At various times in various discussions on these forums, I have supported the following positions:
1. That nothing can ever be done to insure that no terrorist attack will ever again take place on American soil and most of what has been done to prevent them does little more than provide the illusion of security.
2. That things like torture, warrantless wiretaps, abandonment of habeus corpus and invasion of sovereign countries who are not a direct threat to the security of the United States are contrary to every principle on which this nation was founded and for which we once stood.
3. That when we abandon those principles, those who wish us harm win.
4. That those who would willingly give up those principles for the aforementioned illusion of security are cowards who make a mockery of the memories of the brave souls who died rather than compromise that which made this country a bastion of freedom and fairness to the rest of the world.
5. That the politicians of the last administration used those cowards' fear to make the threat of impending doom larger than life to further their own agendas and line the pockets of those in their circle.
Obama campaigned on a platform of change but when it comes to being frank with the American people about the real threat of terrorism and the impossibility of ever being able to completely eliminate the threat, he has proven that, so far, he may talk a good game but he doesn't have the sack to be honest. He continues to let the likes of Cheney frame the conversation using the same old, tired politics of fear instead of putting the issue into proper perspective. Personally, I'd rather die from a terrorist attack than see the future of the United States decided by a handleful of radicals.
I could go on but I came across an article last week that says much of what I think albeit more succinctly so I'll simply provide excerpts from that article (emphasis mine):
But that was not Obama's real problem. His real problem was his failure to forthrightly say that while terrorism remains a threat, its danger has been greatly overblown. Obama needed to tell Americans the truth, which is that no open society can ever be absolutely free from terrorist attacks, and that a society that allows its irrational fear of such attacks to cause it to jettison its laws, freedoms and most cherished traditions has already lost to the terrorists. He needed to say that while we will never forget 9/11, always honor the memory of its victims, and never let our guard down, we cannot allow one attack, no matter how horrific and spectacular, to determine the nature and future of our country. He needed to draw a line in the sand, and tell Americans that while he will do everything in his power to protect them, only fools dream of eternal, perfect safety. In short, he needed to seize the terrorism shibboleth root and branch and pull it out of the ground.
This would not have been easy. Politicians do not generally choose to ask their constituents to accept risks of any kind. Denying death may be mentally unhealthy, but it is de rigueur in politics. And even though the Republican Party is going through a meltdown so grotesque that it makes Kafka's "The Metamorphosis" look like an inspiring tale of personal growth, Democrats continue to be terrified that the right will paint them as "soft on national security."
Above all, there is the very nature of terrorism, which is, well, terrifying. Because it is random, indiscriminate, driven by hatred, and seemingly pointless, terrorism taps into primordial human fears in a way that no other form of violence does. It is a monster that inhabits our collective id. Since 9/11, the word "terrorism" has been a totem, a quasi-religious myth, a nightmarish archetype that occupies the same place in our national imagination that "hell" did for the people of the Middle Ages. "Terrorism" blurs the boundaries of political and personal fear: It represents at once a thoroughly human evil to be hated and fought against, and the impersonal, fatalistic face of death itself. Terrorism is fate with a hideous face, like the White Whale that Ahab hates and tries to kill in Melville's "Moby-Dick." (Indeed, the Bush administration's unwinnable, endless, self-defeating "war on terror" is more than a little reminiscent of Ahab's obsessive quest -- which ends, it is well to remember, with the destruction of his ship and all of its crew save the narrator Ishmael.)
Because terrorism in our national imagination is simultaneously villain and nemesis, human and inhuman, the "war" against terrorism slips into becoming a war not just against fanatical jihadis but against our own death, against the very idea of death. As we accept this, repression of reality and the infantile fantasy of perfect safety -- in other words, cowardice -- become the driving forces of our lives.
This craven position dishonors a country whose troops fought at Valley Forge and Shiloh and Belleau Wood and Guadalcanal and Hue and Fallujah. It is not worthy of the mighty nation whose diverse people came together 60 years ago to help defeat the most dangerous tyrant in the history of humankind. But it is not an easy one for a politician to oppose. Indeed, the cadaverous Cheney, who has now fully embraced his role as the horrifying shadow of our national soul, is essentially accusing Obama of leading America toward death.
