Well we recently had some more terror threat warning levels raised due to terrorist activity that some captured Iraqi’s cousins, Mullah’s, clerics, best man at his sisters branding, said was being planned for N.Y. Now if you’re at all like me, you’ve been pretty skeptical about the veracity of these colorful elevations since the beginning.
From the first institution of the color coded threat level barometer of horror I think there were many like myself who thought it was all a scare tactic with 3 main intentions. The first of which is the keep us afraid. If we’re scared there will be a twofold reaction. One byproduct of using scare tactics composed of exaggerated or completely fabricated threats is that it has the psychological effect of triggering the 9-11 nerve connections that made alot of people more willing to give up their civil liberties and except anything in the name of safety. That in itself triggers primal impulses towards similar desires to be protected and bury ourselves as deep into our respective mounds of sand as we need to avoid all the big bad things the tribe leaders have to do to ensure we go on believing we’re special, protected, and golden.
Thusly our need for a unifying theory of good and evil and our god’s favoring of us in the battle between those forces is fed. All the wrongs in so many mediocre and miserable American lives can be reduced to those bad terrorists we are reminded are out there every time we get an alert. Just as we were once given blacks, Communists, Gays, women’s libbers, hippies et:al Team America gives us those “fucking Arabs,” for small minded people to funnel their inner contempt towards. No need to blame themselves for their alcohol problems, money issues, lack of education, emotional stunting, bad relationships, unfulfilling and thankless jobs, and various other neurosis. The Boogey Man de jour is here courtesy of the wizards behind the curtain. This enables Patriot Act like violations of our rights in the name of protection, which probably takes into account the elementary precepts of Maslow’s Heirarchy of needs, as well as giving people the focal point of blame to lash out at, knowing very few have the capacity to blame themselves, and would rather have someone other than the government to blame since that kind of anger is innefectual and too nebulous to prove satisfying. It offers no hope of vengeance or satisfaction of grievances.
The second byproduct of keeping everyone in a perpetual state of fear and thrall is that they will seek reassurance in consumption. This and other psychological and sociological ramifications and motivations are not foreign to this or any other political administration. They understand the value of marketing strategies and those that conduct them understand and avail themselves fully of all the studies into human nature that they can. This particular administration still thinks Richard Nixon was a hero. nixon is a man who once said, “People react to fear, not love. They don’t teach that in Sunday School, but it’s true.” He knew you get things done by scaring people not by offering any high minded talk about peace and love like those damn hippies he and his adherents of the time used as one of their many targets for their hate mongering.
It was our president with a small p himself who after 9-11 urged people to respond to their fear by eating out and going shopping. The sociologist Barry Glassner, author of The Culture of Fear: Why Americans Are Afraid of the Wrong Things has written about people’s tendency to feed the fear and, in my own opinion based on other works on the subject of death, perhaps the mortality this all exposes, by filling that hole with material things. A fear of dying is often counteracted by buying new things and seeking desperately for validation. A heightened awareness of our national mortality is one of the byproducts of the post 9-11 culture we find ourselves in. It’s a world that already was overwhelming us with scare tactics through the media to get us to fear everything from the Sun to our drinking water. Some of it is legit, alot of it is sweeps month news bullshit. Glassner also explained how many groups benefit from this arrangement carried out with the assistance of mass media. Businesses, advocacy organizations, religious sects, and political parties all benefit and profit from promoting fear. Bottom line is fear sells and we’re buying. And that’s good for everyone.
The second prime motivation of false terror alerts is to instill in us the feeling that they’re doing something to protect us. They issue dire warnings that remind us of all the horrible people in the world out to get poor innocent us, and when none of this stuff pans out into an actual terrorist attack they can turn around and say, “Imagine what would have happened if we hadn’t been so on the ball and cut that stuff off before it got going or scared the terrorists off with the higher alert levels.” We are given the illusion of Homeland Security being more than the mismanaged home of W’s good ole boys. As long as nothing really serious happens the illusion can be maintained. But they didn’t count on Katrina to blow away some of the obfuscations and expose the illigitimacy of the nations internal security.This is in effect an indicator that they know there are no real threats against us and that its more cynical use of tragedy being put to evil use as we know they have done in the past and are currently doing in Louisiana.
The third primary purpose of these faux threats, if indeed they are, is that they divert attention from the bigger problems of the Republic. Ever notice how these things seem to pop during bad press periods for our malaproping fraud of a leader? Remember how whenever Kerry got a boost in the polls there’d be an alert level raised from yellow to orange or whatever their non-intuitive color scheme calls for in the event of a raise to an elevated state of arm waving and tongue flapping? Here’s a chronological list from MSNBC revealing the cause and effect relationship between political downturn and imminent threat icluding the recent N.Y. faux warning that coincided with news about Karl Rove’s testifying in the Cia leak case:
Number One:
May 18th, 2002. The first details of the President’s Daily Briefing of August 6th, 2001, are revealed, including its title – “Bin Laden Determined To Strike In U.S.” The same day another memo is discovered – revealing the FBI knew of men with links to Al Qaeda training at an Arizona flight school. The memo was never acted upon. Questions about 9/11 Intelligence failures are swirling.
