There exists in this country a new culture of fear, but it is notthe one purportedly being advanced by the Bush administration forre-election attempts. Instead, the opposition is fomenting it. It isbeing fomented when the ACLU would have us believe the Patriot Act iscreating an FBI similar to the Gestapo or Stasi. It is being fomentedwhen a “peace at any cost” movement accuses the president ofmanipulating the public with fears of terrorism. It is being fomentedwhen ardent Democrats paint Attorney General John Ashcroft as abogeyman of diminished civil rights.
The more radical elements advocating this culture of fear go sofar as to worry more about “the enemy within” (a la Timothy McVeigh)and the diminished “global popularity” of America than about the truethreats to society. It is not, as was originally stated by Sen.Arthur Vandenburg to former President Truman, “scaring the hell outof the American people” to worry about terrorists and attempt, by anymeans necessary, to prevent and eliminate these threats. Thesecontemptuous elements want the people at large to believe the Bushadministration is attempting to create a militarized fascist state.
Cutting into their rhetoric merely provides the two clear pointsto their argument: First, a vehement dislike of the currentadministration, but most troubling is an ignorance of the very natureof terrorism. Vladimir I. Lenin stated, “The objective of terrorismis to terrorize.” Last week’s events clearly attest to that. Eighteenbombings and shootings killed 63 people in early October innortheastern India, according to CNN. A suspected suicide bomb onOct. 1 and a car bombing on Oct. 7 in Pakistan killed at least 70 andinjured more than 100, according to a Pakistani paper, Daily Times.Three separate attacks on holiday resorts on the Sinai Peninsula inEgypt targeting vacationing Israelis, killed 35 and wounded more than160, according to The Herald Sun. What should be clear is thatterrorists will relentlessly pursue their separatist and/or murderousagendas with a total disregard to the level of casualties inflictedupon the innocent. For them, more dead indicates a higher level ofsuccess.
As Bush affirmed: “If America shows weakness or uncertainty inthis decade, the world will drift toward tragedy.” There have alreadybeen multiple attacks against this country: the World Trade Centerbombing in 1993, U.S. embassies in Africa in 1998, the USS Cole in2000 and the tragedies of Sept. 11. Thousands have been killed. Thisis an incontrovertible fact that cannot be ignored nor forgotten. Andthe above examples of continuing acts of terrorism clearly prove thethreat has not vanished.
It is really unfortunate that we are left with severe militarymeasures to conquer this foe. Nevertheless, it is the truth, for itwould be na
