants.
I also think they have an advantage by wanting to die for their cause, when we value our lives, and do everything to preserve them.
I love when US citizens side with the terrorists.
My response to each of your main accomplishments GWOT has given us.
1. You are right the US has not been attacked on US soil since the GWOT began.
2. Please provide your facts references should not include liberal conspiracy websites.
3. You obviously don’t understand economics or the basic rule of supply and demand (Supply has lowered, oil is running OUT, demand has grown from India , US and China). The second factor being the current value of the US dollar ($). You give Bush and his inner circle too much credit, his influence is minuscule when it comes to how much you pay at the pump.
4. Most people would think that the TERRORISTS have less civil liberties today than they did 8 years ago.
5. Any recent media poll will show that the economy has taken over the number one spot of concern for US citizens, perhaps the fear is not as strong. This should be looked as a success of GWOT.
So basically your end game is to take back the US Military, Intelligence Agencies, and Law Enforcement to pre-9/11 days, the time when they (The Islamic Terrorists) DIDN’T FEAR US.
Well I can start by showing you the government spending of our hard earned tax dollars Here
And you say I don’t Understand supply and demand, Which is a sarcastic jab at the very least. I know about all of those factors, but somehow Exxon is still posting 40 billion dollars in profit for the year. I know that the prices go up when supply goes down, but how is it that with dwindling supply Exxon is making record profits? I think the problem is less on the supply side and more about the speculation. The speculators control the price that crude is bought at and they are buying today what they think it will be worth in the future. Yes other countries are using more, but can you honestly say that they amount they are using is 2 times as great as it was a year and a half ago?
How about this article Influential think tank dismisses ‘peak oil’ theory, sees production rising
So before you spit some supply and demand game, maybe you should not just look on NEOCON websites.
And terrorist do not have any civil liberties, however the American people are letting some very valuable ones slip away. I’m not saying that the legislation isn’t well intended. But any time you give the government too much power they will abuse it, and I’d like to see you name one time in the history of all civilization where that hasn’t been the case.
Patriot Act, Expanding Fisa, Homegrown Terrorist Act. All of these bills have indeed worked in stopping some terror plots I’m in no way going to doubt that, but you can’t say that these bills also don’t take away some civil liberties. Maybe they will only be used for “Terrorists”, but since that word really has no definition, can’t it be used to describe anyone, depending on how whoever is in power wants to?
Also the economic issues right now are more important because people will always want to know how to feed themselves first.
And my end game isn’t to “take back the US Military, Intelligence Agencies, and Law Enforcement to
pre-9/11 days, the time when they (The Islamic Terrorists) DIDN’T FEAR
US.”
How about instead we get out of Iraq, and head over to Afghanistan and Pakistan were al-Qaeda is. Also maybe we could hold Saudi Arabia accountable for the fact that more al-Qaeda members reside inside it’s border than almost any other country?
The whole point of the article was that the Current Administration has gotten way off track.
How about we stop trying to bully the whole world and worry about our own borders? The best way to stop people from doing us harm is to make sure they can’t get in. Last time I checked when I lived in Tucson Arizona, it’s pretty damn easy to walk right into the U.S. from Mexico. I would see sometimes 30-40 people running across the border at one time. That’s where the real problem is. No one in Iraq is going to attack America. People in America however may……SEE 9/11 Terror attacks. I’m not sure but I don’t think those were international flights. But I could be wrong.
P.S. Islamic Terrorists have always feared the U.S.
War and killing never does anything but make future generations of little Islamic boys hate America even more. It’s the same way that a 13 year old American boy who’s father dies in Iraq wants to join the military to finish what his dad couldn’t. Oh, I’m sorry that was President Bush, going back to Iraq to finish what his dad couldn’t, and it’s a sad cycle that never makes anyone safer, or live in a better world.
You write: “I know that the prices go up when supply goes down, but how is it that with dwindling supply Exxon is making record profits?”
You just answered your own question. Demand high + tight supply = price increase. It doesn’t help that oil is priced in dollars, and the dollar is sinking. Since the value of the dollar is declining, it takes more dollars to buy one barrel of oil. The price increases here as well. Also, you can’t just elude to and fantasize that in some way the Bush administration is behind oil prices and he is solely driving up the price to pat his own pockets (your KFC analogy), this argument has as much substance as a Michael Moore film and you begin to sound like the directors of €œLoose Change€.
The consensus among economists, left and right, is that speculation is not what is driving the oil price spike. Check this link out. (Paul Krugman, the most widely read liberal in the world says the speculation thing is bull. He is no “NEOCON.” John do you even know what a “NEOCON” is?
You write: ” How about instead we get out of Iraq, and head over to Afghanistan and Pakistan were al-Qaeda is. Also maybe we could hold Saudi Arabia accountable for the fact that more al-Qaeda members reside inside it’s
border than almost any other country?”
One, we are leaving Iraq. The number of troops there is on the decline. That’s because we adopted a different strategy and put al Qaeda in Iraq and the Shiite militia on the run. We are winning in Iraq. To speed up the withdrawal based on domestic U.S. politics would put those gains in jeopardy. Also, we are already in Afghanistan fighting the Taliban. John are you suggesting we invade Pakistan as well? That may be necessary some day in the future, but you sound a lot like a “NEOCON” when you make these statements. I’m not sure where you get the statistic that “more al Qaeda members reside inside” Saudi Arabia’s border “than almost any other country.” That may be true, if you mean the al Qaeda members rotting inside Saudi prisons. You are absolutely right that we should be tougher on Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
You write that “terrorists” is a word that really doesn’t have a definition. Here is the definition according to the Oxford English Dictionary: “a person who uses terrorism–the unofficial or unauthorized use of violence and intimidation–in pursuit of political aims.” That’s what/who we are fighting against.