May 20th, 2002. Two days later, FBI Director Mueller declares another terrorist attack “inevitable.” The next day, the Department of Homeland Security issues warnings of attacks against railroads nationwide, and against New York City landmarks like the Brooklyn Bridge and the Statue of Liberty.
Number Two:
June 6th, 2002. Colleen Rowley, the FBI agent who tried to alert her superiors to the specialized flight training taken by Zacarias Moussaoui, whose information suggests the government missed a chance to break up the 9/11 plot, testifies before Congress. Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Graham says Rowley’s testimony has inspired similar pre-9/11 whistle-blowers.
June 10th, 2002. Four days later, speaking from Russia, Attorney General John Ashcroft reveals that an American named Jose Padilla is under arrest, accused of plotting a radiation bomb attack in this country. Padilla had, by this time, already been detained for more than a month.
Number Three:
February 5th, 2003. Secretary of State Powell tells the United Nations Security Council of Iraq’s concealment of weapons, including 18 mobile biological weapons laboratories, justifying a U.N. or U.S. first strike. Many in the UN are doubtful. Months later, much of the information proves untrue.
February 7th, 2003. Two days later, as anti-war demonstrations continue to take place around the globe, Homeland Security Secretary Ridge cites “credible threats” by Al Qaeda, and raises the terror alert level to orange. Three days after that, Fire Administrator David Paulison – who would become the acting head of FEMA after the Hurricane Katrina disaster – advises Americans to stock up on plastic sheeting and duct tape to protect themselves against radiological or biological attack.
Number Four:
July 23rd, 2003: The White House admits the CIA — months before the President’s State of the Union Address — expressed “strong doubts” about the claim that Iraq had attempted to buy uranium from Niger. On the 24th, the Congressional report on the 9/11 attacks is issued; it criticizes government at all levels; it reveals an FBI informant had been living with two of the future hijackers; and it concludes that Iraq had no link to Al-Qaeda. 28 pages of the report are redacted. On the 26th, American troops are accused of beating Iraqi prisoners.
July 29th, 2003. Three days later, amid all of those negative headlines, Homeland Security issues warnings of further terrorist attempts to use airplanes for suicide attacks.
Number Five:
December 17th, 2003. 9/11 Commission Co-Chair Thomas Kean says the attacks were preventable. The next day, a Federal Appeals Court says the government cannot detain suspected radiation-bomber Jose Padilla indefinitely without charges, and the chief U.S. Weapons inspector in Iraq, Dr. David Kay, who has previously announced he has found no Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq, announces he will resign his post.
December 21st, 2003. Three days later, just before Christmas, Homeland Security again raises the threat level to Orange, claiming “credible intelligence” of further plots to crash airliners into U.S. cities. Subsequently, six international flights into this country are cancelled after some passenger names purportedly produce matches on government no-fly lists. The French later identify those matched names: one belongs to an insurance salesman from Wales, another to an elderly Chinese woman, a third to a five-year old boy.
Number Six:
March 30th, 2004. The new chief weapons inspector in Iraq, Charles Duelfer tells Congress we have still not found any WMD there. And, after weeks of refusing to appear before the 9/11 Commission, Condoleezza Rice finally relents and agrees to testify. On the 31st: Four Blackwater-USA contractors working in Iraq are murdered, their mutilated bodies dragged through the streets and left on public display in Fallujah. The role of civilian contractors in Iraq is widely questioned.
April 2nd, 2004. Homeland Security issues a bulletin warning that terrorists may try to blow up buses and trains, using fertilizer and fuel bombs – like the one detonated in Oklahoma City – stuffed into satchels or duffel bags.
Number Seven:
May 16th, 2004. Secretary of State Powell appears on “Meet The Press.” Moderator Tim Russert closes by asking him about the “enormous personal credibility” Powell had placed before the U.N. in laying out a case against Saddam Hussein. An aide to Powell interrupts the question, saying the interview is over. Powell finishes his answer, admitting that much of the information he had been given about Weapons of Mass Destruction was “inaccurate and wrong, and, in some cases, deliberately misleading.”
May 21st, 2004, new photos showing mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib Prison are released. On the 24th – Associated Press video from Iraq confirms U.S. forces mistakenly bombed a wedding party – killing more than 40.
Wednesday the 26th. Two days later, Attorney General Ashcroft and FBI Director Mueller warn that intelligence from multiple sources, in Ashcroft’s words, “indicates Al-Qaeda’s specific intention to hit the United States hard,” and that “90 percent of the arrangements for an attack on the United States were complete.” The color-coded warning system is not raised, and Homeland Security Secretary Ridge does not attend the announcement.
Number Eight:
July 6th, 2004. Democratic Presidential candidate John Kerry selects Senator John Edwards as his vice presidential running mate, producing a small bump in the election opinion polls, and a huge swing in media attention towards the Democratic campaign.
July 8th, 2004. Two days later, Homeland Secretary Ridge warns of information about Al-Qaeda attacks during the summer or autumn. Four days after that, the head of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, DeForest B. Soaries, Junior, confirms he has written to Ridge about the prospect of postponing the upcoming Presidential election in the event it is interrupted by terrorist acts.
