Manufacturing Hysteria

[Aidoneus]

Manufacturing Hysteria
Bogus Terror Threats and Bush's Police State
By KURT NIMMO

Bomb Las Vegas, America's gambling Mecca and glittery playground built on desert sands by mobsters such as Bugsy Siegel, Meyer Lanksy, and Frank Costello?

Only al-Qaeda, we are assured, would contemplate such a depraved act -- and it stands to reason because those varmint Muslims hate our way of life. They are envious of our freedom to play the nickel slots and idle away carefree hours perched over blackjack tables -- or get no fuss, no muss marriages at Circus Circus.

As it turns out, the ubiquitous al-Qaeda harbored no such plans to bomb Las Vegas -- or, for that matter, any other target in America over the most cherished and commercialized of holidays. Apparently, the whole thing was idle speculation on the part of the Washington Post.

Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman took umbrage, chastised the paper for "picking these rumors out of thin air and writing a major story about them... This could have a major effect on our quality of life here. We depend on people coming here and feeling safe. If I were the enemy, Vegas would be on the bottom of my list."

Mr. Goodman, however, is missing the point -- that's precisely what the Machiavellian Bushites want the American people to do: agonize over irrational and unsubstantiated claims of vicious terrorists lurking out there under cover of mistletoe, plotting radiological attacks and who knows what other evil deeds, determined to destroy our "quality of life," as well as our way of life, and imperil our sense of inviolability.

In the week following last year's now largely forgotten holiday season terror alert -- recall five Arab men who supposedly crossed into the country via Canada -- the Bushites were rightfully accused of manufacturing hysteria (resulting in the shut down of New York's harbor) for political gain. But when no al-Qaeda sleeper cells blew up the Statue of Liberty or mowed down Christmas shoppers in Times Square, the Bushites blamed the whole thing on a perfidious informant, Michael Hamdani, an accused forger of passports and traveller's cheques.

As if to underscore the fact there's little difference between Tweedledee and Tweedledum, Democratic strategist Russ Barksdale said at the time fake terror alerts make prefect sense. "Of course the White House is going to exploit the terrorism threat to the fullest political advantage. They would be fools not to."

But when you scratch below the surface it becomes obvious there are far more tangible and ominous aspects to Bush's manufactured terror alerts.

--snip--

http://www.counterpunch.org/nimmo12312003.html

[SheilaT]

1. It is so obvious to me that all these

supposed terror threats are simply made up. For one thing, it doesn't take a big complicated plot to create all sorts of havoc. If I can think of various ways to do so, surely all the potential terrorists out can think of more.

Actually, over the years I've thought about such things, and I've always wondered why criminals and terrorists don't do some of those things. And of course I'm not going to post anything here. Why give anyone ideas they can't think of themselves.

[salinen]

2. How in hell do you gain

control over every action in people's lives without the use of fear? This works charmingly when the population has been indoctrinated with church scare tactics all their lives. god + fear + capilalism = control.

[SheilaT]

4. As a parent, I know that

fear and punishment are the worst possible ways to control someone. You can control their behavior much, much better if you treat them well and reward good behavior while ignoring bad behavior so long as no one's in danger of being hurt.

I do realize that managing large herds of people is quite different from managing a couple of kids, and in the case of kids I was just about the only person controlling their behavior during the early years. But still, I think the analogy holds.

In the last couple of years I've read any number of thought pieces which point out that terrorism essentially doesn't work, that is that it doesn't produce the result the terrorists want. The Israel-Palestine thing is quite obvious. Terrorism on the part of Palestinians hasn't gotten them the independent state they want, and terrorism on Israel's part hasn't gotten the Palestinians to stop their terrorism, nor has it made the Palestinians go away somehow and leave Israel to occupy all the territory they want.

[beawr]

3. I think we would know...

I live in Montgomery County, MD, you know, where we had the snipers. Now THAT was a terror threat. In Israel, they have suicide bombers and THAT is a terror threat. The I.R.A. , the Basque separatists, Right wingers, Dittoheads, I think we have enough experience with terror to know what it looks like.

I have a hell of a lot of trouble believing that we have successfully dealt with every terror mission since 9-11. But, have you seen another sniper? Have we seen suicide bombings? Could it be that whatever organizations "out to get us" are busy elsewhere or rendered impotent or whatever....

[CJCRANE]

5. It's hard to speculate

on what al-Qaeda are up to given that all the pieces in the 9-11 puzzle haven't been put together yet. What were the full life-stories behind the 19 hijackers that led them to this, what was the full breakdown of where the funding came from, what were the precedents etc etc? There's enough there for a major documentary series.

[Judi Lynn]

6. Really worth pondering

"Gen. Tommy Franks was not talking through his helmet -- these guys actually believe democracy is a "grand experiment" that has exceed its shelf life. So stay tuned for a "casualty-producing event... that causes our population to question our own Constitution and to begin to militarize our country in order to avoid a repeat of another mass, casualty-producing event."

Martial law is rarely kind to dissenters."

I hope time won't bear out this conclusion, but I'd never bet against it. We've seen how they operate.