I'm wondering whether I should link to this once a month. Or even once a week.
I'd like everyone to take a deep breath and listen for a minute.The point of terrorism is to cause terror, sometimes to further a political goal and sometimes out of sheer hatred. The people terrorists kill are not the targets; they are collateral damage. And blowing up planes, trains, markets or buses is not the goal; those are just tactics. The real targets of terrorism are the rest of us: the billions of us who are not killed but are terrorized because of the killing. The real point of terrorism is not the act itself, but our reaction to the act.
And we're doing exactly what the terrorists want.
We're all a little jumpy after the recent arrest of 23 terror suspects in Great Britain. The men were reportedly plotting a liquid-explosive attack on airplanes, and both the press and politicians have been trumpeting the story ever since.
...
Regardless of the threat, from the would-be bombers' perspective, the explosives and planes were merely tactics. Their goal was to cause terror, and in that they've succeeded.
...
Our politicians help the terrorists every time they use fear as a campaign tactic. The press helps every time it writes scare stories about the plot and the threat. And if we're terrified, and we share that fear, we help. All of these actions intensify and repeat the terrorists' actions, and increase the effects of their terror.
...
It's time we calm down and fight terror with antiterror. This does not mean that we simply roll over and accept terrorism. There are things our government can and should do to fight terrorism, most of them involving intelligence and investigation -- and not focusing on specific plots.But our job is to remain steadfast in the face of terror, to refuse to be terrorized. Our job is to not panic every time two Muslims stand together checking their watches. There are approximately 1 billion Muslims in the world, a large percentage of them not Arab, and about 320 million Arabs in the Middle East, the overwhelming majority of them not terrorists. Our job is to think critically and rationally, and to ignore the cacophony of other interests trying to use terrorism to advance political careers or increase a television show's viewership.
The surest defense against terrorism is to refuse to be terrorized.
There's more at the llnk. Hat-tip to fubar at Needlenose.
I agree with this analysis 100%. The only point I would add is that the U.S. govt (substitute: Bush administration)and their fat cat media buddies are propagating this fear as well, for their own greedy corporate and political gains. On the corporate side - multi billion dollar war contracts and arms deals, while on the political side we are so terrorized that we willingly hand over our civil liberites to those in power. Mind you this is more of an American problem but it nonetheless affects us in Canada as well.
That on top of the fact that at least a third of the American population are so brainwashed and uncritical of their world that they believe and (fervently defend) every word that comes out of their Commander and Chiefs mouth - regardless of how ridicules it might sound!
Interesting timing since I have been putting some ideas together for a post down the same lines.Schneier is right, of course, just as he is pretty much all the time. I'll probably still cobble something together since I'm taking as slightly different tack but it's nice to see I'm in good company.
I feel less afraid these days than I feel sick, heartsore at what my species is capable of, and most horribly ashamed of my own culture and what it has wrought in the rest of the world.
The rest of the world does not know us for our poetry, our philosophy, our science, our wonderful notions of democracy and human equality. Other peoples know us as we appear suddenly in their skies and over their horizons: as brutally arrogant and greedy thieves, willing to murder on a mass scale and then hide the bodies and the numbers from ourselves.
I'm not half as afraid of the terrorists as I am of us.
I just did a post at Saundrie on this article as I had run across it first at Red Tory's place before coming here. This was a well written article and one I hope gets widely disseminated. I found it well written and well thought out and something our weak kneed fearful and shrieking Conservative brethren in this country really need to learn/understand. I will be adding a link to this post of yours to my original post, assuming you do not object.
Please assume I don't object. ;-)
POGGE:
I assumed exactly that and have already updated my post at Saundrie to reflect that. Still, thank you very much for confirming my assumption was correct. Unlike some I treat assumptions with reservation and caution given just how easily one can go wildly wrong with them. Just look at many of the BTs for evidence of that...:)
(To be fair it is not like it is unheard of on our side of the blogosphere, but I would say I find it more prevalent on theirs than ours)