Number Nine:
July 29th, 2004. At their party convention in Boston, the Democrats formally nominate John Kerry as their candidate for President. As in the wake of any convention, the Democrats dominate the media attention over the ensuing weekend.
Monday, August 1st, 2004. The Department of Homeland Security raises the alert status for financial centers in New York, New Jersey, and Washington to orange. The evidence supporting the warning – reconnaissance data, left in a home in Iraq – later proves to be roughly four years old and largely out-of-date.
Number Ten:
Last Thursday. At 10 AM Eastern Time, the President addresses the National Endowment for Democracy, once again emphasizing the importance of the war on terror and insisting his government has broken up at least 10 terrorist plots since 9/11.
At 3 PM Eastern Time, five hours after the President’s speech has begun, the Associated Press reports that Karl Rove will testify again to the CIA Leak Grand Jury, and that Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald has told Rove he cannot guarantee that he will not be indicted.
At 5:17 PM Eastern Time, seven hours after the President’s speech has begun, New York officials disclose a bomb threat to the city’s subway system – based on information supplied by the Federal Government. A Homeland Security spokesman says the intelligence upon which the disclosure is based is “of doubtful credibility.” And it later proves that New York City had known of the threat for at least three days, and had increased police presence in the subways long before making the announcement at that particular time. Local New York television station, WNBC, reports it had the story of the threat days in advance, but was asked by “high ranking federal officials” in New York and Washington to hold off its story.
Less than four days after revealing the threat, Mayor Michael Bloomberg says “Since the period of the threat now seems to be passing, I think over the immediate future, we’ll slowly be winding down the enhanced security.”
While news organizations ranging from the New York Post to NBC News quote sources who say there was reason to believe that informant who triggered the warning simply ‘made it up’, a Senior U.S. Counter-terrorism official tells the New York Times: “There was no there, there.”
Number Eleven:
October 22nd, 2004. After weeks of Administration insistence that there are terrorist plans to disrupt the elections, FBI, Law Enforcement, and other U.S. Intelligence agencies report they have found no direct evidence of any plot. More over, they say, a key CIA source who had claimed knowledge of the plot, has been discredited.
October 29, 2004. Seven days later – four days before the Presidential election – the first supposedly new, datable tape of Osama Bin Laden since December 2001 is aired on the Al-Jazeera Network. A Bush-Cheney campaign official anonymously tells the New York Daily News that from his campaign’s point of view, the tape is quote “a little gift.”
Number Twelve:
May 5th, 2005. 88 members of the United States House of Representatives send a letter to President Bush demanding an investigation of the so-called “Downing Street Memo” – a British document which describes purported American desire dating to 2002 to “fix” the evidence to fit the charges against Iraq. In Iraq over the following weekend, car bombings escalate. On the 11th, more than 75 Iraqis are killed in one.
May 11th, 2005. Later that day, an instructor and student pilot violate restricted airspace in Washington D.C. It is an event that happens hundreds of times a year, but this time the plane gets to within three miles of the White House. The Capitol is evacuated; Vice President Cheney, the First Lady, and Nancy Reagan are all rushed to secure locations. The President, biking through woods, is not immediately notified.
Number Thirteen:
June 26th, 2005. A Gallup poll suggests that 61 percent of the American public believes the President does not have a plan in Iraq. On the 28th, Mr. Bush speaks to the nation from Fort Bragg: “We fight today because terrorists want to attack our country and kill our citizens, and Iraq is where they are making their stand. So we’ll fight them there, we’ll fight them across the world, and we will stay in the fight until the fight is won.”
June 29th 2005. The next day, another private pilot veers into restricted airspace, the Capitol is again evacuated, and this time, so is the President.
Even former Secretary of Homeland Security Ridge said, “More often than not we were the least inclined to raise it. Sometimes we disagreed with the intelligence assessment. Sometimes we thought even if the intelligence was good, you don’t necessarily put the country on (alert)… there were times when some people were really aggressive about raising it, and we said ‘for that?,’” after his resignation. This all plays into a culture of empty consumption being elevated by empty fear. The rise in religious fundamentalism is another sign of this. Movements like this growing are usually an indicator of a nation in decline that offers little hope and much to fear. Of course some of these threats could have validity. I’m not saying there are no Al Qaeda efforts out there looking to harm us, but there’s enough evidence to indicate that threats have been overblown and exaggerated. An effort to buoy the primal fundamentalism that feeds their efforts just might be one of the many reasons they are so readily willing to create this atmosphere of terror. The affirmation they’ve gained from the media and public’s mindless consumption of the lies these scoundrels have used in the wake of a national tragedy, could only encourage further efforts to gain that same validation.
Meanwhile we get desensitized to this stuff until perhaps the threat is real and no one believes anything the boys who cry wolf say anymore. It’s like we’re dealing with a bunch of folks here who have never learned basic values and lessons. Whether it’s the wolf parable, living and dying by the sword, what goes around comes around, or many other seemingly trite, but valuable lessons from growing up, these guys consistently show they believe none of it. They believe nothing except in the laissez faire ideology of the free market and unfettered Capitalism.
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