Terrorism - Is the threat real?

[Zedmeister]

Just finished reading an interesting article in todays Times. On page 18, Simon Jenkins explains on the war in Iraq. If you haven't read it, it may be worth having a read. In it, after a brief discussion on the (so-called?) modern terrorist threat, he suggests watching a program on BBC 2 tonight at 9: The Power of Nightmares

The program appears to go on to describe the rise of the Neo-Cons and their need to create a climate of fear. First it was the communists, now the new 'enemy' are the "islamic terrorists".

Food for thought perhaps?

[ajbrun]

I will probably tell you what I think after tonight. I'm going to (try) to remember to watch that program (lets put it up in the ratings!).

[Whalefish]

The fear of some threat either real or manufactured has been used for thousands of years as a means of controlling populations.

[Stewart]

Yeah, I recon its all a con, I mean, its not as if they are going to start flying planes into sky scrapers or anything, is it?

[Zathras]

And how many people has terrorism killed over the past five years, compared with, say road accidents? We don't have similar levels of hysteria about driving do we?

[Galant]

I agree Vaul...I mean until I see them hit Europe I wont be concerned...you know...like France or maybe Spain.

It's not as though times and methods change or anything. I'm more worried about a counter crusade at some point, we're all worrying about new technologies, viruses, and small but powerful explosives, we should watch in case they just decided to up and march through Europe. Take us all by surprise.

Then again, with a bit of education, some talks and extra trade I think the extremists will all calm down. Everyone is reasonable and they just want a bit of love and respect. Until then, if they bomb a couple other places, it's not as though they're going to destroy a whole nation. A few hundred people here or there, or maybe just the odd family now and then, no big deal really.

[ajbrun]

I think that even if they hit in our country, I won't worry so much as to stop going on plane (not that I do anyway), train etc. I see it that more people die from cancer or traffic accidents etc than terrorism. If we do change our behaviour, then they have won. I think a lot of terrorism is over exaggerated purposly to create terror. Generally, terrorism doesn't hurt a great many people, it just creates fear.

[DaBeeeenster]

Really interesting program. The clip of Rumsfeld spewing rhetoric about dem pesky Ruskies in the 70's sort of, um, reminiscent...

Gutted I didn't record it on the Myth box. Should be an interesting mini series anyway.

[Zathras]

I'm also gutted you didn't record it... been at a mates all evening getting plastered and watching terrible DVDs (Pirates of the Carribean anyone?) so was relying on you to get me a burned copy. Yet again you fail me young Padawan

[Zedmeister]

The program was very informative and I look forward to the other 2. The topics it discussed made a lot of sense in describing why modern politicians (Like blair and bush) are behaving the way they are. Also interesting to note is the theory of liberalism being related to social decay and the errosion of the community.

[Byatt]

What worried me the most was the revelation that the CIA actually discovered what turned out to be a lot of correct information regarding the state of russian defence/military systems buildup, then had it's findings basically overruled by a report that was basically a complete fabrication.

I can see a possible pattern emerging here .

[spikegifted]

The Power of Nightmares made a powerful and interesting start. I knew from a while ago that the likes of Rumsfeld, Cheney, Perle, Wolfowitz, etc were all ranking officials back in the 1970s, but I didn't know that they were all connected back to a single ideology right from the beginning. Scary!


*Picture taken from NeoCon Watch

The one observation that my wife made was that all these guys are getting old - if they were in Ford's administration battling against the Soviet Union, they must be all into their 60s already... Are they fit for office?

Moreover, these guys are from a time when things were very different from now: The Soviet Union was right there, you could aim as many bombs and missles at them as you liked, they weren't going to run to a different part of the world. However, terrorists, by their very own nature, depend on their ability to hide until the very last moment, so all those all those tactics they used so 'successfully' against the good ole Soviet Union are not going to be effective against terrorists.

This led me back to something a read in Richard Clarke's book:

Later in [September 12th], Secretary Rumsfeld complained that there were no decent targets for bombing in Afghanistan and that we should consider bombing Iraq, which, he said, had better targets. At first I thought Rumsfeld was joking. But he was serious and the President did not reject out of hand the idea of attacking Iraq. Instead, he noted that what we needed to do with Iraq was to change the government, not just hit it with some cruise missiles, as Rumsfeld had implied.

Clarke, Richard A., Against All Enemies (Inside America's War on Terror), 2004

Very scary!!

[Rob]

Over the last century we have had

Facism
Communism
Terrorism

And all of these were a method of inducing a 'perceived threat', to make the general populous take it's eye off the ball. While a belligerant gov't lacking in support... Add your own conspiracy theory here...

Wars win votes... Period. A cynical leadership can always rely on some good old flag bashing to bolster the polls....

[Zedmeister]

Part 2 of the Power of Nightmares tonight at 9 BBC2.
If you missed the first, I do suggest you at least try to catch the other 2...

Also looked through that site neoconwatch. Quite a lot of the articles are extreme and knee-jerk. Though I must say, even when taken with huge pinches of salt, the articles are still quite alarming, all painting a grim picture of the world today...

[Rave]

Damn, missed the second one. Still, I kind of know the story anyway.

My best friend claims I'm an idiot because I don't think the terrorist threat is serious, and because I don't worry about it. I think he's an idiot, because in a stressful world, I don't need anything else to worry about. If I or a member of my family gets blown up by terrorists, then I'll worry about it then. As has already been stated, they're far more likely to die in a road traffic accident. When 3000 people die in one terrorist attack, it's a threat to the American way of life, and a day that must live in infamy forever. When 30,000 Americans die in one year from being shot by their fellow Americans, well, that's just the price of freedom.

Rich :¬)

[Pete]

your right rich but is that to say we shouldnt worry about global warming and debt?
just becasue something doesnt kill lotsa people doest mean it isnt dangerous? does it?
terrorism is also a threat to our way of life the etremists dont like our way of living they dont care that they dont annually kill as many people as cancer or car crashes there trying to destroy the western world not innocent westerners, remember they think their the good ones in this fight.
been good debating so far