Saturday, September 04, 2010

No Worries

Fareed Zakaria is probably paid well as a pundit to say stuff like this:
Nine years after 9/11, can anyone doubt that Al Qaeda is simply not that deadly a threat? Since that gruesome day in 2001, once governments everywhere began serious countermeasures, Osama bin Laden’s terror network has been unable to launch a single major attack on high-value targets in the United States and Europe. While it has inspired a few much smaller attacks by local jihadis, it has been unable to execute a single one itself.
Not to say he doesn't have a point with some of the kneejerk security measures that border on a police state (cough, airports) and the crazy new levels of security in the workplace and public areas, which should be carefully scrutinized themselves, but thinking back this article appeared in the New York Times on July 10, 2001:
Judging from news reports and the portrayal of villains in our popular entertainment, Americans are bedeviled by fantasies about terrorism. They seem to believe that terrorism is the greatest threat to the United States and that it is becoming more widespread and lethal. They are likely to think that the United States is the most popular target of terrorists. And they almost certainly have the impression that extremist Islamic groups cause most terrorism.

None of these beliefs are based in fact.
Just sayin'. As Krauthammer suggests, the push may be on to funnel the money back to liberaland. If so, one might think it would help to have noted elite pundits declaring the threat overblown so as to help pave our way back home.

2 comments:

Right Truth said...

Tony Blair says the greatest threat we face if radical Islam.

Yes the Libs want all that money to spend on something else. Of course looking back I'm not sure we really needed the Homeland Security department in the first place. We already have agencies that, if they worked together, could have done the job. I could be wrong.

Debbie
Right Truth
http://www.righttruth.typepad.com

A.C. McCloud said...

I'd say the TSA has been a failure. Homeland Security not sure, but the bigger the apparatus gets, the more fiefdoms will form, and communications will not flow.

I agree with Blair of course, as I'm sure you do. Zakaria seems to be shilling with this post because it followed closely after Obama's Iraq speech, where close inspection reveals he was announcing a total pullout of combats forces in both theaters of the war, which tied to his mention of the economy. They are setting up another 9/11.