Fear of Terrorism

If one listens to Republicans, the newest danger to American freedom comes in the form of Barack Obama’s health care reform legislation. The “project of the century” cleared an important hurdle on Christmas Eve when it won Senate approval. As little as two days later, fear of terrorism ruled the headlines, despite the fact that the attempted attack on an American passenger jet was thwarted. One gets the impression that many conservatives are eagerly waiting for a successful terrorist attack, just so they can accuse this president of failing to protect America.

Although many questions still remain, the next targets in the war on terror appear to have been selected already: This time, it will be Nigeria and Yemen, because the would-be Delta Airlines bomber was Nigerian and was supposedly trained by Al Qaeda on the poverty-stricken Arabian peninsula. Despite all the subjunctives used, the near-simultaneous air attack in the Yemeni province of Shabwah serves as handwriting on the wall for the new battleground, in which the same old mistakes will be repeated. Eyewitnesses have already reported that the 30 killed in the aerial attack included no terrorist leaders as intended, but instead were many women and children.

Just yesterday, the World Pilot’s Association warned against knee-jerk reactions as governments sharply increased airline security measures.