It's Not Paranoia: Be Very Afraid

Jewish World Review ^ | Dec. 16, 2002 | Norah Vincent

[SJackson]

The war on terror is a ploy. It's not real. It's not necessary. It's just a horror show meant to keep us all cowed and passive while the government has its way. The Bush administration keeps us quaking in our slippers, issuing periodic vague alerts as an elaborate justification for its agenda of plundering the environment, demonizing nonwhite undesirables, quashing our civil liberties and attacking foreign countries with impunity.

This is a view that many people, including certain prominent intellectuals and Hollywood yahoos, appear to share: We live in a culture of fear, for no apparent reason except that Big Brother wants it that way.

This came up recently at a dinner party I attended, where the prevailing view around the table seemed to be that this cartoon worldview as depicted in provocateur Michael Moore's film "Bowling for Columbine" was right.

"Why are we so afraid?" my companions asked. This struck me as an astounding question to pose in a post-Sept. 11 world, but one I nonetheless took seriously because these were intelligent, thoughtful people.

When I said the painfully obvious -- that we're afraid because little more than a year ago terrorists attacked us catastrophically on our own soil and that we're afraid because, duh, that's why they call it terrorism -- I was greeted by a series of incredulous "yeah buts."

Then it occurred to me that the problem wasn't that these people weren't aware of a terrorist threat, but that they didn't really believe in it anymore. Or that, like communism, it had become an amorphous chimera whose danger they doubted. They had forgotten what exactly about this new form of terrorism was so terrifying.

Maybe they need to be reminded. Maybe we all do.

Islamist terror should scare us for very good reasons, the primary one being that it is genocidal and not preventable, a lethal combination. Al Qaeda is bent on annihilating us (the Western infidels), and it is very close to having the means to do so.

Captured videos show Al Qaeda operatives testing poison gas on dogs. We know that Osama bin Laden has tried to buy nuclear material on the black market. Though our enemies have obtained such weapons in the past, none before has been in a position to use them without facing retaliation. Mutually assured destruction has always been a deterrent to rogue nations.

Not so Al Qaeda because its members are blithely homicidal (they do not spare civilians, even their own) as well as suicidal.

continued....

[randita]

We're going to continue to have warnings as long as there is a phalanx of attorneys and willing victims ready to mount lawsuits and seek compensation after tragedies.

National, state and local officials as well as businesses leave themselves open to legal action if they withhold threats from the public.

That has as much to do with greed and victimology as it does with a Big Brother government.

[SJackson]

If you'd like to be on or off this middle east/political ping list, please FR mail me.

[SJackson]

If you'd like to be on or off this middle east/political ping list, please FR mail me.

[DBtoo]

Although this may not be a popular opinion here, I am afraid of a big brother gov. All the signs are there.

[SJackson]

Although this may not be a popular opinion here, I am afraid of a big brother gov. All the signs are there.

It's popular. You're right to be afraid of that too. Wars tend to concentrate power.

[Taiwan Bocks]

Although this may not be a popular opinion here, I am afraid of a big brother gov. All the signs are there.

No kidding, big brother government is coming!
This is why I clicked on this story. I was hoping to hear more real news.
America is so censored now!
Tick tick tick tick.

[MHGinTN]

Yes, wars tend to concentrate power, but looking at what happened following the restrictive policies during WW II, you see that those concentrations don't have to continue in force absent a real threat. What is more frightening in this era is the proven tendency of the democrat party to mutate this nation into a socialist oligarchy. If they come to power again --and they just might, sooner than we would desire-- the concentrations of power now being instituted might not be set aside as before because the new democrat party is so consumed with gaining and holding power that even the health and safety of this nation, this Republic they don't like to stand, is expendable if it leads to despotic democrat rule. If you doubt this, listen to the ravings of hatellary rodham clinton. [HINT: the electoral college system couldn't be subverted to place gore in the White House, so it is time to drop that system for elections of president!]

[Billy_bob_bob]

The difference is that WWII had a definite end, that end being when the Axis powers were crushed. When does the "war on terror" end? There will always be someone or some entity somewhere sufficiently disgruntled to potentially become a terrorist. Does this mean the "war on terror" is, by definition, a war without end?

I wonder if our liberties will, from this point on, be forfeit to the potential activities of the disgruntled of the world? How do we determine when the rest of the world is sufficiently gruntled to restore our liberties? Do we take a poll?

[MHGinTN]

Until the world changes to a very different environment, the war against terrorism will continue. But the war, after the Islamofacists are annihilated, will be more sporadic and will not require sweeping central governmental powers for our continued existence. I fear the despotic democrat party more than al Qaeda ... because we can dig the Islamofacists out and kill them, but the democrat party is an infestation we will always have with us!

[okie01]

"...the concentrations of power now being instituted might not be set aside as before because the new democrat party is so consumed with gaining and holding power that even the health and safety of this nation, this Republic they don't like to stand, is expendable if it leads to despotic democrat rule."

All true. But as we discovered with the Clinton administration, potential despots don't necessarily need enabling laws. The Clintons broke or ignored the laws that stood in their way, with impunity. They abused their power, without being called to account.

Accordingly, in the absence of both an alert Congress and a vigilant media, we had best trust to our ability to discern character in those we elect.

We're almost certainly safe from any Republican dictators, though. The press wouldn't stand for it...