Today we learn from the associated press (via the Toronto Star) that “The FBI and Homeland Security Department say they have no indication that terrorists are targeting the U.S. or its citizens as part of a new threat against Europe.”
Come again? The fact that something is NOT the case is breaking news? And we should accompany this with a photo of police guarding the British House of Commons?
Despite the non-news, Japan has issued a travel advisory for Japanese citizens traveling in Europe and Americans have been advised not to wear American flags on their clothing when abroad. I first became aware of the heightened fear thanks to a Sept 29th article in the New York Times. I defy you to read the story and find anything that can connect its claims to the real world.
Considers its sources:
Paragraph 1: European and American officials.
Paragraph 2: American intelligence and counterterrorism officials.
Paragraph 3: One Western official in Europe.
Paragraph 4: A senior French official.
Paragraph 5: ditto
Paragraph 6: European officials.
Paragraph 7: European officials.
Paragraph 8: ditto
Paragraph 9: Finally we get the name of a real person: Juan C. Zarate, a former senior counterterrorism official in the Bush Administration. A former official? But wait. He’s currently an adviser (as opposed to an official) — no, a senior adviser — with the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Which means what?
Paragraph 10: We get two for the price of one. We get Intelligence officials and a senior American counterterrorism official.
Paragraph 11: We get more names here, too. “President Obama has received several briefings from John O. Brennan, his senior counterterrorism adviser.” But we learn this vital news from a senior administration official.
Paragraph 12: The senior official we met in paragraph 11.
Paragraph 13: We get another name: James R. Clapper Jr. He issued a statement in response to other media coverage which, I assume, cited various important officials.
Paragraph 14: Mr. Clapper’s statement.
Paragraph 15: A statement from Germany’s Interior Ministry acknowledging that “there are no concrete pointers to imminent attacks.”
Paragraph 16: French officials. Though they cite an incident in the Niger region which must be in Europe since that’s what this article is about.
Paragraph 17: German intelligence officials and a senior European official.
Paragraph 18: The same senior European official cited in paragraph 17.
Paragraph 19: Another French official.
Paragraph 20: American officials (2X)
I would love to get the authors of this story to help me pad my resumé. In all of this, the only paragraph that even makes an attempt to understand the news is paragraph 19 when “Another French official speculated that the leak of Washington’s concerns about attacks in Europe by the Pakistani Qaeda and the Taliban was meant to justify the increasing drone attacks on targets in Pakistan …”
Yup.
Articles like this demonstrate how easy it is for the media to be pressed into service as instruments of terror. Maybe not the kind of terror one associates with al Qaeda (assuming such an organization even exists). More the kind of terror we call an uncritical mind. It seems appropriate to quote FDR here: “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror…”