Pushing our buttons:
Vague warnings about ‘credible threats’ foster fears, raise questions of government’s
competence to fight terror at home
By David Neiwert
MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR
http://www.msnbc.com/news/651041.asp
Nov. 2 — Anthrax and hijacked airliners are horrific enough, but they pale in
comparison to the possibility that the government is no longer competent at protecting
the public from those threats. Such a public perception, especially if it became
widespread, would spread fear even more effectively than an actual attack. Yet the
Bush administration’s mixed messages over threats of new terrorist attacks — amplified
by aggressive, 24/7 media coverage — have moved us another step closer to realizing
that once-remote prospect.
The American public is at its worst when it is egged into a state of fearfulness by
its own government.
THE CONFUSED and seemingly impotent investigation into the series of anthrax
attacks that have struck the East Coast, coupled with vague and perhaps unnecessary
warnings of impending terrorist action, have raised very real concerns about the
competence of the agencies handling these matters.
Congressional leaders on Tuesday confronted administration officials about
their concerns. And on Thursday in California, the problem came into sharp focus when
Gov. Gray Davis, finally providing some specifics, announced that a number of
suspension bridges in his state were being threatened with an attack; yet within hours
a Justice Department spokesperson was contradicting him, saying that the information
(provided by the FBI) was “not as credible as the information we shared on Monday” —
that is, the general warning that some kind of attack might be in the offing somewhere
this week. Meanwhile, eight western states are on alert after an FBI warning about
possible attacks on suspension bridges.
CONFLICTING REPORTS
The problems date back to Attorney General John Ashcroft’s performance in a
press conference on Oct. 18, when it became clear that the investigation into the
anthrax mailed to media outlets and key politicians was quickly going nowhere. Asked
whether the Justice Department was any closer to making any arrests in the anthrax
cases, Ashcroft answered: “We have significantly more information than we started
with. That’s how I would characterize it.”
There also have been conflicting reports from the investigation. Initially the
focus was on Osama bin Laden and the al-Qaida network’s complicity in the mailings. In
recent days, however, reports in the Washington Post and elsewhere have indicated that
investigators are now examining the likelihood that domestic terrorists were
responsible. But Ashcroft’s references to this possibility have suggested that he has
only a tenuous grasp of how domestic terrorism has organized in the United States
during the past 10 years.
Now comes the “terrorist threat advisory,” the Justice Department’s warning to
law-enforcement agencies nationwide to be in a heightened state of alert through this
week. Ashcroft and Homeland Defense Chief Tom Ridge both cited “credible” sources that
indicated a serious terrorist attack would take place in that time — but would not
provide anything more specific.
LESSONS FROM HISTORY
The problem with such a warning is that there is only a marginal chance of its
actually preventing an attack, and a considerably higher likelihood that it will
backfire and actually harm the nation’s chances of responding to terrorist threats
successfully. Consider the lessons of history.
Fears of domestic terror after Pearl Harbor made life miserable for thousands of
Japanese-Americans sent to internment camps.
In the days and weeks immediately following the Dec. 7, 1941, attack on Pearl
Harbor, a wave of fear swept up and down America’s West Coast. Public officials began
trumpeting unfounded rumors that the disaster had been a direct result of “fifth
column” activity by Japanese-American spies in Hawaii (a report that later proved to
be completely groundless). Soon the papers began hawking stories predicated on fears
of an imminent invasion. The Los Angeles Times ran headlines like “Jap Boat Flashes
Message Ashore” and “Caps on Japanese Tomato Plants Point to Air Base” — and the
public quickly jumped aboard. Reports of “signals” being sent out from shore to
unknown, mysterious Japanese boats offshore began flowing in.
The end result of all this hysteria was one of the great black marks on
American history: internment of some 110,000 people of Japanese descent (70,000 of
them American citizens) from 1942 to 1945 in barbed-wire camps. That spring of 1942,
the populace and politicians demanded the removal of the “spies” from the Pacific
Coast, citing the “imminent threat” their presence posed. Today, few historians doubt
that it would have taken place without the active encouragement of groundless fears by
public officials.
The lesson in all this for the Bush administration should be obvious: The
American public is at its worst when it is egged into a state of fearfulness by its
own government, and may even be induced into committing travesties of justice for its
own “self-protection.”
The administration also needs to consider the nature of the public’s typical
reaction to such dire warnings, which inspired in 1941 a deluge of red herrings and
misinformation that wound up impeding law enforcement from performing its regular
important work. Ashcroft’s warning is more likely than not to inspire precisely the
same kind of overload, swamping officers and switchboards with reports of impending
terrorist acts, while diluting the ability of those personnel to respond to genuine
threats.
THE UNHAPPY SCENARIOS
If the warning is a success, and a terrorist threat is actually prevented, then
Ashcroft’s decision to raise the fear level among the general public will have proven
correct. But the likelihood of that happening is relatively slim — and that is the
only scenario under which raising these kinds of alarms makes sense.
If, for instance, terrorists pull off a successful attack in spite of the
warning, then the federal powers in charge of preventing this will look even more
impotent. And then the fear level of Americans will skyrocket, because it will be
clear to them that even intense scrutiny will not make them safe.
On the other hand, if an act of terrorism is prevented silently — that is, its
would-be perpetrators are forced to retrench and wait — then the only thing gained is
time. The likelihood of its eventual enactment will remain the same; those terrorists
are still free to act, perhaps at a time when Americans’ guards are let down,
especially if nothing happens during the week ahead.
Indeed, that is the most likely scenario, and the most problematic. If the week
in fact goes by and no terrorist acts occur, then the credibility of the government
will take a terrific hit on the domestic front. If the administration attempts to
claim the fact that no terrorism occurred actually justifies its warning, it will risk
looking like those apocalyptic cults who have at various times announced the impending
end of the world and then, when such doom fails to materialize, credited the prayers
of its followers for saving mankind.
At the same time, a non-event will only perpetuate a rising perception among
the public that Ashcroft and other top officials may lack the competence to do this
job properly. Like the villagers who heard the shepherd boy cry “Wolf!” once too
often, there is a grave danger that Americans will be lulled by these warnings into a
refusal to respond when the threat is real.
David Neiwert is author of “In God’s Country: The Patriot Movement and the Pacific
Northwest” and is an expert on domestic terrorism. His “Threat From Within” a report
on domestic terrorism for MSNBC.com, won a National Press Club award for distinguished
online journalism.
Forwarded to you as a courtesy by buzzflash.com
_______________________________________________________________________
Powered by List Builder
To unsubscribe follow the link:
http://lb.bcentral.com/ex/manage/subscriberprefs?customerid=9353&subid=F2DA323431402EA4&msgnum=558
