Terrorism: We're in Desperate Need of Perspective - -by Joshua Holland
Last week, journalist Mathew Stannard wrote about a new study by researchers at Columbia University that showed empirically what many of us have long known intuitively: The Bush administration hypes the threat of terrorism, the media embrace that hype, President Bush's approval ratings rise and the cable news channels get their ratings.
Aside from the political consequences of a freaked-out populace, the constant drumbeat of fear has been used to justify the detention of U.S. and foreign citizens without trial, warrant-less surveillance of Americans and an unprovoked war of aggression against a sovereign state that has proved to be disastrous.
American public policy shouldn't be made by 19 reactionary right-wing fundamentalists with box-cutters or some Saudi culture warrior holed up in a cave in Pakistan, and it shouldn't be based on the public's basest emotional responses. But for the past five years that's just what we've had.
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