Take a breath: people adapt

ARTICLE: Officials Point to Suspect's Claim of Qaeda Ties in Yemen, By ERIC SCHMITT and ERIC LIPTON, Washington Post, December 26, 2009

ARTICLE: Passengers' Quick Action Halted Attack, By SCOTT SHANE and ERIC LIPTON, Washington Post, December 26, 2009

And so the struggle over perceptions begins, with these two articles highlighting the competing hyping and de-hyping instincts: we are told this must be terror because of al-Qaeda's slim connection; likewise we note that, "despite the billions spent on counterterrorism efforts" it all just comes down to a properly aware public. So it's simultaneously a VERY BIG DEAL and NOT A BIG DEAL.

Can we split the difference?

Can we say it's, by definition, an attempt at terror and that the vast majority of such attacks are by loser loners who want to go out with a bang, but that everyone in that mode feels an intense psychological need to connect their acts to something big and--to them--meaningful? Can we not also say that al-Qaeda serves--for both sides--as that ultimate bogeyman, so that it doesn't really matter how real the connection was or wasn't, just that this sick fellow needed that inspiration (and whatever actual aid he got)? Nowadays citing the al-Qaeda connection is like saying "the devil made me do it." Of course he did! Just like God made you catch that football in the endzone to win the Super Bowl! See? It works both ways!

Ah, but at least we have the comfort that "officials point to the suspect's claim of Qaeda ties." "Officials," mind you. Not just people on the street, although, inevitably, their opinions are asked too, like the mother in Indy who sent grandmom and her two kids on a flight to a relative in Omaha and had to confess her intense fear (to the local TV station) that al-Qaeda (the Devil) would strike yet again this holiday season. Can you feel her fear? Of course this is a VERY BIG DEAL.

Ah, but I regress.

Can we not also say that security has simply shifted from big things like wars between great powers to small things like this, so yeah, we're going to spend billions to make things more secure? We can do that sensibly, along with making our public more alert. Must we scare them with semantic inflation and call everything a "war"? Or can we just say, "These are the dangers that remain in this otherwise amazingly peaceful world" and these are the simple steps every person can take to pitch in? In that way, quite frankly (and despite my long ribbing), TSA does a nice job of balancing fear and reasonable awareness.

So now we'll have a few new rules that make it that much harder. So nobody got killed. So ordinary people did sensible and courageous things. So it's not the end of the world or the beginning of "some new era in this global war!!!!!!!"

Humans are amazingly adaptive creatures, capable of great mental compartmentalization.

We can handle this threat all right, just as we showed on this routine flight, full of routine people, doing--now--routine things.

But please, "release the hounds" of perception "war"! For I will fight to the death for your right to hyperbolize!

I await the small universe of grim-faced "security experts" who will opine endlessly on cable TV in coming days, somehow linking this event to everything bad in this world that they (personally) have told us about previously ("Yet another indication why Iran must be attacked--now!").

Yes, yes. What if Hitler had had an invisible robot army?

[Tom, suddenly realizing he had pulled out the Nazi card too early in the post, decides to end it here.]

Comments

[Javaid Akhtar]

Additionally....Its probably the lack of stories /newsporters filing during the holiday season that has allowed this story to expand way beyond its natural column inches.

[Joe Blizzard]

Personally, I think we should be crowing that we've diminished al Qaeda to the point where their top bomb makers are more likely to get you second degree burns to your 'nads than 72 virgins.

[Mark Thompson]

T -- Your post makes way too much sense for it to be taken seriously. Now that we have the post-9/11 Terror-Industrial Complex, pretty much everyone involved has a reason to magnify the threat. Afraid the only thing that will dampen this is the passage of time and the spending of hundreds of billions of dollars (cf. missile gap, bomber gap, SDI).

[large]

Thank God, those people (al Quaeda) have such inept warriors . . either by default or design . . They could really hurt someone (beside themselves) if they ever get good at their "profession" . .

News wise . . A lot of nothing about something almost trivial . .

[MH]

Unfortunately, TSA will be forced to "do something" to make it look like they've enhanced security, so I predict that random strip searches of gray haired grandmothers will become the norm.

[Tom Barnett]

Ah, but this was the worst decade--EVER! So certainly this is yet another sign of the coming apocalypse. But I agree Joe. Vigilance must be maintained, but I don't take this attack as a particularly bad sign--just the opposite.

[Louis Heberlein]

Over reaction gives AQ a psychological victory, and incentive to keep using these tactics. It also gives them the hope that they can cause the turmoil they sought to impose by using 9/11 aircraft incidents to attack the symbols and a key network infrastructure for 'dirty financial capitalists.'

Considering that the 2008-2009 financial fiasco provided a vulnerable market environment, I'm surprised that none of media executives realized and acted upon their obligation to prudently provide meaningful info instead of 'breaking news' rumor repetition.

Contrast that to the British/American prudent media coverage of Hitler's attempts to use V-1 and V-2 attacks on British civilians to gain a panic tie to WW II.