You write: “Islamic Terrorists have always feared the U.S.” Even though your previous post asks the question how much do they really fear us? Did terrorists fear America when they overran the American Embassy in Tehran in 1979 and took hostages, holding them for more than a year? Did they fear America when they blew up our Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983? When the bombed the World Trade Center for the first time in 1993? When they destroyed the American Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998? When they bombed the USS Cole in 2000? When they destroyed the World Trade Center in 2001?
It’s clear they did fear America when we invaded Afghanistan and toppled the Taliban, captured leading al Qaeda operatives and held them in secret prisons, denied them an ally by removing Saddam Hussein from power, and surged troops into Iraq and denied al Qaeda a base in the Sunni provinces. We can go forward and deal the final blows to Islamic terrorism in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran and put the whole mess more or less behind us. Or we can go backward. That’s the choice.
PS- Your chart just shows me that US portion of US tax dollars has increased in military spending. (Um, we are currently fighting TWO (2) WARS.) Maybe I’m blind but how does it support your statement “The military industrial complex is the wealthiest sector of our nation while the rest of the economy struggles to hold on.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/27/opinion/27krugman.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
I would say that China is using at least twice as much oil as a year and half ago if not more. According to the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) “World Energy Outlook: China and India Insights,” between now and 2030 China and India will account for 70 percent of the new global oil demand. Right now China is in the midst of an unprecedented construction boom. Not only for the Olympics but also the increase population and increased in industry throughout the country. Massive infrastructure and construction projects in both countries generate a large demand for oil. Many articles I have read compare this time to the United States last century and the rebuilding of Germany and Japan after World War II. China will also surpass the United States in the next five years for the amount of vehicles on the road.
You are right the speculators are betting on the price of oil to go up in the future, it’s a moneymaking bet. The government is to blame after they decided they would try to be heroes and bail out the market. After the prime lending rate was cut, the investors shifted money away from the dollar into commodity futures markets, such as oil, in order to protect against inflation. Increased demand in oil futures and pretty much every other commodity (corn, soybeans) has led to higher prices. So it’s just as much the governments fault as anyone. They should stop trying to solve everyone’s problems.
You are right the word terrorist is a vague term. But we are dealing with a different type of war today. That is why it is easier for us to fight them on their soil where they are more easily defined. Just imagine if those IEDs and car bombs exploded in America. We are losing precious military lives and spending a lot of money over there already, but there would be greater loss of life and more money spent to rebuild if one of those detonates on US soil.
I am 100% in agreement over the border fence. How can both the House and the Senate pass a bill that gives funding to the Border Fence and it is still not being built? Yet another example of why government should not be allowed to solve problems themselves. I believe it was Duncan Hunter that said if we contracted it out to private industry and had different companies build portions of it, similar to how we built the railroad system, we could have it done in 8 months to a year. It has already been two years and they have don’t ¼ of the work. The biggest obstacle I think is that there is no main stream politician that actively supports it. No liberal would dare support it for fear of losing votes, and the conservatives are too hell bent on trying to secure the Latino vote for future elections. Bush and McCain the two leading Republicans were against the border fence, (although it seems like McCain may be somewhat coming around) http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2008/07/04/20080704mccain-mexico0703.html
By nature the fact that we are spending so much money on the war is directly why the Military industrial complex is surging. Companies like Boeing, Haliburton, KBR, Lockheed, Carlisle Group, Northrup Grummond, are all getting huge contracts from the DOD to supply our military with the supplies they need. I’m not saying this is a terrible thing to provide great equipment for our troops, but it is redistributing a whole lot of wealth from the tax payers into these companies.
Your oil speculation article was very informative. Sometimes my opinions are from thoughts that need to be fact checked and I appreciate all of your input.
I do think that the terrorist fear the US. And I do think they always have. If they didn’t, then they would not hide in caves and communicate through videos.
Also, the fact that you point to all of those attacks, what can you say to the questions of :
Can you ever win a war against terrorism?
It’s My end game question. Will you ever be able to control how people think, and make people stop hating?
Even one man and a boy were able to terrorize the entire east coast when the sniper was in northern va. That went on for months. Will you ever be able to completely stop the war against terrorism or is it something that will never end?
I don’t know the answer.
That is what I am trying to figure out.
Also, my thoughts about Bush and Oil is, do you think the government is putting all of it’s efforts into making us less dependent on oil ( domestic or foreign)? or trying to figure out ways to get as much oil as possible?
“You just answered your own question. Demand high + tight supply = price increase. It doesn’t help that oil is priced in dollars, and the dollar is sinking. Since the value of the dollar is declining, it takes more dollars to buy one barrel of oil. The price increases here as well”
In response to this, I think that the companies may very well have to raise prices, but I also think they are taking advantage of the situation. I’m not for government regulation, because it’s lucky for them that they are in this business, but I still think they are being un-ethical. 40 Billion dollar profits is a shit load of money in a year. I just think they are a little greedy.
The KFC reference was from a comedian. It was purely a joke.
Here is a good link of the history of major terror attacks where US people were involved.
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0001454.html
Pretty informative.
The one thing I do see is that in the more recent years Osama has been a part of the the plotting more.
Notice as well the number of different countries where all of these attacks have taken place. That is a lot of clean up to do around the world.
I’d rather make the US borders more secure.
Also look from 2003-2004 the number of attacks with-in Saudi Arabia.
Hey ANON,
I really like hearing your point of view, even though I do not always agree.
Can you send me some links and other useful facts about your ideas and opinions?
If you want to stay anon you can just post more comments here, but If not, send me an email. You are very smart and informed. That is something I like to see.
Keep feeding me. I never get to full. And I’m always hoping to hear new points of view.