

America's Chronic Overreaction to Terrorism - markprovan
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324653004578650462392053732.html

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DamnYuppie
This is a conversation that we need to continually have as a nation and I am
glad to see it being covered in more "mainstream" press.

What are we giving up to gain our freedom and is it worth it in the long run?
The intelligence apparatus our nation has constructed only has value as long
as we have fear, they are thereby induced to continually keep us in a state of
fear whether real or fabricated. My biggest fear is that many of these recent
"terrorist incidents", not 9/11, were in fact created by our own
agencies...yes a bit of a tin foil hat scenario to be sure but one that is not
all together unreasonable given the current revelations.

~~~
Zelphyr
> many of these recent "terrorist incidents", not 9/11, were in fact created
> by our own agencies

I don't think they consciously did it. But I do think our policies and heavy-
handedness have created more terrorists than we've defeated.

~~~
mpweiher
While the indirect creation of terrorists is certainly also a factor, the
direct method of creating plots that you can then "foil" has been widely
documented and analyzed:

[http://www.wenatcheeworld.com/news/2007/may/11/paid-fbi-
info...](http://www.wenatcheeworld.com/news/2007/may/11/paid-fbi-informant-
egged-on-terror-suspects/)

[http://politicalscience.osu.edu/faculty/jmueller/absisfin.pd...](http://politicalscience.osu.edu/faculty/jmueller/absisfin.pdf)

[http://politicalscience.osu.edu/faculty/jmueller/since.html](http://politicalscience.osu.edu/faculty/jmueller/since.html)

[http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120917/05193620404/fbi-
co...](http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120917/05193620404/fbi-continues-to-
foil-its-own-devised-terrorist-plots.shtml)

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chiph
For the past century or so, America has needed an "enemy" in order to provide
an opponent to focus on. For years, it was the Soviets and Communism, but with
the quick collapse of the Iron Curtain, we suddenly lacked one. Luckily (!)
terrorism stepped up as a replacement, and well, here we are. Victorious, at
the cost of our treasure and our morals.

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norswap
You fight terrorism by refusing to be terrorized. America (or at least, its
successive governments) failed from the start.

~~~
saraid216
So how do I fight pithy one-liners that have no substance?

~~~
norswap
Fight fire with fire they say. You seem to be doing well :)

Snide remark aside, I'll admit that my comment is not very insightful, because
it is pretty much common knowledge. That does not make it any less true
though.

The aim of a terrorist is to instill terror in the population. I don't delude
myself I thinking you can carry on as if nothing happened, but the measures
that are taken should be an appropriate response to the threat, not born out
of fear or an effort to soothe the population. If you don't let an irrational
fear take hold of you, then all the terrorist efforts have been in vain.

That is also more or less the point of the article, I just laid it out more
tersely.

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djcjr
Seems deliberately deceitful.

After listing historical terrorist events and responses, Mr. Koppel tries to
lump in our invasion of Iraq as an over-sized reaction to terrorism from 9/11
which happened eighteen months earlier.

The invasion of Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, it was about oil, as we all
know now, after the propaganda has died down and people have generally gone
back to sleep.

The loss of privacy and rights since then, and currently, is our govt
misbehaving, and also has nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism.

~~~
mikeash
The invasion of Iraq had everything to do with 9/11\. Without 9/11 or
something like it, there never would have been enough support for an invasion
of Iraq to actually carry it out.

Yes, among the people at the top who planned it, it was not a reaction to
terrorism. But the public support for it absolutely was.

Our democracy is far from perfect, and much of government is corrupt, but the
government is still by and large a reflection of the people. The _people 's_
massive overreaction to terrorism allows, even requires, the government to do
bad stuff like invade Iraq, wiretap every American phone call, and more.

We need to convince the _people_ to stop overreacting to terrorism so that the
_government_ loses that excuse to misbehave.

~~~
userulluipeste
"Without 9/11 or something like it, there never would have been enough support
for an invasion of Iraq to actually carry it out."

Why not? It happened before, how could it not happen again? Actually, seen
from outside of U.S., the Iraq events that followed the reinstatement of the
Bush family appear very naturally, those were like... family policy!

~~~
mikeash
Even with 9/11, there was massive public opposition to the invasion. However,
9/11 had caused a massive shift overall, resulting in _much_ greater popular
support for the government in general and the administration in particular,
and it caused the Democrats to abdicate their role as the "loyal opposition"
and instead become rubber stamps. Additionally, 9/11 was used to drum up a
great deal of additional support for the invasion by painting it as part of
the war on terror. I don't believe it was ever outright stated, but it was
heavily implied that Iraq was partially responsible for 9/11, and that the
invasion would prevent future attacks.

In a hypothetical world without 9/11, the Bush administration would still want
to invade Iraq, no doubt. It's been shown that they started the project of
figuring out how to do it well before. But I don't think they'd be able to
pull it off. Public opposition would have been _much_ greater, Congressional
opposition would have actually happened, and I don't think they would have
been able to steamroll over that, or even anywhere close.

Bush more or less came into office as a lame duck. He was the first president
in living memory to have won the election while losing the popular vote. He
was often thought of as a buffoon, and even his supporters, in my experience,
supported him more out of team spirit than because they actually thought he
was some brilliant leader. I believe that, in this environment, the default
position on a proposed invasion of Iraq would have been a solid "no, why would
you even want to do that?"

But mix in 9/11 and the following year and a half of terrorist-related
paranoia and fighting, and a lot of people changed their minds to "yes, we
must support our leaders in their glorious fight against the al Qaeda menace."

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D9u
I love (not!) the way people who were against domestic surveillance when the
previous administration was caught doing it are now strangely quiet after the
current administration admits to doing the same.

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ape4
I hope the US is actually doing something smart/tricky. The CIA (or whoever)
say this is because of some chatter. Can't they decode the chatter? Maybe they
are pretending they can't.

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adamtj
I would bet that this particular incident is not like the others. This strikes
me as an intentional overreaction by a government trying hard to justify their
surveillance programs.

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mtgx
Wait, is this a trap article? This is coming from WSJ?

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avty
It's not an overreaction, it's the agenda.

~~~
jbooth
It's both. The news isn't pushing a particular agenda, they'll take anything
that pushes people's buttons and grabs their eyeballs, whether it's this or
another missing white girl.

~~~
avty
The news most definitely pushes their funding partner's agenda. Also, they
mostly get's their material from well funded sources (with agenda) instead of
themselves nowadays.

~~~
jbooth
I'd call it "avoids reporting stories that hurt their funding partner" more
than "pushing the agenda" personally. Very subjective opinion, though.

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iterationx
Everyone who perpetuates the lies of the official narrative of 911 is co-
builder of the police state.

When you help build the prison, don't be surprised when you find yourself in
it.

~~~
avty
The downvotes only proves your right.

~~~
mnazim
Comment got down votes, not because the commenter was right or wrong, but for
the rhetoric commentary that basically does not contribute anything
constructive to the discussion. It's sort of an _I told you so_ rhetoric.

~~~
swamp40
I'll bet at least some people downvoted him because they believe 9/11 truthers
most certainly _are_ wrong.

