Terrorists
I often think the real terrorists are journalists and the media outlets which distribute their productions, be it print, radio, or television. This footnote on the Quodlibeta Blog suggests I am not the first to make this connection between media and terror. The same connection was made over a thousand years ago by Genghis Khan.
[1]One of the less well known aspects of the Mongol conquests was their capacity for propaganda. Regarding the above quote Jack Weathersford writes in ‘Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World that:‘Rather than finding such apocalyptic descriptions derogatory, Genghis Khan seemed to have encouraged them. With his penchant for finding a use for everything he encountered, he devised a powerful way to exploit the high literacy rate of the Muslim people, and turned his unsuspecting enemies into a potent weapon for shaping public opinion. Terror, he realized, was best spread not by the acts of warriors, but by the pens of scribes and scholars. In an era before newspapers, the letters of the intelligentsia played a primary role in shaping public opinion, and in the conquest of central Asia, they played their role quite well on Genghis Khan’s behalf. The Mongols operated a virtual propaganda machine that consistently inflated the number of people killed in battle and spread fear wherever its words carried.’Similarly George Lane remarks that the Mongols ’deliberately exaggerated and encouraged the horror stories that circulated around them and preceded their arrival in order to ensure an unhesitating surrender of the cowed population’.
Views: 147
Replies to This Discussion
-
Permalink Reply by James Robertson on -
-
Permalink Reply by James Robertson on
-
Don't Be Terrorized
You're more likely to die of a car accident, drowning, fire, or murderRonald Bailey | August 11, 2006 - Reason.com
Yesterday, British authorities broke up an alleged terror plot to blow up as many as ten commercial airliners as they flew to the United States. In response, the Department of Homeland Security upped the alert level on commercial flights from Britain to "red" and boosted the alert to "orange" for all other flights. In a completely unscientific poll, AOL asked subscribers: "Are you changing your travel plans because of the raised threat level?" At mid-afternoon about a quarter of the respondents had said yes. Such polls do reflect the kinds of anxieties terrorist attacks, even those that have been stymied, provoke in the public.
But how afraid should Americans be of terrorist attacks? Not very, as some quick comparisons with other risks that we regularly run in our daily lives indicate. Your odds of dying of a specific cause in any year are calculated by dividing that year's population by the number of deaths by that cause in that year. Your lifetime odds of dying of a particular cause are calculated by dividing the one-year odds by the life expectancy of a person born in that year. For example, in 2003 about 45,000 Americans died in motor accidents out of population of 291,000,000. So, according to the National Safety Council this means your one-year odds of dying in a car accident is about one out of 6500. Therefore your lifetime probability (6500 ÷ 78 years life expectancy) of dying in a motor accident are about one in 83.
What about your chances of dying in an airplane crash? A one-year risk of one in 400,000 and one in 5,000 lifetime risk. What about walking across the street? A one-year risk of one in 48,500 and a lifetime risk of one in 625. Drowning? A one-year risk of one in 88,000 and a one in 1100 lifetime risk. In a fire? About the same risk as drowning. Murder? A one-year risk of one in 16,500 and a lifetime risk of one in 210. What about falling? Essentially the same as being murdered. And the proverbial being struck by lightning? A one-year risk of one in 6.2 million and a lifetime risk of one in 80,000. And what is the risk that you will die of a catastrophic asteroid strike? In 1994, astronomers calculated that the chance was one in 20,000. However, as they've gathered more data on the orbits of near earth objects, the lifetime risk has been reduced to one in 200,000 or more.
So how do these common risks compare to your risk of dying in a terrorist attack? To try to calculate those odds realistically, Michael Rothschild, a former business professor at the University of Wisconsin, worked out a couple of plausible scenarios. For example, he figured that if terrorists were to destroy entirely one of America's 40,000 shopping malls per week, your chances of being there at the wrong time would be about one in one million or more. Rothschild also estimated that if terrorists hijacked and crashed one of America's 18,000 commercial flights per week that your chance of being on the crashed plane would be one in 135,000.
Even if terrorists were able to pull off one attack per year on the scale of the 9/11 atrocity, that would mean your one-year risk would be one in 100,000 and your lifetime risk would be about one in 1300. (300,000,000 ÷ 3,000 = 100,000 ÷ 78 years = 1282) In other words, your risk of dying in a plausible terrorist attack is much lower than your risk of dying in a car accident, by walking across the street, by drowning, in a fire, by falling, or by being murdered.
So do these numbers comfort you? If not, that's a problem. Already, security measures—pervasive ID checkpoints, metal detectors, and phalanxes of security guards—increasingly clot the pathways of our public lives. It's easy to overreact when an atrocity takes place—to heed those who promise safety if only we will give the authorities the "tools" they want by surrendering to them some of our liberty. As President Franklin Roosevelt in his first inaugural speech said, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself— nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance." However, with risks this low there is no reason for us not to continue to live our lives as though terrorism doesn't matter—because it doesn't really matter. We ultimately vanquish terrorism when we refuse to be terrorized.
