The Paris Attacks and American Fear - Adam Silverman

Adam L. Silverman

Before we start, a brief Public Service Announcement: The odds of an American being killed in a terrorist attack is 1 in 3.5 million per year!!!!!!

As has been widely covered just about everywhere, several gunmen attacked the office of a French satirical publication early today. I highly recommend the BBC's, or really any news service's coverage other than the usual American media outlets, to get appropriate, non-hysterical, non-fearmongering coverage. As we see all too often when something happens in the US, our media goes into immediate freak out mode. While this may make for good revenue through advertisement sales, it really does not do much to inform Americans. 

Several days ago in his post on James Fallow's recent article, COL Lang remarked about how easily Americans became fearful after 9-11 and how we have remained that way. We have seen that on display today by think tank fellows (h/t SteveM), retired general officers (h/t Zandar), and sitting members of the House (h/t Zandar) and the Senate (h/t Charles Pierce). Today's media coverage, the informed commentary that it contains, and American reactions will follow the same pattern that both COL Lang and Mr. Fallows lamented - more fear driving more poorly thought out policy responses. It is important to remember that the odds of an American being killed in a terrorist attack is 1 in 3.5 million per year!!!!!! Not that a little thing like facts or reality are likely to make any difference.

Finally, before the usual suspects get completely into the swing of things by claiming that Muslims never condemn other Muslims who commit terrorism or who claim their actions are somehow covered under Islam, here's the initial google search result for Muslim, and some Arab, organizations that have already condemned the attacks, even though we are still not sure, other than a witness statement of a screamed "Allahu Akbar" during the attack, who is actually responsible.

Initial Muslim and Arab Condemnations:

Al Azhar University and the Arab League

Dar al Ifta (Egypt's official fatwa issuing organization)

Union des Organizations de Islamique de France

The French Council of the Muslim Faith

Saudi Arabia, Iran, Jordan, Bahrain, Morocco, Algeria, and Qatar

The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR)

 

Comments

[alba etie]

Mr Silverman,
Thank you for this post . It is remarkable & disturbing how pliant the American public is to the MSM fear mongering .

[eakens]

it's not the fear mongering that will get you but the misguided policies which accompany them

[Swami Bhut Jolokia]

True. Though the two often go hand-in-hand: fear-mongering creates fear in the minds of the general public, and if there's one thing politicians like to do it is to pander to their voters. Which results in stupid policies.

Don't you feel safer after being patted down before going into a sports venue?

[Dubhaltach]

Well as I've just remarked on Col. Lang's "Marianne under attack" posting these people will project their own fears and fantasies onto those of us who do actually live in Europe. With any luck neither the French government nor the French people will react to this attack in the vicious (in the case of your government) and craven (in the case of your populace) way that apparently now must be called the "American way".

The American way wasn't followed in Denmark in response to the attacks resulting from the Jyllands-Posten cartoons about Mohammed. I'm optimistic it won't be followed in France.

Dubhaltach

Dubhaltach

[Dubhaltach]

Mockery - show them up for the vicious and ludicrous idiots they are. Steve Bell shows the way:

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cartoon/2015/jan/07/charlie-hebdo-paris-attack-cartoon-bell

For those interested the Guardian also has a good explainer which includes sample of Charlie Hebdo cartoons dealing with religion and Mohammed specifically:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/07/charlie-hebdo-islam-prophet-muhammad

Dubhaltach

[Lord Curzon]

Colonel,

Having condemned the murders of Parisian satirical cartoonists, I take it that Iran, Qatar, Saudi Arabia et al will now freely permit newspapers in their own countries to publish any cartoon they see fit!

[Abu Sinan]

European media isnt always better. At least one French site is claiming this is the worst terror attack in Europe since 2005. This conveniently forgets about the 60+ people killed by the right wing xenophobic Norwegian in 2011. I guess it doesnt count if they werent brown skinned and Muslim?

[p s c]

I disagree with Mr. Silverman's contention that Americans and the American media react with fear after such attacks.

Usually, the American people break out the candles and hold a vigil. And then the media admonish us for the umpteenth time that Islam is a religion of peace.

It is the Israelis that lash out in fear by bulldozing houses. Israelis also react with common sense in another fashion; restricting emigration to their country to peoples of Jewish heritage and or religion.

Soon, another airplane will crash in Asia and the media will be on it like a hobo on a ham sandwich. The Paris shooting will become an afterthought, like the workplace violence by Nidal Hassan @ Ft. Hood.

In the immortal words of General George Casey:

"I'm concerned that this increased speculation could cause a backlash against some of our Muslim soldiers ... Our diversity, not only in our Army, but in our country, is a strength. And as horrific as this tragedy was, if our diversity becomes a casualty, I think that’s worse."

[Babak Makkinejad]

Perhaps when Charlie Hebdo would publish caricatures ridiculing Shoah...

[Babak Makkinejad]

I would not, personally, go out of my way and exercise my free speech in Ferguson, MO by insulting any number of prominent African-Americans, their legacy, or heritage...

"Judgment" is missing in all of this....

[Abu Sinan]

Making light of or questioning aspects of the Holocaust would probably be illegal in France.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gayssot_Act

[Babak Makkinejad]

I tend to agree with you, I still remember George Bush, showing up in a mosque in the days after the 9/11/2001 attack on the United States.

While I personally did not and do not agree with his foreign policies, I found his gesture to Muslims in US as well as in the world quite admirable.

[confusedponderer]

Yes, one has to give him that.

