Monday, August 14, 2006
PHRIGHTENED PHILLIP
Phillip Adams, April 11, 2006:
You are as likely to be killed by lightning, a shark, a crocodile or a deranged teenager in Port Arthur as you are by a terrorist. Add up all the terrorist killings around the world in the past 10 years. It equals the number of Americans killed by handguns in just 10 months.
There is no monolithic terrorist threat and global transnational terrorism is the exception rather than the rule. Terrorism is a fragmented, essentially nationalist phenomenon. Of all the terrorist events from 1991 to 2001, 91 per cent were national in origin and target. These accounted for 94 per cent of the 32,264 fatalities. Terrorism needs to be rethought as a domestic policy issue rather than a military or security threat for the US or Australia.
Moreover, the trillions expended on an orchestrated panic means only a pittance is spent on the world’s real problems. On AIDS in Africa killing millions today. On the prevention of a bird flu pandemic that may well kill a hundred million tomorrow. On climate change, which may well kill the planet. If terrorism is madness, our response is madder still.
The truth of the matter is that terrorism doesn’t frighten Western leaders as much as they pretend. Rather it’s a potent weapon for political incumbents. Any magician will tell you that the secret of all conjuring tricks and illusions is misdirection. The audience is tricked into looking away while the switch is made or the trapdoor opened. Thus terror is used to trick the terrified, distracting attention from more urgent issues.
In Bush’s case, from poverty, public health, decaying infrastructure, environmental scandals, budget blowouts. If you take the nail clippers from air travellers they mightn’t notice the injustices of the Bush tax cuts.
Terrorism is the biggest example of misdirection since Hitler blamed Germany’s problems on the Jews. As he said: “If the Jews didn’t exist we’d have to invent them.”
In the same way, the West invents the terrorist threat.
Phillip Adams, August 15, 2006:
Let the record show that today I’ve cancelled my Qantas flight to London. It was scheduled to land at Heathrow on September 11.
UPDATE. Crittenden: “Y’know, you have to admire a man who isn’t afraid to stand up and tell the world, ‘I am a chickenshit hypocrite.’”