-
Permalink Reply by Rick on -
Islamic terrorists have largely figured out that non-stop attacks against the United States both here and abroad are not really the best plan of attack although if they ever have the capability of a surprise nuclear attack all those bets are off. What they are doing instead is using the idiocy of political correctness to move the football slowly and quietly just as they have done previously in Europe and will do in the Middle East through the "Arab Spring". While portraying themselves as victims, Islamists in the U.S. are actually bullies when and where they can be in places like Dearborn, Michigan. This also allows individual terrorists the option of engaging as they feel like it such as in the case of Major Husan at Fort Hood where he killed I believe 13 soldiers. Even though he gave numerous warning signs that he was a terrorist in waiting, political correctness protected him up until he started shooting since others were literally afraid to file a report on him out of fear of official retaliation and damage to their military career. Even now the military won't classify his actions as a terror incident so in effect he conducted a terror attack that we are not allowed to categorize as one, even statistically. Don't mean to be be disagreeable but the idea of statistically comparing accidental death through things like airline or car crashes to the threat of terror and militant Islam is not wise. More terror incidents will come down the road once Islam gains a foothold and people finally catch on that it needs to be confronted. Islamists do not take kindly to dissent once they obtain some power. Once the next big attack hits, the victims will not be comforted in knowing it was more likely statistically for them to be killed by a lightening strike or choking on their food.
-
Permalink Reply by James Robertson on
-
Psalm 23:4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
-
Permalink Reply by Dave Gosse on -
We have seen the enemy, and he is us. Pogo
-
Permalink Reply by Rev. Lawrence N. Bradt on -
How right you are Dave! Well stated! One of my favorite quotes.
Dave Gosse said:We have seen the enemy, and he is us. Pogo
-
Permalink Reply by James Robertson on
-
“Keep your fears to yourself but share your courage with others”
G.K. Chesterton
-
Permalink Reply by Rick on
-
"We have seen the enemy, and he is us. Pogo"
Was it Pogo who said that or was it Ron Paul and Barack Obama? Both are more likely to accuse me of being at fault for terror than the real perpetrators. If we aren't allowed to fear for our safety over this issue, then can't we at least fear our current government which seems more interested in defending terrorists rights and the related imaginary rights of those who enter the country illegally than the citizens who need protecting? My fears are escalated when my federal government panders to Muslims and Hispanic voters by attacking its own citizens when they attempt to act to stop the security threats and civil mayhem associated with terrorism and illegals. I am not opposed to being comforted by God in this world but as we should remember, we live in two kingdoms and that requires us to do more than just try and pray away problems or hide them behind a curtain of delusion.
-
Permalink Reply by Dave Gosse on
-
Melanie Phillips, British jounalist and author on the Michael Coren show discussing her new book, "The World Turned Upside Down" - she has some rather perceptive observations about the very questions you raise in your post Rick.
-
Permalink Reply by Dave Gosse on
-
... and here is an attempt at humour which only confirms her hypothesis
An Interview With Melanie Phillips
NB, right from the beginning there is the "racist" accusation (Thank God you're white) and what follows is nothing less than a litany of de-contextualized politically incorrect statements and the assertion that she should never be permitted to promulgate her thoughts and ideas. Intellectual exile is the only answer to one who dissents from "The Narrative."
-
Permalink Reply by James Robertson on
-
2012: ‘The Year of the Scare’
- Judi McLeod Thursday, December 29, 2011 - CanadaFreePress 
2012 is about to come hurtling into our lives. If the coming New Year could be defined, before even being played out, it would be called ‘The Year of the Scare’.With a myriad of sources vying to capture the attention of everyday people, it will get very difficult sorting out what is true and what is false.
Stories about government watch lists will join warnings about coming communication blackouts, the death of the worldwide web, the return of the plague, contagious influenza with the power to kill off world populations, bloody revolutions on the street imposed by shady powers behind the well-funded, media darling Occupy Wall Street (OWS) Movement.
By the time a modern day Samuel Pepys happens along to make sense of it all, events will have frightened some people from coming out of their homes.
People are being deliberately kept on the edge. People kept on the edge are not as productive as they would be on an even playing field.
Seeping already into the ongoing exchange of ideas is a strong sense of embitterment that can be seen on website comment sections, and one steadily making enemies of longtime friends.
Political arguments are gathering heat, and screaming matches are replacing what were once only political disagreements.
Over the months leading up to Election Year, a not-so-subtle shift has taken place.
Thanks to the embittered Clintons, carping Hollywood stars, and all those ready to blame their personal life failures on anyone else, the Enemy of the State was George Bush, who political replacement Barack Obama has done a stellar job keeping blame on for the steady decline of the United States of America.
But blaming Bush is only an astroturfed political convenience. The biggest and most dangerous shift that has come into the public arena is the one that lets off the hook the first and only president who has publicly promised the fundamental Transformation of America.
How does this shift survive in the light of day?
How did it happen that more heated opinion and embitterment follow presidential candidates than the man under whose watch the economy failed, the free market was effectively suppressed and where jobs disappeared into a sink hole and still disappear daily?
As challenging 2012 unfolds to November 6, people will be hard pressed to escape Obama and the Czars many coming Friday “fright nights”.
Much of what is coming for patriots will be based on fear mongering. Most of what the power-hungry government sends out is based on the strategy of wanting you to think what they are going to do.
The Government wants you to think it, worry it and sweat it.
They are shutting down the Internet?
Nobody needs the Internet more than the government in Election Year.
They are now stocking FEMA camps in which to herd people? The only sensible answer for that is: “We’re not going anywhere”.
OWS activists are sending out their version of ‘Survival for Dummies‘ because they are predicting bloodshed on the streets?
The Rule of Law prevents it.
A virulent new flu strain is going to wipe out the entire population?
The United Nations has come up with several influenza scares since Obama took office.
With the mainstream media now dancing along the same party trail as some of the major conspiracy theorists, how to distinguish between truth and propaganda?
Apply the beloved Ronald Reagan’s lifelong rule of thumb: “Trust, but verify”.
The world unfolds now as it has through many other dark and trying eras.
Survival does not come from Czars or OWS. Survival is for those who believe in themselves and mostly from a belief that has never faded over time: “In God we trust.”
© 2012 Created by Norm Fisher.
Powered by