[Fred]

Babak,

Or by being against gay marriage:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/04/03/mozilla-ceo-out-for-opposing-gay-marriage/

[jonst]

I think you contentions are caricatures. I think you know little about the "American people". We (Americans) need to reexamine our motives, reactions, plans, and values. Grant you that. But the model is not European, Danish or otherwise. Their fetishes with 'diversity', artificially fueled and promoted by elites seems to be running up against some nasty European realities. Some in the populace seem to be saying 'enough', for the moment.

And further...I still recall Europe's disgraceful, in my opinion, reaction (or, non reaction) to the wars following the break up of Yugoslavia. Eye, meet your own mote. "You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye.

[rjj]

credit for that political gesture most likely belongs to Karl Rove.

[William R. Cumming]

Okay great post but exactly how many terrorist attacks have occurred since 9/11 and elsewhere where the perps did not declare some connection to ISLAM?

IA CHINA the only nation-state to have declared ISLAM a national security threat?

[Matthew]

AE: Tony Karon found the perfect re-tweet:

"RT@Aboujahjah: I am not Charlie, I am Ahmed the dead cop. Charlie ridiculed my faith and culture and I died defending his right to do so."

[Adam L Silverman]

Abu Sinan,

If you're referring to what I think you're referring, that reporting is based on a quote from a former senior CIA official. He got asked about it, for some reason left out the Breivik attack, and a lot of news reports have carried the quote. These are followed by people complaining about the omission in the comments.

[oofda]

The retired general officer cited by Silverman was retired Air Force LtGen McInerney. He made this incident about POTUS and the NYC mayor being too PC. People like him take an incident like this and use it to project their own fantacies and fears. And McInerny has never been fond of the French people, so his concern is hollow. How did this nut-job ever get to be Lt-General in the U.S. Air Force? Among the bizaro ideas he has pushed are:

-The alleged WMD that lead to the Iraq war and never found were “spirited away” just prior to the US invasion by Russia, China and France.

–To prevent another terrorist attack on an American airline the following “If you are an 18 to 28-year-old Muslim man, you should be strip-searched.”

He should be ignored and scorned.

[Adam L Silverman]

Fred,

I don't think these two things are really equivalent. In the Mozilla CEO case, as the determination was made by the company's board of directors that keeping the CEO on, after the news broke of his financial donation on the anti-gay marriage/marriage equality referendum, would negatively impact the companies bottom line, Mr. Eich resigned. He was not fired nor was he terminated. Was he likely to be? Somewhere between possibly and probably, but he left with the benefits package he negotiated before he started. Now imagine what would happen at your workplace if you said or did something that became public knowledge that went against what your employer believed or felt was acceptable to his bottom line? You'd be lucky not to be fired. This is what is sometimes referred to as the private life of power. That despite the republican and democratic and liberal ideals of the public sphere, embodied in the Bill of Rights, very few of these actually apply in the private realm, which is often a tyranny. This includes the owners of companies claiming that their private, limited liability holdings should have 1st Amendment protections in regard to religious expression in order to tell their employees how to utilize the compensation they receive from their employment. Health care benefits, even employer based with an employer match, are part of the employment compensation package. It also includes the examples from the 2012 presidential elections of employers telling their employees how to vote - the most egregious example of this, a Florida business owner who told his employees that if they didn't vote for Governor Romney he'd have to start laying people off because the economy would get worse, just gave everyone pay raises and started expanding operations... Irony, how does it work?Perhaps the best chronicler of the private life of power is Professor Corey Robin and can be found here:
http://coreyrobin.com/2012/03/20/the-private-life-of-power/
http://coreyrobin.com/?s=private+life+of+power&submit=Search
http://coreyrobin.com/2011/07/19/why-the-left-gets-neoliberalism-wrong-its-the-feudalism-stupid/
http://coreyrobin.com/2012/03/14/birth-control-mccarthyism/

[Fred]

WRC,

Start here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Norway_attacks

Then remember the warnings in the US by the Obama administration were about Right Wing extremists:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/apr/14/federal-agency-warns-of-radicals-on-right/

[Adam L Silverman]

Mr. Cumming,

I'll try to find a decent data chronology I can pull and put a post up with the numbers. I can tell you that the majority of actual incidents in the US since 2008, which we have decided to not call terrorism or connect to a larger set of overarching issues and beliefs, have not been conducted by Muslims. There have been over forty acts of terrorism either attempted (the failed MLK Day Bombing in WA) thwarted, or successful in the past six years and the majority have been conducted by white, male, ostensibly Christian, ultra-reactionary and/or extreme right and/or white supremacist and/or neo-Confederate individuals and groups. The most recent attempt was the largely unsuccessful bombing by IED of an NAACP office in CO at the beginning of the week. The suspect, generally not referred to in the media as a terrorist, is an older white male, balding, driving a late model pick up truck. A significant number of incidents between the Israelis and the Palestinians are not overtly Islamic or Muslim. The price tag attacks by ultra-devout/ultra-nationalist Israelis, whether they're settlers or not, are motivated by a combination of racial animus and religious prejudice. Many of the Palestinian attacks on Israelis, while conducted by Muslims, often stem not from an Islamic driver, but as response to the real and perceived injustices of the occupation.

[alba etie]

Correction Dr Silverman ..

[alba etie]

Matthew
Yes it is the perfect rejoinder. I am not an expert but I have several Muslims friends here in Austin , Texas -- that are not from around here . Each one of these Muslims friends I am certain would all be prepared to defend as I do our shared values enshrined in our Bill Of Rights . Most of these Muslim friends are even American citizens now . That would be the ultimate irony would it not that the shooters killed a Muslim Law Enforcement officer to 'avenge the Prophet " . Some of the same sort of irony that saw the Mass Murderer Timothy McVeigh kill Christian Clergy in OKC .