Boardman writes: "The Republican consensus these days comes down to this: Be
Afraid. Don't Give Peace a Chance. Ever."
Islamic State militants. (photo: MintPress News)
Are Most Americans Still Afraid to Be Unafraid?
By William Boardman, Reader Supported News
19 January 16
Priority number one is protecting the American people and going after
terrorist networks. Both al Qaeda and now ISIL pose a direct threat to our
people, because in todays world, even a handful of terrorists who place no
value on human life, including their own, can do a lot of damage. They use
the Internet to poison the minds of individuals inside our country; they
undermine our allies. But as we focus on destroying ISIL, over-the-top
claims that this is World War III just play into their hands
. they do not
threaten our national existence. Thats the story ISIL wants to tell; thats
the kind of propaganda they use to recruit.
President Obama, State of the Union,
January 12, 2016
Even worse, we are facing the most dangerous terrorist threat our nation
has seen since September 11th, and this president appears either unwilling
or unable to deal with it.
Gov. Nikki Haley, Republican response to
State of the Union
The Republican consensus these days comes down to this: Be Afraid. Dont
Give Peace a Chance. Ever.
Pretty much all Republicans and too many Democrats buy into the notion that
ISIS is a serious threat to the United States. Of course its not, as the
president reminded us, before pretty much contradicting himself and arguing
the need for the US to wipe out ISIS. Why? If ISIS is not a mortal threat,
then theres no need to wipe it out. A sane and logical person cant have it
both ways. But then we live in a time where sane and logical people are not
highly valued in the leadership class, or by much of the population at
large.
The Republican pitch is a con game with a simple cycle: (1) exaggerate a
limited threat, like bin Laden or ISIS, into a monster of terrifying
proportions, then (2) promise to protect the homeland from this huge,
imaginary threat, and finally (3) take credit for defending America when the
threat-that-is-not-so-real fails to materialize. This is an ancient
paradigm, most recently played out in Americas victory in the Cold War, a
victory that has left the US politically and culturally gutted and adrift.
Seizing on the opportunity of 9/11, the US re-started the same con with
terror in the place of communism, and the con continues.
The reality, on September 12, 2001, was that two places in the US had been
attacked with an effectiveness expected by almost no one. A series of
intelligence failures, inattention by law enforcement, sloppy security, and
unlikely engineering produced the collapse of the World Trade Center and
limited damage to the Pentagon, with almost 3,000 dead. 9/11 was sudden and
shocking, with powerful optics, but it was a discreet, unique event with
virtually zero possibility of repetition.
Statistically, terrorism is an inconsequential threat to Americans
Even counting all 38 American deaths from terrorism since 9/11, the
15-year total of American civilians dead from terrorism is still fewer than
3,000. The total of Americans dead from terror doesnt begin to match other
killing factors taking out Americans on a near-daily basis. Since 2001, out
of some 40 million American deaths, over 400,000 were Americans dead from
guns, over 500,000 were Americans dead from cars, and over 9 million were
Americans dead from heart disease. So why has the US spent $1.7 trillion or
more fighting terrorism over the same 15 years? Statistically, terrorism is
inconsequential killer of Americans so that proves the war on terror
works, as a successful con, stopping an almost non-existent threat and
saving Americans lives (that werent in danger).
Americans, on the other hand, are very consequential killers of other
people. But these are inconsequential people, apparently, because no one has
an accurate civilian body-count of maybe 2,500 dead Pakistanis, maybe 10,00
dead Yemenis, maybe 400,000 dead Afghans, maybe 1,000,000 dead Iraqis, most
of them killed by the US and its allies with a reckless disregard for the
rules of war. Then theres maybe 500,000 dead Syrians killed by all sides,
including the US and its allies.
Avenging 3,000 dead Americans, the US is responsible, directly and
indirectly, for more than 2 million dead civilians in countries attacked in
the war on terror, and yet Gov. Haley says, with a straight face and no
serious public challenge, that we are facing the most dangerous terrorist
threat our nation has seen since September 11th.
This is pure fearmongering. There has been no credible threat to the US
since 9/11. There is none now. There would perhaps have been no threat
before 9/11 if President Bush had taken warnings from the intelligence
community seriously. Fear has always been one of the dirtier tools of
governing, but after 9/11 the Bush administration drove the country to
mindless war using fear on steroids. The administrations cries of wolf were
amplified by panic at the top of almost every American institution that
might have countered such popular delusions.
