We Have Succumbed to ‘Terrorism Hysteria’: Financial Times Deutschland, Germany
Jan 2nd, 2010 | 9 responses
For some, exasperation with new U.S. rules for passenger aircraft is running high. Why? Because, according to German columnist Andreas Theyssen, by almost any objective measure, the new regulations being imposed won’t do a thing to make flying any safer.
For Germany’s Financial Times Deutschland, columnist Andreas Theyssen writes in part:
There are many ways to encapsulate the state of the world. When rational people scrap perfectly good cars, then we know: There’s an economic crisis, and governments are trying to boost the economy with scrapping fees and by stimulating the stinginess-is-cool gene.
When bankers head out at night and withdraw cash from five different ATM machines, then we know: There’s something rotten in our financial system.
And when even the U.S. president is informed that some passenger has repeatedly gone to an aircraft toilet, then we know: The world is degenerating into terrorism hysteria.
In their effort to preclude a future attack à la Abdul Mutallab, security regulators are off course. It’s true that the arrangements they’re crafting will get on the final nerve of passengers, although they can also be easily circumvented by potential attackers.
Take the toilet ban, for example. On transatlantic flights, restrooms will be locked an hour before landing. After all, Abdul Mutallab had locked himself into one of these little “retreats” for 20 minutes to assemble his incendiary device. And what does this “security measure” achieve? From now on, there will be a sharper odor on U.S. flights and attackers will be going to the toilet 1.5 hours before landing.
The new regulations for U.S. flights don’t bring the tiniest bit more security, and regulators know it. But to do nothing after this type of attempted attack – that’s not possible given the usual spiral of hysteria.
By Andreas Theyssen
Translated By Stephanie Martin
December 30, 2009
Germany – Financial Times Deutschland – Original Article (German)
There are many ways to encapsulate the state of the world. When rational people scrap perfectly good cars, then we know: There’s an economic crisis, and governments are trying to boost the economy with scrapping fees and by stimulating the stinginess-is-cool gene.
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9 Responses to “We Have Succumbed to ‘Terrorism Hysteria’: Financial Times Deutschland, Germany”
It's not the reality, but the appearance, that counts.
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The security measures are designed to make the passengers feel safer, not to prevent terrorism. Without reducing the airlines' revenue of course. That is why we get these silly regulations. Obviously.
You can't completely defeat terrorists in a free society. You can keep them from winning by living as if they don't exist. Grow up people.
The best chances to stop terrorism like that of the Christmas Bomber are to cultivate and act assertively on human intelligence, and screen aggressively based on empirically supported risk factors.
The government blew that approach completely. So now we get new rules, expensive technology, and major inconvenience that doesn't really address the problem. Apparently the hardest system to implement is one in which people in the public sector are expected to do their jobs.
You can't completely defeat terrorists in a free society.
That dictum can be applied to a lot of things — rapists, bank robbers, burglars, drunk drivers etc etc. Few would choose to ignore such problems just because a perfect means of ending them does not exist.
You have a point but it should not be stated in the absolute “living as if they don't exist”. I'll bet you have locks on the doors to your house, even though you can't completely defeat burglars.
Point taken. The fear is making us do irrational things hoping we can completely defeat the terrorists. Better we have the attitude that we are not going to let them dictate how we live. Stiff upper lip. And all of that.
Glenn Greenwald says it much better than I ever could.
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwa…
“These are the calculations that are now virtually impossible to find in our political discourse. It is fear, and only fear, that predominates. No other competing values are recognized. We have Chris Matthews running around shrieking that he's scared of kung-fu-wielding Terrorists. Michael Chertoff is demanding that we stop listening to “privacy ideologues” — i.e., that there should be no limits on Government's power to invade and monitor and scrutinize. Republican leaders have spent the decade preaching that only Government-provided Safety, not the Constitution, matters. All in response to this week's single failed terrorist attack, there are — as always — hysterical calls that we start more wars, initiate racial profiling, imprison innocent people indefinitely, and torture even more indiscriminately. These are the by-products of the weakness and panic and paralyzing fear that Americans have been fed in the name of Terrorism, continuously for a full decade now.”
Exactly. If the only problem people have with the system is how long it takes to get to ones flight, then we are quite spoiled. Maybe security should have been better. But Mr. A was on a list of 550,000 would be terrorists and those are the ones we know about. My biggest fear is if they attack domestically and anonymously, like the London attack in 2005.
Thank you my overseas friend. Again, Pogo was right: We have seen the enemy and it is us.