{"id":2945,"date":"2006-08-26T14:47:24","date_gmt":"2006-08-26T21:47:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2006\/08\/26\/dont-be-scared\/"},"modified":"2006-08-27T02:06:52","modified_gmt":"2006-08-27T09:06:52","slug":"dont-be-scared","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2006\/08\/26\/dont-be-scared\/","title":{"rendered":"Don&#8217;t be scared"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Why would anyone support the American <a href=\"http:\/\/www.boston.com\/news\/globe\/editorial_opinion\/oped\/articles\/2006\/08\/26\/the_cheney_presidency\/\">president<\/a>  at this point? The answer is simple: Cowardice.<\/p>\n<p>Republicans are <a href=\"http:\/\/tinyurl.com\/h9kwt\">sissies<\/a>. They talk tough and drive trucks, but in truth are very afraid that a scary Arabic Islamo-Fascist\u00e2\u201e\u00a2 is going to come to hurt them \u00e2\u20ac\u201c for <a href=\"http:\/\/www.smh.com.au\/news\/world\/the-terrorism-theory-bush-refuses-to-hear\/2006\/08\/25\/1156012739242.html\">no reason<\/a> except perhaps jealousy \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and because they are so frightened, they <a href=\"http:\/\/www.affbrainwash.com\/genehealy\/archives\/021336.php\">need<\/a> a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2006\/05\/18\/washington\/18budget.html?ei=5088&amp;en=61be1d126bbd9acb&amp;ex=1305604800&amp;partner=rssnyt&amp;emc=rss&amp;pagewanted=print\">massive<\/a>  <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2006\/08\/17\/washington\/17screeners.html?ei=5070&amp;en=4f45801388ebdad5&amp;ex=1156737600&amp;pagewanted=print\">police  state<\/a> to fight their battles (all the while <a href=\"http:\/\/antiwar.com\/paul\/?articleid=2720\">pretending<\/a> it could never be  used against them).<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s a good thing for these Republicans&#8217; congressmen that the passengers on Flight 93 \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the fourth plane on 9\/11, and the only plane whose passengers had <a href=\"http:\/\/tinyurl.com\/q2c3x\">heard<\/a> that others had been crashed rather than flown to Cuba \u00e2\u20ac\u201c weren&#8217;t Republicans. They probably would have hid like children in the back of the plane waiting for the cops to come instead of trying to take it back, leading to a suicidal dive into the U.S. Capital building rather than a field in Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n<p>Every &#8220;terror threat&#8221; in this country since 9\/11 (that&#8217;s 2001, <a href=\"http:\/\/news.yahoo.com\/s\/afp\/20060809\/od_afp\/usattackspolloffbeat_060809145351;_ylt=ArnrtaXH3JkyylylP\">dummy<\/a>)  has been a joke. A joke that, as the great <a href=\"http:\/\/tinyurl.com\/g5wou\">James Bovard<\/a> points out, results in a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.news.cornell.edu\/releases\/Oct04\/terrorist.Bush.ssl.html\">ratings  boost<\/a> for the president <a href=\"http:\/\/www.indystar.com\/apps\/pbcs.dll\/article?AID=\/20060822\/NEWS06\/608220387\/-1\/ZONES04\">every  time<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>(<a href=\"http:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2006\/04\/16\/indict-the-department-of-justice\/\">This  entry<\/a> on the topic was written before, and so omits, the latest hoaxes in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.npr.org\/templates\/story\/story.php?storyId=5540997\">Miami<\/a>,  <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nydailynews.com\/front\/story\/433227p-364959c.html\">New  York<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.timesonline.co.uk\/article\/0,,29389-2208222,00.html\">the<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theregister.co.uk\/2006\/08\/17\/flying_toilet_terror_labs\/print.html\">U.K.<\/a> See also, Keith Olberman, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153<a href=\"http:\/\/www.rawstory.com\/news\/2006\/Olbermann_The_Nexus_of_politics_and_0815.html\">The Nexus of Politics and Terror<\/a>\u00e2\u20ac\u009d)<\/p>\n<p>Even <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.foreignaffairs.org\/\">Foreign Affairs<\/a><\/em> \u00e2\u20ac\u201c  champions of every bogus threat and the subsequent wars against them since 1921  \u00e2\u20ac\u201c has published <a href=\"http:\/\/www.foreignaffairs.org\/20060901facomment85501\/john-mueller\/is-there-still-a-terrorist-threat.html\">an  article<\/a> questioning whether there are even any terrorists out there at all:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;On the first page of its founding manifesto, the massively funded Department of Homeland Security intones, &#8216;Today\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s terrorists can strike at any place, at any time, and with virtually any weapon.