Institutionally, the US has improved little since 9/11. President Obama does
say of the Islamic State (aka ISIL or ISIS or Daesh) that they do not
threaten our national existence, which is abundantly clear and true. But he
says that only in the false, dishonest, fearmongering context of reinforcing
irrational fear:
Priority number one is protecting the American people and going after
terrorist networks. Both al Qaeda and now ISIL pose a direct threat to our
people
.
This is a continuation of the establishment con, promising to protect the
American people from a threat that is hardly real. Theres almost no way to
fail once people buy into the con. But now, perhaps, a majority of the
people is ahead of the leaderships endless, bipartisan deceptions. Popular
understanding of the con is strong enough now to keep politicians from being
too eager to send in American troops in large numbers, but popular opinion
is not yet expressing itself strongly enough to change the direction of the
present pointless, bloody war in which the most measurable accomplishment is
creating more jihadis, more fighters for radical Islam (false Islam), more
would-be terrorists on a quest for martyrdom. Wouldnt it be a good idea to
shift to tactics that did not perpetuate and enlarge the chaos and
devastation that have flowed without surcease from the USs criminal
invasion of Iraq?
Is that an ISIS hiding under your bed?
Current estimates of ISIS military strength vary wildly, by orders of
magnitude, but even at the most (200,000) ISIS is not a danger to the US,
its not much of a danger to the Syrian government, and its somewhat of a
danger to the Kurds of Syria and Iraq. The Pentagon and CIA generally
estimate that ISIS has about 30,000 fighters in Syria/Iraq. This is a force
smaller than the New York Police Departments 34,000 officers, who are
responsible for 305 square miles with over 8 million inhabitants. ISIS
forces cover an area estimated to be more than 12,000 square miles (as much
as 35,000) with a population of 2.8 to 8 million.
According to the Pentagon last fall, ISIS is tactically stalemated. The
Pentagon estimates that ISIS gets about 1,000 recruits a month and that
airstrikes kill about 1,000 ISIS fighters a month. But the Pentagon also
says it doesnt do body counts, and in any event has no one on the ground to
count the bodies.
ISIS is committed to holding as much of its territory as it can. Territory
is necessary to validate its claim to being a caliphate. ISIS is intent on
expanding its territory, if possible. That makes it less of a threat to the
US than to the countries that border ISIS (Iraq, Turkey, Syria, and Saudi
Arabia), two of which (Turkey and Saudi Arabia) support ISIS more than they
fight it. Those four countries have one other thing in common: they all want
the US to do more of the fighting than theyre willing to do. And ISIS, for
more perverse reasons, wants the US drawn deeper into the Middle East
quagmire. And to achieve that, ISIS issues freakish videos and will (if it
can) mount terrorist attacks to provoke another mindless US escalation.
In a communiqué to All Jihadi Brothers dated November 18, 2015, ISIS
caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi described the success of 9/11 from his
perspective:
Every attack we launch upon the infidel West shows its tenuous hold on its
precious civil liberties, their freedoms that we supposedly covet. One
attack on the Great Satan was enough to make it torture, spy upon its
citizens, kill many Muslim brothers, and entrap yet others through perverse
law-enforcement schemes. A few more artfully placed and timed attacks and we
will bring the residents of these dens of fornication and perversity to
their knees
. In this task, we will be aided, as we already are, by those
who continue to disenfranchise their own citizens and commit to oblivion
their own esteemed moral, legal, and political principles. They continue to
kill our innocent brothers and sisters and their children from the sky; they
continue to imprison Muslim brothers without trial, scorning their own
precious legal parchments from which the words due process have so easily
been scrubbed.
A terrorist act is designed to instill fear in the target population, as it
did so lastingly on 9/11. A terrorist act is defeated by being brave. A
terrorist act is primarily political, designed to make the target population
act irrationally, out of fear, against its own interests. At least since
2001, provoked by terrorist-inspired fear, the frightened US government,
abetted by American media and other institutions, has acted not only as a
global terrorist itself, but also as an effective terrorist enabler and
terrorist breeder. This has kept the con, and the carnage, going, to the
benefit of a few office holders and profiteers. Whether the public has
caught on enough to reject the next terrorist provocation as the sucker-bait
it is remains to be seen. How afraid will you be?
________________________________________
William M. Boardman has over 40 years experience in theatre, radio, TV,
print journalism, and non-fiction, including 20 years in the Vermont
judiciary. He has received honors from Writers Guild of America, Corporation
for Public Broadcasting, Vermont Life magazine, and an Emmy Award nomination
from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission
to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader
Supported News.
