(U-WIRE) LOS ANGELES — Nearly two and a half years after the Twin Towers in New York City were leveled by jet airliners, there are some things that I still fail to understand about our national reaction to the attacks.
This, for example: Why is it that the residents of big cities such as New York City and Los Angeles, who actually have cause to worry about terrorist attacks, are fairly calm, while the people of places such as Cow Udder, Mo., seem to be horribly concerned about having a weapons of mass destruction detonated in their idyllic backwater communities?
Take the greeting on the Alabama Homeland Security Web site, for example: “Thank you for visiting the Web site of your Alabama Department of Homeland Security. Because you are taking the time to increase your awareness about homeland security and how to prepare your family to live in this unfortunate era of global terrorism, I consider you an equal partner in Alabama’s efforts to keep the scourge of terrorism out of our state.”
If I didn’t know better, reading that might instill me with the impression that Alabama has had a continuing problem with “the scourge of terrorism,” a sporadic problem, even a single incident to speak of.
This past week, U.S. Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska informed the students of a local high school that the risk of terrorists attacking Nebraska was low … but not nonexistent. Don’t let your guard down now, Nebraska!
Last spring, The News ‘ Observer, a Raleigh-based newspaper ran a piece praising local Mormons who were stockpiling massive quantities of food and supplies in case of “hurricane, tornado, earthquake, ice storm or terrorist attack.”
“In addition to the basement pantry, the family has a working garden in the back yard, a well and a generator. Fuel is one item they don’t have, but [Dennis] Moore is thinking about ways to solve that problem, too.”
The lesson? “When it comes to planning ahead, whether for a terrorist attack or a hurricane, other Americans can take a lesson from the Mormons” (“The self-reliance doctrine,” March 19, 2003).
These are just a few examples of a weird psychological reaction that some Americans have had to September 11, reflecting a kind of siege mentality that hasn’t been seen since the end of the Cold War. Frankly, it’s ridiculous.
Not to disparage any folks in the heartland who might be reading this, but what on earth are you worrying about? This isn’t the Cold War. We don’t have an enemy superpower with tens of thousands of ready-to-launch hydrogen bombs trained on our soil. This isn’t to say that terrorist attacks on a city such as New York wouldn’t hurt the economy all over our country.
But you don’t need an underground bomb shelter with a year’s supply of food and an electrical generator in order to weather an economic downturn. These people are getting ready for Armageddon.
Let’s think about this realistically for a moment. What are the chances that terrorists, interested in doing the greatest harm to American prestige and commerce with one or two well-placed attacks, are going to run off and blow up something in (of all possible places) Nebraska? Pretty vanishingly small, I’d say. Even “nonexistent,” despite what Sen. Nelson says.
And what is someone living in Northeast Raleigh, of all places, doing planning for what seems to be a catastrophic nuclear event?
And what on earth is the local media thinking, promoting this kind of dysfunctional, paranoid behavior among the residents of Raleigh?
Maybe the constant “high” terror warnings have finally really gotten to people. Or maybe it’s the arsenic in the drinking water. Either way, this national paranoia has simply got to stop. We can’t afford to have a frightened populace, because a frightened populace is an easily manipulated populace.
My alternative? Focus coverage on the comparatively grounded people who actually live in New York and on their opinions regarding terrorism.
Maybe that sounds silly, but I can justify it. Do you remember the terror futures market that John Poindexter resigned over last year? The fundamental principle behind it was that markets are phenomenally good predictors of all sorts of weird phenomena, presumably because the participants all have something at stake in guessing right.
So here’s my thought — not dying is a pretty good incentive, right? Wouldn’t you think that maybe the New Yorkers have some clue as to what’s best for the country in terms of stopping terrorism?
New York natives have not been impressed by all the flag-waving of the Bush administration. They want to see fully funded customs offices, they want fully funded first-responders, and they want checks of more than 3 percent of all the packages entering our ports.
These are all things Bush has unequivocally dropped the ball on these past few years, and any Democratic rival will happily incorporate them into his platform. Howard Dean, for one, already has.
So really, whether the Democrats can use national security as an election issue all depends on whether the public continues to give in to fearmongering.
— Craig Stern is a columnist from the Daily Trojan (U. Southern California).