Once the argument is framed in these terms, Obama cannot win. By tacitly accepting Cheney's terms -- by shamefully proposing that we detain suspected terrorists indefinitely without real trials, or by refusing to release photographs of Americans torturing people in their control -- Obama has enabled and encouraged our diffuse national cowardice. The American people will continue to cling to irrational positions, like refusing to put convicted terrorists in supermax penitentiaries from which no one has ever escaped, until Obama puts the threat of terrorism in its correct perspective, removes it from the realm of metaphysics and nightmares and returns it to earth, as the ugly but manageable tactic that it is. The only way for Obama to break out of Cheney's trap is to reject the suppositions it is based on.
Cheney's death-obsessed vision found its ultimate expression in his notorious "1 percent doctrine." As revealed in Ron Suskind's eponymous book, the doctrine held that the U.S. should treat an even 1 percent chance of a terrorist attack as if it were a certainty. This doctrine was directly responsible for America's calamitous behavior in the last eight years. It led to policies and actions -- torture, targeted assassinations, indiscriminate aerial bombing, detention without trial, denial of habeas rights -- that only enrage previously neutral people, increase the number of potential terrorists and threaten our national security.
Which is exactly what al-Qaida and their ilk want. A few fanatical jihadis hiding in caves cannot fatally damage the United States: Only the United States can fatally damage the United States. Under the fearful reign of Bush and Cheney, America went a long way toward becoming a country its own citizens would not recognize. As his May 21 speech showed, Obama clearly realizes that many of the policies pursued by his predecessors are irrational, inhumane, unjust and self-defeating. But he has not repudiated their fundamental error, their misapprehension of the actual threat posed by Islamist terrorists.
Which is why Obama's left hand has consistently undone what his right hand has done. He is by nature a difference-splitter, a position that has its virtues. But some differences cannot be split. Either we are locked in an endless, self-defeating war on terror or we are not. Either our laws, traditions and freedoms are more important than an infantile dream of perfect, eternal safety, or they are not. Either we are clear-sighted enough to realize that different kinds of enemies require different responses and that treating a handful of jihadis as if they were the second coming of Nazi Germany is foolish, or we are not. Either we live in the land of the free or we do not.
Full text of the article can be found here. (http://www.salon.com/opinion/kamiya/2009/05/28/culture_of_fear/index.html)
Bravo!!
Most excellent post and intro!
I like and understand much of what is said, I don't totally agree with his analysis of Bush, but I don't totally disagree either...
I need to re-read when i have more time to focus....
But, Ex, I may shock you, and say .....................................................thanks for sharing.
Truly outstanding post Ex! I agree wholeheartedly! :yes:
America - love it or leave it.
Quote from: Exterminator on June 03, 2009, 01:08:42 PM
At various times in various discussions on these forums, I have supported the following positions:
1. That nothing can ever be done to insure that no terrorist attack will ever again take place on American soil and most of what has been done to prevent them does little more than provide the illusion of security.
Yup! As you know, I've been a long time proponent of the reality that 'no one is getting out of here alive'. The world is not now, has never been, and will never be 'safe' as the supporters of this insipid GWOT think it can be if 'America wins the WOT'.
Quote2. That things like torture, warrantless wiretaps, abandonment of habeus corpus and invasion of sovereign countries who are not a direct threat to the security of the United States are contrary to every principle on which this nation was founded and for which we once stood.
Yup! It's hard to claim to not be a pig when you're found wallowing in the pig sty with all the other pigs. ; )
Quote3. That when we abandon those principles, those who wish us harm win.
Exactly! Terrorism is action version of most propaganda - to manipulate the subject(s), through fear, into acting illogically and unreasonably against their own self interest. The lessening of even
one person's rights is a lessening of
all of our rights. To that effect, those using terrorism as a tactic won, by simple manipulation through fear, the war with 'The Great Satan' (America) years ago with amazingly low casualties (19) on their side. I would have never thought that this country would capitulate so easily. :'(
Quote4. That those who would willingly give up those principles for the aforementioned illusion of security are cowards who make a mockery of the memories of the brave souls who died rather than compromise that which made this country a bastion of freedom and fairness to the rest of the world.
