I would bet that this particular incident is not like the others. This strikes me as an intentional overreaction by a government trying hard to justify their surveillance programs.
America's Chronic Overreaction to Terrorism
21–30 of 38 posts
Re: America's Chronic Overreaction to Terrorism
#22This is a conversation that we need to continually have as a nation and I am glad to see it being covered in more "mainstream" press. What are we giving up to gain our freedom and is it worth it in the long run? The intelligence apparatus our nation has constructed only has value as long as we have fear, they are thereby induced to continually keep us in a state of fear whether real or fabricated. My biggest fear is…
>>>>My biggest fear is that many of these recent "terrorist incidents", not 9/11, were in fact created by our own agencies
Which incidents do you specifically think were fabricated?
Re: America's Chronic Overreaction to Terrorism
#23This is a conversation that we need to continually have as a nation and I am glad to see it being covered in more "mainstream" press. What are we giving up to gain our freedom and is it worth it in the long run? The intelligence apparatus our nation has constructed only has value as long as we have fear, they are thereby induced to continually keep us in a state of fear whether real or fabricated. My biggest fear is…
If you think you're Number One, then everything must be Perfect. If it's not, that contradicts your entire world view, and then you go in overdrive trying to reconcile expectation and reality.
It's that simple.
Re: America's Chronic Overreaction to Terrorism
#24This is a conversation that we need to continually have as a nation and I am glad to see it being covered in more "mainstream" press. What are we giving up to gain our freedom and is it worth it in the long run? The intelligence apparatus our nation has constructed only has value as long as we have fear, they are thereby induced to continually keep us in a state of fear whether real or fabricated. My biggest fear is…
>>>>My biggest fear is that many of these recent "terrorist incidents", not 9/11, were in fact created by our own agencies Which incidents do you specifically think were fabricated?
Shutting down all those embassies in response to vague chatter. If all a terrorist needs to do is talk about an attack for us to shut everything down then they clearly win. That is not to say we can't respond just that this response is only rational if it was was purely political in nature.
Not to mention clearly stating we bugged this guys call was stupid from an intelegence standpoint.
Re: America's Chronic Overreaction to Terrorism
#25For the past century or so, America has needed an "enemy" in order to provide an opponent to focus on. For years, it was the Soviets and Communism, but with the quick collapse of the Iron Curtain, we suddenly lacked one. Luckily (!) terrorism stepped up as a replacement, and well, here we are. Victorious, at the cost of our treasure and our morals.
Re: America's Chronic Overreaction to Terrorism
#26Seems deliberately deceitful. After listing historical terrorist events and responses, Mr. Koppel tries to lump in our invasion of Iraq as an over-sized reaction to terrorism from 9/11 which happened eighteen months earlier. The invasion of Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, it was about oil, as we all know now, after the propaganda has died down and people have generally gone back to sleep. The loss of privacy and ri…
The invasion of Iraq had everything to do with 9/11. Without 9/11 or something like it, there never would have been enough support for an invasion of Iraq to actually carry it out.
Yes, among the people at the top who planned it, it was not a reaction to terrorism. But the public support for it absolutely was.
Our democracy is far from perfect, and much of government is corrupt, but the government is still by and large a reflection of the people. The people's massive overreaction to terrorism allows, even requires, the government to do bad stuff like invade Iraq, wiretap every American phone call, and more.
We need to convince the people to stop overreacting to terrorism so that the government loses that excuse to misbehave.
Re: America's Chronic Overreaction to Terrorism
#27You fight terrorism by refusing to be terrorized. America (or at least, its successive governments) failed from the start.
So how do I fight pithy one-liners that have no substance?
Fight fire with fire they say. You seem to be doing well :)
Snide remark aside, I'll admit that my comment is not very insightful, because it is pretty much common knowledge. That does not make it any less true though.
The aim of a terrorist is to instill terror in the population. I don't delude myself I thinking you can carry on as if nothing happened, but the measures that are taken should be an appropriate response to the threat, not born out of fear or an effort to soothe the population. If you don't let an irrational fear take hold of you, then all the terrorist efforts have been in vain.
That is also more or less the point of the article, I just laid it out more tersely.
Re: America's Chronic Overreaction to Terrorism
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
>>>>My biggest fear is that many of these recent "terrorist incidents", not 9/11, were in fact created by our own agencies Which incidents do you specifically think were fabricated?
Shutting down all those embassies in response to vague chatter. If all a terrorist needs to do is talk about an attack for us to shut everything down then they clearly win. That is not to say we can't respond just that this response is only rational if it was was purely political in nature. Not to mention clearly stating we bugged this guys call was stupid from an intelegence standpoint.
I'm convinced the embassies were shut down for political reasons. No way this administration wants another Benghazi on their hands. I do think to some degree is was an overreaction considering our embassies are considered sovereign territory and its on the host country to defend the embassy - which funny, didn't happen in Libya.
>>>Not to mention clearly stating we bugged this guys call was stupid from an intelegence standpoint.
Agreed. I'm still surprised why this administration continues to leak intelligence to the media. All those lines of communication and means of intercepting intel are now burned.
Re: America's Chronic Overreaction to Terrorism
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
Again, war is a huge business. (And this of course includes the so-called "war" on terrorism.) I believe that's the main reason (if not the only reason) why it is being kept alive (today by using the cheap manipulation technique of fear).
Nothing makes the economy "boom" more than focusing productivity on single-use weapons and other commodities of war. The industrial production of WWII is what kicked off the boom that followed. If some is good, then more must be better - perpetual war must be the best stimulus we could give our economy!
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Re: America's Chronic Overreaction to Terrorism
#30It's not an overreaction, it's the agenda.
It's both. The news isn't pushing a particular agenda, they'll take anything that pushes people's buttons and grabs their eyeballs, whether it's this or another missing white girl.
The news most definitely pushes their funding partner's agenda. Also, they mostly get's their material from well funded sources (with agenda) instead of themselves nowadays.