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;But if it is so easy to pull off an attack and if terrorists are so demonically competent, why have they not done it? Why have they not been sniping at people in shopping centers, collapsing tunnels, poisoning the food supply, cutting electrical lines, derailing trains, blowing up oil pipelines, causing massive traffic jams, or exploiting the countless other vulnerabilities that, according to security experts, could so easily be exploited? &#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Although it remains heretical to say so, the evidence so far suggests that fears of the omnipotent terrorist &#8230; may have been overblown, the threat presented within the United States by al Qaeda greatly exaggerated. The massive and expensive homeland security apparatus erected since 9\/11 may be persecuting some, spying on many, inconveniencing most, and taxing all to defend the United States against an enemy that scarcely exists.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.msnbc.msn.com\/id\/13600653\/site\/newsweek\/\">Maybe Mohammed  Atta was the very best Osama had<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>In any case, <a href=\"http:\/\/antiwar.com\/horton\/?articleid=6654\">the purpose  of 9\/11<\/a> was <a href=\"http:\/\/tinyurl.com\/eobz8\">to bait the U.S.<\/a> into the  jihadist sandtrap \u00e2\u20ac\u201c <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2004\/WORLD\/meast\/11\/01\/binladen.tape\/\">so that<\/a> our  government would bankrupt us fighting no-win wars on foreign soil until we leave  the region entirely. With the murder of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.september11victims.com\/september11victims\/victims_list.htm\">so  many<\/a> innocents in the 9\/11 attacks, bin Laden lost much of his image as a defender rather than aggressor. It would be a tactical mistake for him to hit the U.S. again now. <strong>The plan already worked<\/strong><em>.<\/em> By invading and occupying Afghanistan and Iraq, the Bush\/Cheney administration has split the difference for the jihadist factions who fought over whether to fight the &#8220;near&#8221; or &#8220;far&#8221; enemy and settled the question of whether or not the U.S. was the aggressor. Now the far enemy is near \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rawstory.com\/news\/2006\/Bush_calls_Lebanon_aid_troops_0821.html\">vows<\/a>  that it isn&#8217;t going anywhere. The al Qaeda &#8220;inspired&#8221; attacks on our allies are  intended to isolate us from them, and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/news\/main.jhtml?xml=\/news\/2006\/08\/17\/nterror17.xml\">that&#8217;s  working too<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>That doesn&#8217;t mean that future attacks in the U.S. are impossible, just  unlikely as long as &#8220;we&#8221; are <a href=\"http:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/scheuer\/?articleid=9369\">doing bin Laden&#8217;s work for  him<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nybooks.com\/articles\/19092\">the King<\/a>&#8216;s  subjects quake at every <a href=\"http:\/\/www.msnbc.msn.com\/id\/5594697\/site\/newsweek\/\">Orange Alert<\/a> as we  all lose the liberty that made America worth fighting for in the first  place.<\/p>\n<p>If you want to be safe and free, buy <a href=\"http:\/\/www.law.ucla.edu\/volokh\/2amteach\/sources.htm\">a gun<\/a> and tell  your congressman to stop <a href=\"http:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/printables\/fact\/060821fa_fact\">meddling<\/a> in  the Middle East.<\/p>\n<p>Comments welcome over at <a href=\"http:\/\/thestressblog.com\/2006\/08\/26\/dont-be-scared\/\">Stress<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Why would anyone support the American president at this point? The answer is simple: Cowardice. Republicans are sissies. They talk tough and drive trucks, but in truth are very afraid that a scary Arabic Islamo-Fascist\u00e2\u201e\u00a2 is going to come to hurt them \u00e2\u20ac\u201c for no reason except perhaps jealousy \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and because they are so [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[676],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-2945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-antiwar-movement"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/39"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2945"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2945\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2945"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=2945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}