From Whose Bourne No Traveler Returns

A reader sends a link to a

Guardian article claiming that terror is a figment of the panicky American
imagination. There are really no wolves in the forest, just the sound of the
wind in the trees. BBC documentary producer, Adam Curtis, produced a series
called "The Power of Nightmares" (scheduled on BBC2 at 9pm on Wednesday October
20) which claims that terrorism "is a fantasy that has been exaggerated and
distorted by politicians. It is a dark illusion that has spread unquestioned
through governments around the world, the security services, and the
international media.". The article goes on to say:

Bill Durodie, director of the international centre for security analysis at
King's College London, says: "The reality [of the al-Qaida threat to the west]
has been essentially a one-off. There has been one incident in the developed
world since 9/11 [the Madrid bombings]. There's no real evidence that all
these groups are connected." Crispin Black, a senior government intelligence
analyst until 2002, is more cautious but admits the terrorist threat presented
by politicians and the media is "out of date and too one-dimensional. We think
there is a bit of a gulf between the terrorists' ambition and their ability to
pull it off."

In this view, terrorism is a narrative invented by unscrupulous politicians
to panic people into doing their bidding. Osama Bin Laden is a boogie man who is
not really the threat he is made out to be.

"Almost no one questions this myth about al-Qaida because so many people
have got an interest in keeping it alive," says Curtis. He cites the
suspiciously circular relationship between the security services and much of
the media since September 2001: the way in which official briefings about
terrorism, often unverified or unverifiable by journalists, have become
dramatic press stories which - in a jittery media-driven democracy - have
prompted further briefings and further stories. Few of these ominous
announcements are retracted if they turn out to be baseless: "There is no
fact-checking about al-Qaida."

The most interesting aspect of Curtis' argument is the narrowness of its
cast. By limiting his set of terrorist incidents to the developed world, and to
Europe in particular, he arrives at the conclusion that terrorism does not
exist. He looks around his world and asks, 'where is it?'. Kashmir, Algeria,
Saddamite Iraq, Sudan, the Balkans, Indonesia, Timor and the Philippines -- to
name a few places -- are ommitted from his account. The wonder is not that he
omitted them; the astounding thing would have been if he had included it. The
Left has displayed a magnificent indifference to death in the Third World and
only slightly more sensitivity to deaths in the Balkans.

In places like Basilan in Mindanao, terrorism is not a nightmare. It is the
waking day. The Australian Government, for example, issued a

travel advisory warning its citizens from visiting Mindanao not because it
feared some Freddy Kreuger intruding upon Aussie dreams as they lay in their
beds in the Lantaka Hotel, but to guard against something more substantial, like
a hand grenade pitched in at the seaside bar. You go to shrink to defend against
nightmares. In places like Jolo a shrink will get you nowhere. But an automatic
rifle will, and I have heard fathers lovingly describe a prospective purchase of
a Browning Automatic Rifle or an M-1919 machinegun in the anticipatory tones of
someone who has bought health insurance for his children. The "Power of
Nightmares" should be shown in both the Muslim and non-Muslim parts of Mindanao.
It should do well, billed as comedy.

Best of the Comments

For a while I've wondered if the blindness of the
left comes from a lack of knowledge of their physical world. ... Spiney
Widgmo

I wish it were that simple. As an engineer in Silicon
Valley, I have observed that a delusional world view has no relationship to
professional skill. I've spoken in depth with a solidly leftist engineer
friend, and his world view diverges from mine at a very deep level. ... Twisted
Knickers

Spiney--I sympathize with the thrust of your comment,
but in fact, having met many, many Physics PhDs (theoretical and
experimental), chemical engineers, and the like, Communists and Socialists
(many of them taxi drivers in NYC originally from the former Soviet Bloc), my
opinion is that in reality the ones capable of resisting and destroying the
cultural legacies of Marxism and the darker elements of the French Revolution
(the Bolshevik Revolution, for example) are those who are CORRECTLY instructed
in history and the arts. ... Dan

Not even the stock market noticed. When 80 people
were blown up in Buenos Aires in 1994, it was a one-day story in U.S. and
those victims are still awaiting justice and their Iranian killers are still
walking free. Why is terrorism not terrorism if it happens in Latin America?
... ArgentinaWatcher