'Apocalyptic Fear'; Americans More Scared Than Ever The WE News Archives

Published on Thursday, September 11, 2003 by the Toronto Star

Living in 'Apocalyptic Fear'

Americans More Scared Than Ever

WASHINGTON — Two years on, the shock has dissipated, the memory is more distant, but the fear remains.

Poll after poll released on the eve of today's second anniversary of the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington find Americans more fearful and fatalistic than they were a year ago, when the need to honor the victims supplanted the recurring vision of another attack.

Everything else which spiked upward in the immediate aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001 suicide hijackings — support for the government, a return to religion, even a trust of the media — has returned to pre-attack "normals."

"Everything but the `new normal,'" says Carroll Doherty of the Pew Research Center."The prevalent view in this country is that they can strike again, anywhere, anytime, and the government can't stop it.

"The apocalyptic fear is definitely here to stay, at least in the foreseeable future."

That fear returned yesterday when the Arabic television channel Al-Jazeera aired a video of Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahri, who vows to "bury" American troops in Iraq.

If Americans are fearful, says Harper's magazine editor Lewis Lapham, a leading American commentator, it's because they are being sold fear by the government of George W. Bush.

"Pretty well all the Bush administration has got going for it now is this foreign war," Lapham said. "Fear is something this administration has been selling for two years.

"You sedate the populace with the drug of fear and maybe the electorate won't notice what a mess you have made, not only of domestic politics, but also our international relations.

"In order to conceal, disguise, dress up their own incompetence, they beat the constant threat of war and fear."

Bush took that message of fear with him yesterday in a speech at an FBI training Center. in Quantico, Va., where he called for expanded police powers against suspected terrorists.

In so doing, Bush appears to have picked up the torch from his attorney-general, John Ashcroft, who has been accused of trampling civil rights in a growing national debate over his USA Patriot Act, which was passed after the 2001 attacks.

"The enemy is wounded but still resourceful and actively recruiting and still dangerous. We cannot afford a moment of complacency," Bush said.

"The memories of Sept. 11 will never leave us. We will not forget the burning towers and the last phone calls and the smoke over Arlington.

"And we will never forget the servants of evil who plotted the attacks. And we will never forget those who rejoiced at our grief and our mourning," Bush said.

Bush immediately drew the ire of the American Civil Liberties Union for using the tragic anniversary of more than 3,000 deaths to promote tougher police measures.

Lapham said it was just another example of the marketing of terror.

"That's what Ashcroft is doing," he said, "going around the country promoting the USA Patriot Act, saying, `There's a terrorist on everybody's block and unless you give us these Draconian powers, the bogeyman is going to come and get you.'"

"You know, the last two years they've been putting up these warning flags, like heavy surf at the beach. Blue, red, yellow, whatever it is.

"The American public is sophisticated enough to know that there are terrorists in the world and the world is a dangerous place. But it has been dangerous for many years."

Still, when the New York Times and CBS News polled 976 New Yorkers Aug. 31 to Sept. 4, they found more residents are fearful of another attack or report feeling more nervous or edgy than they did a year ago.

Tom Riehle, president of Washington-based Ipsos-Public Affairs, in a poll done for the Orlando Sentinel, found 91 per cent of Americans doubt terrorism will ever be eliminated.

The current Pew survey also found terrorism concerns reached a peak in February, shortly after the terrorist warning was raised to a Code Orange — the so-called "warning flags" Lapham refers to — perhaps indicating the government is sowing fear itself.

Earth, a planet
hungry for peace

The Israeli apartheid (land grab) wall
around Palestinian population centers.

The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers in the West Bank, like a Python (Alquds, 1/25/03.

US is turning a deaf ear to good advice
George S. Hishmeh

Special to Gulf News 25-09-2003

Never before has the United States appeared so alone as when President George W. Bush spoke at the opening session of the UN General Assembly on Tuesday night, pleading for international support to shore up the flagging American occupation of Iraq and its discredited policy on pre-emption, an approach initiated by the Israelis in their 1967 war against the Arabs.

The United States finds itself in this regrettable position mainly because President Bush has banked on the neoconservatives of his administration who had championed an ill-considered foreign policy course that has yet to show promise on many international issues, particularly in the Middle East.