Here's an interesting off topic point. It would be an extremely interesting statistic to determine the proportion of those professing religious beliefs who, supposedly looking forward to an unearthly paradise of some sort or another in the afterlife, allowed their fear of passing beyond that veil to direct their political decisions.
Things that make you go, 'Hmmmmmm."
Quote5. That the politicians of the last administration used those cowards' fear to make the threat of impending doom larger than life to further their own agendas and line the pockets of those in their circle.
A purpose of propaganda*. ; )
(* http://www.propagandacritic.com/ )
QuoteCheney's death-obsessed vision found its ultimate expression in his notorious "1 percent doctrine." As revealed in Ron Suskind's eponymous book, the doctrine held that the U.S. should treat an even 1 percent chance of a terrorist attack as if it were a certainty. This doctrine was directly responsible for America's calamitous behavior in the last eight years. It led to policies and actions -- torture, targeted assassinations, indiscriminate aerial bombing, detention without trial, denial of habeas rights -- that only enrage previously neutral people, increase the number of potential terrorists and threaten our national security.
I was just talking to someone today (you know who you are :wink: ) about possibilities and probabilities. Though many things in this universe
may be possible,
most are hardly probable. Logic dictates that we consider the possible, but plan for the probable. ; ) Under those considerations, the "1% doctrine" fails to pass. Of course when one's intent is to manipulate, those considerations just go out the window.
QuoteWhich is exactly what al-Qaida and their ilk want. A few fanatical jihadis hiding in caves cannot fatally damage the United States: Only the United States can fatally damage the United States.
Which is why that, though dealing with terrorism should be under the law enforcement realm, terrorists should be looked at as political propagandists looking to manipulate their victims through fear. It's an age-old means to achieve political/social change.
QuoteWhich is why Obama's left hand has consistently undone what his right hand has done. He is by nature a difference-splitter, a position that has its virtues. But some differences cannot be split.
True, as one can easily fall into the logical fallacy called The Middle Ground (http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/middle-ground.html).
I've seen this fallacy committed innumerable times - especially in political discussions.
Fallacy: Middle Ground
Also Known as: Golden Mean Fallacy, Fallacy of Moderation
Description of Middle Ground
This fallacy is committed when it is assumed that the middle position between two extremes must be correct simply because it is the middle position. this sort of "reasoning" has the following form:
1. Position A and B are two extreme positions.
2. C is a position that rests in the middle between A and B.
3. Therefore C is the correct position.
This line of "reasoning" is fallacious because it does not follow that a position is correct just because it lies in the middle of two extremes...
Now as to where else besides the GWOT I see Obama not living up to expectations, it is in his dealings with what should be the death and obvious failure of the concept of laissez-faire capitalism (and it's bastard stepchildren - Free Trade/Global Markets).
Just as Obama's not being direct in repudiating the GWOT and it's attendant <cough! cough!> philosophies, he's not being direct in repudiating laissez-faire capitalism in the wake of that philosophy's destruction of the economy and ensuing fallout on the working classes.
Both are main reasons I broke an almost thirty year tradition of voting Libertarian (my last partisan vote was the disastrous one in 1980 I cast for Ronnie Ray-Gun) to vote for Obama.
So far my expectations are highly unfulfilled. I hope he acts soon to change my view.
But that was not Obama's real problem. His real problem was his failure to forthrightly say that while terrorism remains a threat, its danger has been greatly overblown.
The danger has never been overblown! It's because our troops have knocked out most of Al Queda that we don't have the fear of it we once did. However, there is still plenty of danger, note the video of the Saudi who talks about bringing 4 pounds of WMD over the border to kill 330,000 Americans!
Quote from: Gardengirl on June 04, 2009, 01:30:42 AM
The danger has never been overblown!
Really? Prove it(TM)!
I'd really like to see if you have some solid argument rather than just Chicken Little fear as a basis for your claim.
Y,
Do you read?
Do you? You're just another one of the cowering sheep.