U.S. politicians and security analysts have been all over TV in recent days warning about “specific, credible and imminent attacks” al-Qaeda operatives are planning to launch against U.S. interests … worldwide. Which compels one to wonder how this warning would have been designated according to the government’s ill-fated, soon-discarded color-coded threat level advisory system….
But am I the only one who finds these warnings about as specific, credible, and reliable as a carnival soothsayer predicting my future?
Moreover, notwithstanding Tanzania and Benghazi, isn’t reacting to these threats by closing U.S. embassies across the Muslim world rather like putting a Band-Aid on one’s elbow to fight terminal cancer? I mean, given the veritable fortresses most U.S. embassies have become, isn’t it far more likely that terrorists will target softer U.S. interests like hotels, restaurants, or, god forbid, business complexes (a la the World Trade Center)? So why isn’t the U.S. government advising that they should all be closed too?
Frankly, Western governments are terrorizing us far more with their anti-terror warnings, intelligence gathering, and security measures than Muslim terrorists are with their acts of terrorism.
This is not to say, of course, that terrorists aren’t planning every day to mount another 9/11-type attack, or that at some point they’re going to succeed.
I just think it’s far better to “keep calm and carry on” than to cry wolf and take plainly feckless measures every time al-Qaeda issues an amorphous threat.
It must be understood that no matter their collective resolve, there’s absolutely nothing our governments can do to prevent such attacks. Meanwhile, that Americans reacted yesterday as if those explosions went off in Washington or New York should compel Westerners to focus on calming our collective nerves instead of fretting about (or worse, trying to figure out) the motivation for and timing of terrorist attacks by Islamic fanatics.
(“7/7 Terror Attacks in London,” The iPINIONS Journal, July 8, 2005)
In the meantime, if you’re buying government propaganda about winning the “war on terror,” I have a bridge I’d like to sell you. Not to mention how all of this seems a little too much like a manufactured antidote to Edward Snowden’s NSA disclosures. After all, the very spying methods he outed, maligned, and undermined are the ones that have supposedly tipped government officials off about the terrorist attacks that are now afoot … allegedly.
Which compels me to suggest that only after al-Qaeda begins targeting them instead of embassies will Western news organizations stop rushing to disclose all of these methods to intercept and foil terror plots. But am I the only one who thinks it’s almost complicit for reporters to continually tip off terrorists about all of the covert ways Western governments are trying to combat them…? Friggin’ idiots!
All the same: “If you see something, say something!”
Related commentaries:
7/7 terror attacks…
Terrorists are planning more attacks…?
Snowden’s NSA disclosures…