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid. Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
Islamic State militants. (photo: MintPress News)
http://readersupportednews.org/http://readersupportednews.org/
Are Most Americans Still Afraid to Be Unafraid?
By William Boardman, Reader Supported News
19 January 16
Priority number one is protecting the American people and going after
terrorist networks. Both al Qaeda and now ISIL pose a direct threat to our
people, because in todays world, even a handful of terrorists who place no
value on human life, including their own, can do a lot of damage. They use
the Internet to poison the minds of individuals inside our country; they
undermine our allies. But as we focus on destroying ISIL, over-the-top
claims that this is World War III just play into their hands
. they do not
threaten our national existence. Thats the story ISIL wants to tell; thats
the kind of propaganda they use to recruit.
President Obama, State of the Union, January 12, 2016
Even worse, we are facing the most dangerous terrorist threat our nation
has seen since September 11th, and this president appears either unwilling
or unable to deal with it.
Gov. Nikki Haley, Republican response to State of the Union
he Republican consensus these days comes down to this: Be Afraid. Dont
Give Peace a Chance. Ever.
Pretty much all Republicans and too many Democrats buy into the notion that
ISIS is a serious threat to the United States. Of course its not, as the
president reminded us, before pretty much contradicting himself and arguing
the need for the US to wipe out ISIS. Why? If ISIS is not a mortal threat,
then theres no need to wipe it out. A sane and logical person cant have it
both ways. But then we live in a time where sane and logical people are not
highly valued in the leadership class, or by much of the population at
large.
The Republican pitch is a con game with a simple cycle: (1) exaggerate a
limited threat, like bin Laden or ISIS, into a monster of terrifying
proportions, then (2) promise to protect the homeland from this huge,
imaginary threat, and finally (3) take credit for defending America when the
threat-that-is-not-so-real fails to materialize. This is an ancient
paradigm, most recently played out in Americas victory in the Cold War, a
victory that has left the US politically and culturally gutted and adrift.
Seizing on the opportunity of 9/11, the US re-started the same con with
terror in the place of communism, and the con continues.
The reality, on September 12, 2001, was that two places in the US had been
attacked with an effectiveness expected by almost no one. A series of
intelligence failures, inattention by law enforcement, sloppy security, and
unlikely engineering produced the collapse of the World Trade Center and
limited damage to the Pentagon, with almost 3,000 dead. 9/11 was sudden and
shocking, with powerful optics, but it was a discreet, unique event with
virtually zero possibility of repetition.
Statistically, terrorism is an inconsequential threat to Americans
Even counting all 38 American deaths from terrorism since 9/11, the
15-year total of American civilians dead from terrorism is still fewer than
3,000. The total of Americans dead from terror doesnt begin to match other
killing factors taking out Americans on a near-daily basis. Since 2001, out
of some 40 million American deaths, over 400,000 were Americans dead from
guns, over 500,000 were Americans dead from cars, and over 9 million were
Americans dead from heart disease. So why has the US spent $1.7 trillion or
more fighting terrorism over the same 15 years? Statistically, terrorism is
inconsequential killer of Americans so that proves the war on terror
works, as a successful con, stopping an almost non-existent threat and
saving Americans lives (that werent in danger).
Americans, on the other hand, are very consequential killers of other
people. But these are inconsequential people, apparently, because no one has
an accurate civilian body-count of maybe 2,500 dead Pakistanis, maybe 10,00
dead Yemenis, maybe 400,000 dead Afghans, maybe 1,000,000 dead Iraqis, most
of them killed by the US and its allies with a reckless disregard for the
rules of war. Then theres maybe 500,000 dead Syrians killed by all sides,
including the US and its allies.
Avenging 3,000 dead Americans, the US is responsible, directly and
indirectly, for more than 2 million dead civilians in countries attacked in
the war on terror, and yet Gov. Haley says, with a straight face and no
serious public challenge, that we are facing the most dangerous terrorist
threat our nation has seen since September 11th.
This is pure fearmongering. There has been no credible threat to the US
since 9/11. There is none now. There would perhaps have been no threat
before 9/11 if President Bush had taken warnings from the intelligence
community seriously. Fear has always been one of the dirtier tools of
governing, but after 9/11 the Bush administration drove the country to
mindless war using fear on steroids. The administrations cries of wolf were
amplified by panic at the top of almost every American institution that
might have countered such popular delusions.
