America's Chronic Overreaction to Terrorism

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324653004578650462392053732.html

by markprovan • 13 years ago

104 34 13 years ago

online.wsj.com

DamnYuppie• 13 years ago

This 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 that many of these recent "terrorist incidents", not 9/11, were in fact created by our own agencies...yes a bit of a tin foil hat scenario to be sure but one that is not all together unreasonable given the current revelations.

northwest• 13 years ago

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).

benajnim• 13 years ago

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!

Zelphyr• 13 years ago

many of these recent "terrorist incidents", not 9/11, were in fact created by our own agencies

I don't think they consciously did it. But I do think our policies and heavy-handedness have created more terrorists than we've defeated.

mpweiher• 13 years ago

While the indirect creation of terrorists is certainly also a factor, the direct method of creating plots that you can then "foil" has been widely documented and analyzed:

http://www.wenatcheeworld.com/news/2007/may/11/paid-fbi-info...

http://politicalscience.osu.edu/faculty/jmueller/absisfin.pd...

http://politicalscience.osu.edu/faculty/jmueller/since.html

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120917/05193620404/fbi-co...

at-fates-hands3• 13 years ago

>>>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?

Retric• 13 years ago

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.

Florin_Andrei• 13 years ago

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.

iterationx• 13 years ago

Everyone who perpetuates the lies of the official narrative of 911 is co-builder of the police state.

When you help build the prison, don't be surprised when you find yourself in it.

avty3• 13 years ago

The downvotes only proves your right.

mnazim• 13 years ago

Comment got down votes, not because the commenter was right or wrong, but for the rhetoric commentary that basically does not contribute anything constructive to the discussion. It's sort of an I told you so rhetoric.

brightsize• 13 years ago

By coincidence, Mr. Deity posted this just today: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xGNA7U54Qw Now, about those chemtrails ...

avty3• 13 years ago

It's not an overreaction, it's the agenda.

jbooth2• 13 years ago

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.

avty3• 13 years ago

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.

norswap2• 13 years ago

You fight terrorism by refusing to be terrorized. America (or at least, its successive governments) failed from the start.

saraid216• 13 years ago

So how do I fight pithy one-liners that have no substance?

norswap2• 13 years ago

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.

ape4• 13 years ago

I hope the US is actually doing something smart/tricky. The CIA (or whoever) say this is because of some chatter. Can't they decode the chatter? Maybe they are pretending they can't.

mtgx• 13 years ago

Wait, is this a trap article? This is coming from WSJ?

djcjr• 13 years ago

Seems 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 rights since then, and currently, is our govt misbehaving, and also has nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism.

brown• 13 years ago

There is a difference between "motive" and "justification".

The government's motive is oil, money, growth in scope, etc.

The government's justification is terrorism. So this conversation is absolutely related to terrorism.

Awareness of that difference is important. Articles like this are key to promoting awareness.

mikeash2• 13 years ago

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.

userulluipeste• 13 years ago

"Without 9/11 or something like it, there never would have been enough support for an invasion of Iraq to actually carry it out."

Why not? It happened before, how could it not happen again? Actually, seen from outside of U.S., the Iraq events that followed the reinstatement of the Bush family appear very naturally, those were like... family policy!

adamtj• 13 years ago

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.

chiph• 13 years ago

For 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.

D9u2• 13 years ago

I love (not!) the way people who were against domestic surveillance when the previous administration was caught doing it are now strangely quiet after the current administration admits to doing the same.

America's Chronic Overreaction to Terrorism

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