In his article “Portrait of the Modern Terrorist as an Idiot,” Wired columnist Bruce Schneier addressed the tendency of US authorities to brand suspects as “terrorists” when there’s a strong chance that these folks are just “nut jobs.”
To prove his point, Schneier relayed what the “lead terrorist” in the recently publicized plot to blow up John F Kennedy International Airport was caught on tape saying: “Anytime you hit Kennedy, it is the most hurtful thing to the United States. To hit John F. Kennedy, wow…. They love JFK — he’s like the man. If you hit that, the whole country will be in mourning. It’s like you can kill the man twice.”
“It had the potential to be another 9/11,” the columnist quoted Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Spector as saying about the plot.
Schneier stated in the article that it had the potential to go nowhere: “The alleged plan, to blow up JFK’s fuel tanks and a small segment of the 40-mile petroleum pipeline that supplies the airport, was ridiculous.
“The fuel tanks are thick-walled, making them hard to damage. The airport tanks are separated from the pipelines by cutoff valves, so even if a fire broke out at the tanks, it would not back up into the pipelines. And the pipeline couldn’t blow up in any case, since there’s no oxygen to aid combustion.”
Schneier referred to the JFK saga as “a study in alarmism and incompetence: on the part of the terrorists, our government and the press.”
He has a point. There are some “plots” that may not deserve the publicity they get, for example The Miami 7. You remember them don’t you? A group of men in Miami allegedly planned to blow up the Sears Tower in Chicago with, quoting Schneier here, “no weapons, no bombs, no expertise, no money and no operational skill.”
Schneier also highlighted Iyman Faris’ case. He was the Ohio trucker convicted of plotting to destroy the Brooklyn Bridge…with a blowtorch.
Granted, I’m sure if someone had come up to me in 2000 and said that they’d heard that a group of men had planned on using jetliners to attack the US, I might have been a tad bit suspicious of the claim. But, there’s a big difference between an aircraft and a blowtorch.
“I don’t think these nut jobs, with their movie-plot threats, even deserver the moniker ‘terrorist,’” Schneier wrote. “But in this country, while you have to be competent to pull of a terrorist attack, you don’t have to be competent to cause terror. All you need to do is start plotting an attack and - regardless of whether or not you have a viable plan, weapons or even the faintest clue - the media will aid you in terrorizing the population.”
Perhaps its the fault of 24-hour cable tv news stations, or local stations whose news producers are under pressure to stretch 15 minutes of news into one-, two- or even three-hour long broadcasts. When you’re under the gun to fill time (and bring in ratings), a live shot from a briefing on the latest “foiled attack” can help your newscast.
Should these “terrorists” be held accountable for their actions, however inept they are? Yes. Should they be put away if found guilty? Of course.
But the government, the media and the general public must become more selective as to which “plots” to raise the alarm about.