Institutionally, the US has improved little since 9/11. President Obama does
say of the Islamic State (aka ISIL or ISIS or Daesh) that they do not
threaten our national existence, which is abundantly clear and true. But he
says that only in the false, dishonest, fearmongering context of reinforcing
irrational fear:
Priority number one is protecting the American people and going after
terrorist networks. Both al Qaeda and now ISIL pose a direct threat to our
people
.
This is a continuation of the establishment con, promising to protect the
American people from a threat that is hardly real. Theres almost no way to
fail once people buy into the con. But now, perhaps, a majority of the
people is ahead of the leaderships endless, bipartisan deceptions. Popular
understanding of the con is strong enough now to keep politicians from being
too eager to send in American troops in large numbers, but popular opinion
is not yet expressing itself strongly enough to change the direction of the
present pointless, bloody war in which the most measurable accomplishment is
creating more jihadis, more fighters for radical Islam (false Islam), more
would-be terrorists on a quest for martyrdom. Wouldnt it be a good idea to
shift to tactics that did not perpetuate and enlarge the chaos and
devastation that have flowed without surcease from the USs criminal
invasion of Iraq?
Is that an ISIS hiding under your bed?
Current estimates of ISIS military strength vary wildly, by orders of
magnitude, but even at the most (200,000) ISIS is not a danger to the US,
its not much of a danger to the Syrian government, and its somewhat of a
danger to the Kurds of Syria and Iraq. The Pentagon and CIA generally
estimate that ISIS has about 30,000 fighters in Syria/Iraq. This is a force
smaller than the New York Police Departments 34,000 officers, who are
responsible for 305 square miles with over 8 million inhabitants. ISIS
forces cover an area estimated to be more than 12,000 square miles (as much
as 35,000) with a population of 2.8 to 8 million.
According to the Pentagon last fall, ISIS is tactically stalemated. The
Pentagon estimates that ISIS gets about 1,000 recruits a month and that
airstrikes kill about 1,000 ISIS fighters a month. But the Pentagon also
says it doesnt do body counts, and in any event has no one on the ground to
count the bodies.
ISIS is committed to holding as much of its territory as it can. Territory
is necessary to validate its claim to being a caliphate. ISIS is intent on
expanding its territory, if possible. That makes it less of a threat to the
US than to the countries that border ISIS (Iraq, Turkey, Syria, and Saudi
Arabia), two of which (Turkey and Saudi Arabia) support ISIS more than they
fight it. Those four countries have one other thing in common: they all want
the US to do more of the fighting than theyre willing to do. And ISIS, for
more perverse reasons, wants the US drawn deeper into the Middle East
quagmire. And to achieve that, ISIS issues freakish videos and will (if it
can) mount terrorist attacks to provoke another mindless US escalation.
In a communiqué to All Jihadi Brothers dated November 18, 2015, ISIS
caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi described the success of 9/11 from his
perspective:
Every attack we launch upon the infidel West shows its tenuous hold on its
precious civil liberties, their freedoms that we supposedly covet. One
attack on the Great Satan was enough to make it torture, spy upon its
citizens, kill many Muslim brothers, and entrap yet others through perverse
law-enforcement schemes. A few more artfully placed and timed attacks and we
will bring the residents of these dens of fornication and perversity to
their knees
. In this task, we will be aided, as we already are, by those
who continue to disenfranchise their own citizens and commit to oblivion
their own esteemed moral, legal, and political principles. They continue to
kill our innocent brothers and sisters and their children from the sky; they
continue to imprison Muslim brothers without trial, scorning their own
precious legal parchments from which the words due process have so easily
been scrubbed.
A terrorist act is designed to instill fear in the target population, as it
did so lastingly on 9/11. A terrorist act is defeated by being brave. A
terrorist act is primarily political, designed to make the target population
act irrationally, out of fear, against its own interests. At least since
2001, provoked by terrorist-inspired fear, the frightened US government,
abetted by American media and other institutions, has acted not only as a
global terrorist itself, but also as an effective terrorist enabler and
terrorist breeder. This has kept the con, and the carnage, going, to the
benefit of a few office holders and profiteers. Whether the public has
caught on enough to reject the next terrorist provocation as the sucker-bait
it is remains to be seen. How afraid will you be?
William M. Boardman has over 40 years experience in theatre, radio, TV,
print journalism, and non-fiction, including 20 years in the Vermont
judiciary. He has received honors from Writers Guild of America, Corporation
for Public Broadcasting, Vermont Life magazine, and an Emmy Award nomination
from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission
to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader
Supported News.
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