The White House is sure to follow suit any minute now, insinuating; or explicitly claiming; that this incident proves that Bush was right about the whole array of our country's foreign policy disputes, from Iraq to the current Israel-Lebanon war. This naked exploitation of terrorist threats for political gain occurs every time a new terrorist plot is revealed, no matter how serious or frivolous, no matter how advanced or preliminary, the plot might be. Each time a new plot is disclosed, administration officials and their followers immediately begin squeezing the emotions and fears generated by such events for every last drop of political gain they can manufacture.
But this effort is as incoherent as it is manipulative. Nobody doubts that there are Muslim extremists who would like to commit acts of violence against the U.S. and the West. No political disputes are premised on a conflict over whether terrorism exists or whether it ought to be taken seriously. As a result, events such as this that reveal what everyone already knows; that there is such a thing as Islamic extremists who want to commit terrorist acts against the U.S.; do nothing to inform or resolve political debates over the Bush administration's militaristic foreign policy or its radical lawlessness at home. Opposition to the war in Iraq, for instance, is not based upon the premise that there is no terrorist threat. It is based on the premise that that invasion undermines, rather than strengthens, our campaign to fight terrorism.
Invading and bombing Muslim countries do not prevent terrorism or diminish the likelihood that British-born Muslims will blow up American airplanes. If anything, warmongering in the Middle East exacerbates that risk by radicalizing more and more Muslims and increasing anti-U.S. resentment. And the more military and intelligence resources we are forced to pour into waging wars against countries that have not attacked us, the less able we are to track and combat al-Qaida and the other terrorist groups that actually seek to harm us. There are few things that have more enabled terrorism than turning Iraq into a chaotic caldron of anarchy and violence; exactly the environment in which al-Qaida thrives.
I wish more people understood this. Most of us just can't be bothered to think things through logically. We'd rather get our news from Fox TV and belch our foul, belligerent opinions based on what "side" we're on. It's disgusting, the level of ignorance, disinterest, and overall stupidity so prevelant in this country.
The media doesn't help either. Local news agencies cherry-pick what they're going to cover based on how sensational it can be made out to be. Case in point: The recent shooting in Seattle at the Belltown Jewish Federation Building. Without knowing anything at all about the suspect, the local anchors made presumptions that the crime had to do with the current Israel-Hezbollah conflict. As it turned out, the shooting had absolutely no connection to what is happening on the other side of the world. -The guy was found to have a history of serious mental illness.
The local media is just part of the problem though. There's Fox News, who's motto, "fair and balanced," is an ironic joke. And CNN? Hah! CNN used to be a respectable news agency until they started paying attention to their ratings and replacing distinguished anchors with cutesy, glossy-lipped women straight out of Perfect 10 magazine.
No, today you have to work a little harder to get the real news. Forget the television. There is no news on TV. -Only the blabbering of bubbly brunettes with plunging necklines. To get the real news you have to go here, here, here, here, or here, and maybe here.
No comments:
Post a Comment