The government has people feeling a little vulnerable with all of these “terror plots”. I guess it’s time to give up some more of our “rights” so that we may feel a bit more secure. This latest plot on JFK Airport was really something. A group of “immigrants” and some US citizens actually wanted to blow up some fuel tanks and set fire to some jet fuel at the airport. How far did it get? Well according to the New York Police Chief, they actually “talked” about it and some members of this “terror cell” actually went to JFK Airport!
Were they tied to Al Qaeda? The NYPD says no, but they tried to get in touch with the terror group JAM (I believe they are a terrorist cell operating in the Caribbean) but they never got in touch with them. Should we be worried? Of Course! Anytime that a “terror cell” anywhere thinks of doing violence, it is time to bring out our Constitution and a pair of scissors. Too many rights seem to breed terrorism. Look at the “terror cell” they shut down in Miami. Some immigrants and a few US citizens thought that just because they are living dirt poor in America’s tourist Mecca, gave them the right to talk about “blowing up” some of America’s most beloved structures like the Sears Tower in Chicago. They didn’t really get very far, but they “talked” about it and even went so far as to ask for combat boots and cell phones from an undercover agent! We should have brought out our scissors then and started chopping up the Constitution so that people don’t have the right to meet in groups larger than three.
The similarity of these “terrorists” is that they both never got off the ground. Realistically, there was a significant chance that they never would have. I don’t advocate not investigating plots such as the ones that were exposed, but I don’t believe that they should be the subject of Presidential debates and days worth of television coverage by every major network on television. This kind of notoriety will bring us many more so-called plots by anyone, for their own sordid reasons that want their fifteen minutes of fame.
What worries me is that the news networks actually point out these plots as “terrorist attacks” that were stopped in the nick of time when they refer back to them. Today I heard this type of tactic used by CNN when discussing the bombing plot at JFK. The part that the sensationalist media leaves out is that these “plots” were very amateurish and ill-conceived daydreams by want-to-be terrorists. Making these threats into something that they are not does not in any way shape or form serve the public good.
So why do the networks aggrandize these “terror plots”? Probably for the ratings, keeping the population in a state of constant fear actually drives people to the television. They stay in contact with all the late-breaking coverage of anything remotely connected to “terror”. We seem to be a nation fixated on it. This is good for the news media and it’s also good for this administration that wants to paint us a picture of us against the “world-wide terrorist movement”. It wants every American to see this “War on Terror” as a very real and threatening part of our reality. The more terror that Americans witness, the more of their rights they are willing to surrender to be free of it. What’s the old axiom? Extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures? Letting the government eavesdrop on our conversations would have been unthinkable ten years ago. Opening a concentration camp in Guantanamo and building new ones in the United States would have raised the worst kind of fear in American hearts. The thought of our government using torture would have never been raised. This latest ploy by the administration, this decree that the President will usurp the power of Congress and the Courts making him a de-facto dictator in the event of another terrorist attack would never have been accepted by Americans prior the September 11th, 2001.
Are we due for another attack? Most likely, yes. Will the nation survive another terrorist attack? Of course the nation will survive another terrorist attack. Will our wobbly representative democracy with our shredded Constitution prevail? Not if this administration has its way, or if the media blows an attack out of proportion, or if people cave in to their fears that have been instilled in them since 9/11. If this scenario doesn’t worry you, it should. The time to be stopping this from happening is now, not after it happens. Forget about the Presidential race for now, for if this scenario comes to pass, we won’t have any Presidential elections. I don’t make this stuff up.
