[Infowarrior] - OpEd: Terrorized by the media

Thu Jan 7 17:44:28 UTC 2010

Terrorized by the media
Spare us the sky-is-falling hysteria. If anything, the failed bombing  
shows how little we need to fear al-Qaida
By Gene Lyons

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/feature/2010/01/06/failed_terror_plot/index.html

No one can say how America's struggle with Islamic extremism will end,  
save that it won't be resolved by having Matt Damon kill Osama bin  
Laden in single combat. And President Obama won't yell "Get off my  
plane!" before tossing Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to his death.
However this conflict ends, Bruce Willis will not be involved.

Most Americans understand that the long battle against al-Qaida and  
related terrorist groups has little in common with a Hollywood plot.  
Or at least I hope they do. Watching excitable media personalities and  
the Chicken Little wing of the Republican Party doing everything  
possible to turn the failed Christmas airline bombing in Detroit into  
a combination Super Bowl-size ratings bonanza and political  
opportunity, however, made me wonder: Can't these jokers be serious  
about anything?

TV news broadcasters dote upon melodrama. The fact that would-be  
Nigerian terrorist Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab struck on Christmas Day,  
one of the slowest news days of the year, sent the media into  
overdrive. For CNN, Fox News and the rest, the catastrophe that  
blessedly didn't happen spurred them to do what they do best: gather a  
terrific amount of information in a short time and inform us about  
what happened aboard Northwest Airlines Flight 253 -- and, equally  
important, what didn't, such as a coordinated attack by multiple  
terrorists.

(Was I the only one who wondered whether the heroism of Dutch tourist  
Jasper Schuringa, who threw himself on Abdulmutallab, preventing the  
bomb in his pants from detonating, got relatively short shrift because  
he wasn't an American?)

Moreover, the rapidity with which the media had gathered crucial  
information about the would-be terrorist only underscored the  
magnitude of the intelligence failure. How, in the age of Google, can  
the Transportation Security Administration not have an instantly  
searchable database containing every suspect who has come to the  
attention of the CIA or FBI, much less one whose father warned U.S.  
embassy authorities about his son's growing radicalism?

Obama has demanded an answer. Congress needs to make sure Americans  
get one, even if that means having to endure Sen. John McCain and Holy  
Joe Lieberman's unique blend of smugness and solemnity for weeks at a  
time.

However, we could all do without the sky-is-falling hysteria. If  
anything, Abdulmutallab's failed atrocity attempt demonstrates, once  
again, how little America as a nation actually has to fear from al- 
Qaida. Everyone reading this column is far more likely to die in an  
automobile accident or an influenza epidemic than at a terrorist's  
hands.

Islamic extremists can't invade the United States or cripple its armed  
forces, can't heavily damage the nation's infrastructure or productive  
capacity, can't impair the nation's functioning nor undermine its  
government. All they're capable of -- and the Flight 253 episode shows  
them not terribly good at that -- are mass murder atrocities, the  
purpose of which is to terrify Americans into doing stupid things that  
sap our morale and damage ourselves.

Things like invading Iraq, resorting to using torture, abandoning the  
rule of law and demanding authoritarian solutions that provide a false  
sense of security to people quivering with media-amplified fear. Such  
as Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney's demand on (where else?) Fox News that  
all Muslim men between ages 18 and 28 be strip-searched before  
boarding airplanes. Only the cravenly politically correct, he thinks,  
could object.

McInerney's idea sounds appropriately tough-minded for the  
approximately five seconds needed to realize that Muslims come in all  
possible shapes, sizes and colors, but without labels. Maybe we should  
just strip-search everybody -- ex-Pentagon officials first.

A Washington Post columnist demanded an immediate end to Obama's  
vacation. On MSNBC, Chris Matthews worried what would happen if al- 
Qaida started dispatching bombers trained in martial arts. (Maybe  
we'll need to deploy Matt Damon's stunt double after all.) Scared  
witless, New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd called for Obama to  
muster more after-the-fact excitement, lamenting the alleged  
disappearance (I am not making this up) of America's "Bugs Bunny  
panache." Really.

But the real telltale headline appeared in the Washington Post on Dec.  
30: "Republicans see political opportunity in Obama response to failed  
airplane bomb." Dick Cheney emerged from his bunker to claim it's all  
the president's fault. "We are at war and when President Obama  
pretends we aren't, it makes us less safe," he said. "Why doesn't he  
want to admit we're at war? It doesn't fit with the view of the world  
he brought with him to the Oval Office."

Of course, he's done so many times, but that's not the point.  
Neoconservative columnist Charles Krauthammer also discerned semantic  
weakness in Obama's using the term "extremists" where he'd prefer  
"jihadist."

If not for the president's craven refusal to pronounce the Magic  
Words, in precisely the right order, you see, al-Qaida would no longer  
exist.