Stone-walling, Bush turned a deaf ear to the rising chorus of criticism against his rationale for acting pre-emptively in Iraq, most likely because of the serious drop in his popularity at home after the war in Iraq and the downward trend in the US economy.

"There is something deeply ironic," commented Anthony Cordesman of the Centre for Strategic Studies in washington DC, "about going to the United Nations to seek military help to deal with the aftermath of a war the UN asked be delayed, a war the United States fought to deal with a threat that so far does not seem to have existed, and a war in which the United States needs military assistance to deal with the aftermath of a major 'victory'."

But the most stinging criticism came from UN Secretary General Kofi Annan who warned that a policy of pre-emption, as was with the American-led war, could lead to "a proliferation of the unilateral and lawless use of force".

The American president received a humiliating 20 -second applause at the conclusion of his remarks, a sharp contrast to the praise he won last year when he agreed to seek, albeit without success, support from the UN Security Council for his military action against the regime of Saddam Hussain.

Much as he seemed stubborn about his self-righteous position on Iraq, the Bush administration was equally unresponsive to the Jordanian delegation lead by King Abdullah when they visited Washington and Camp David, the presidential retreat, last week.

Jordanian Foreign Minister Marwan Muasher told the Washington Association of Arab Journalists that the US administration was adamant against promising any move in the stalled peace process before the Palestinians, first and foremost, tackle the "security problem", meaning the freehand that Hamas and other like-minded Palestinian militant groups seem to have.

"There aren't any new ideas within the administration," he said, on the next steps or dealing with the fate of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, who has been shunned by the Americans and Israelis.   The administration would not deal with him "under any circumstances" and would not entertain new ideas about circumventing the aging Palestinian leader who has won renewed attention thanks to Israeli threats.

"If the (Palestinian) security issue is treated, the US is ready to accelerate the peace process," he said.

This unyielding American position must have disappointed the Jordanians since they offered the administration some undisclosed ideas on how to deal with this stalemate.   The Jordanians, echoing the views of many Arab governments, believe that the ill-defined roadmap lacked specificity, like simultaneous first steps and a timetable.

But Dr. Muasher advised strongly that it would be unwise to talk about "the death of the roadmap" — a formula advocated by the so-called Quartet, a body that represents the United States, the United Nations, European Union and Russia.   He underlined that the roadmap took several months to come to fruition.

The Arabs can ill-afford to expect a new approach since time is of the essence, primarily because Israel is still building more settlements and a "separation" wall despite mild American naysaying.   These pose "a serious threat to the creation of a Palestinian state" in 2005 as envisioned by the roadmap.

If nothing else, the stalemate attests to continued weakness of Arab governments in standing up to the Bush administration.   On the other hand some realpolitik has been injected by no other than former US President Jimmy Carter this week in an Op-Ed article in The Washington Post which must cause some serious concern in Arab capitals.

The former president wrote: "Today, except for the fact that the Palestinian issue has become one of the foremost causes of international terrorism, our strategic interests are much less involved in the Israeli-Palestinian violence.   There seems to be no urgency in resolving the relatively localised dispute...

"Confident that our support is unshakable, Israeli leaders eventually began to assert their independence, and real American influence has reached its lowest ebb in 50 years.   In the face of certain rebuffs, why would any American president become deeply involved in a balanced mediating role?"

Carter, who had just observed the25 th anniversary of the Camp David Accords last week at a celebration in Washington, turned the tables on the Israelis.   He concluded: "No matter what leaders the Palestinians might choose, how fervent American interest might be or how great the hatred and bloodshed might become, there remains one basic choice, and only the Israelis can make it: Do we want permanent peace with all our neighbours, or do we want to retain our colonies in the occupied territories of the Palestinians?"

He thought it would be America's "worst betrayal of Israel" should it support the second choice.

Likewise, it would be Israel's worst betrayal of America should it continue to infuriate the Arabs against the Jewish state's arch-supporter.

Unspeakable grief and horror

...and the circus of deception killing continues...

He says, "You are quite mad, Kewe"

And of course I am.

Why, I don't believe any of it — not the bloody body, not the bloody mind, not even the bloody Universe, or is it bloody multiverse.

"It's all illusion," I say. "Don't you know, my lad, my lassie. The game! The game, me girl, me boy! Takes on interest, don't you know. T'is me sport, till doest find a better!"

Pssssst — but all this stuff is happening down here

Let's change it!