I Didn't Want to do a 9/11 Post, So Here It Is

No doubt about it; it's been a very strange war. Just the whole way it's been marketed has been strange; sort of the no-mess, no-fuss war.

"Got a terrorist problem? Tired of sacrifice and hardship and all those messy, hard-to-use wars you've used in the past? Then you should try our new 'Terror-B-Gone' anti-terrorist cleaner. With it's patented 'Hi Tech' ingredients, 'Terror-B-Gone' will both clean and disinfect those nasty terrorist hotspots. No more scrubbing and no more unpleasant smells. Just spray it on and wipe it off, and you're through. 'Terror-B-Gone' not only kills the terrorists, it's special formula also gets those nasty insurgencies that terrorists can sometimes leave behind. Try new 'Terror-B-Gone' today. (Now in the convenient nation building size)."

Yeah, just because there's a war going on that doesn't mean we have to stop partying, does it? At least that's what this administration seems to be saying. "Now don't be showing any dead soldiers coming back from the war. We don't want to upset the public, especially at dinnertime."

Of all the strange things that have come out of this war, though, I think the strangest has to be the TV footage I saw of the German Army deploying in the deserts of Afghanistan yesterday. I'm not trying to imply anything here, but when I looked at those pictures I just got this really weird sort of deja-vu type of feeling. Does anyone remember Rommel? The Afrika Corps? I know it's totally different circumstances now. It just struck me as strange.

Anyways, that's all in the past. Our new threat, or so we're told, is this thing called Islamafascism. I'm not exactly sure what that means, but I'm guessing that they're telling us that just as the European fascists once threatened the world and started the Second World War, now it is Islamist fascists that are threatening the world and bringing us to the brink of World War III. Well, that's what the current administration believes, and no one could ever accuse this current administration of being alarmist or trying to panic the public two months before a midterm election.

So I got to thinking about this whole thing and, you know, to me it just doesn't seem to scale. Let me explain what I mean. According to Wikipedia Al-Qaeda has somewhere around 20,000 members worldwide. In WWII, the Wehrmacht numbered over 18 million. Not quite the same in my book. At it's peak, the Third Reich occupied France, Belgium, The Netherlands, Norway, Finland, Poland, Croatia, Serbia, Albania, Montenegro, Greece, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Czeckoslovakia, Austria, Western Russia and parts of Northern Africa. Al-Qaeda currently occupies a few bases and remote outposts in Northern Pakistan. Again, not quite the same. The Third Reich had one of the most advanced and well-equipped armies in the world, as well as a modern airforce and submarine fleet. Al-Qaeda has explosives and some suicide bombers. Deadly, yes, but not really a threat to overrun Europe.

And yet we act as if they are. Why is that?

The way I see it, if terrorism is about scaring the enemy into irrational actions, then Al-Qaeda has certainly succeeded. America, it seems, has taken this group of 20,000 or so fanatics and created this enormous bogeyman that's going to bring us to the brink of WWIII. That's what happens when you're panicked with fear--you inflate the threat until it becomes this monstrous thing that's living in your closet and is going to eat you up as soon as you fall asleep.

Instead of panicking, maybe what we need to do is step back and do a little reality check. Yes, there is a danger, but how big a danger is it really? I don't have the statistics in front of me but I'll bet you that you're far more likely to die from that cheeseburger and fries you had for lunch than you are from a terrorist attack. If you put things in their proper perspective and don't overreact, then it's easy to tell the difference between prudence and paranoia. In fact, isn't overreaction a big reason we're in the mess we are right now. The more they provoke, the more we react, and the more they are able to use the energy of our reactions to grow and gather strength. Isn't that what people call "feeding the fire".

I think it works something like that.

And just to change the subject, can we please stop calling every difficulty that arises in life a "crisis". Geez Louise. Of course it's the news people who are mostly responsible. Seems you can't have a news show if you don't have a "crisis" to start things off. Got to keep the viewers from changing the channel, you know. That's why when the local 7-11 runs out of ice cream bars, the evening news sends a crew out and calls it "Crisis in America's Dairyland". Geez Louise...

So anyways that's my 9/11 post. All the other bloggers were posting about it so I thought I'd chime in too. Hardly seems worth the bother.