Who is The Enemy?

So many to choose from. Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists. However, we have met the enemy and he is us. Both statements are right.

No one can side with terrorists - whose goal is to kill civilians and instill fear in them, to disrupt daily life and tear down progress towards peace. Who does these things? Certainly we can recognize attackers such as Hezbollah and Al Queda who target civilians with deadly force as enemies of peace. What or who is helping them? I would argue that those who instill fear and tear down progress are also against us. When we do these things to ourselves we inadvertently assist our enemies. Here's a recent example.

Our watered down news organizations seek only to entertain - and Hollywood has shown us that violence and fear are entertaining. The 24 hour news channels sensationalize every event to draw maximum viewership, not to inform the public. More viewers will pay attention to government security alerts than to cold facts. News that an airplane was bombed with a liquid explosive in 1994 was buried inside a middle page of my local paper. So for the last 12 years, this threat was known but not addressed? Now, we are willing to put up with interminable delays in national commerce for searches that still don't clearly target hazards in air travel. This hastily enforced change in airport security seems almost designed to require personal sacrifice from travelers. Thus, we can all genuflect to 'the public safety.' As in, I'm doing my saintly patient best to make us all safe by meekly standing in this line. It's almost a religious duty - so many travelers interviewed said they are willing to endure anything to make us all safe. Anything? Effective safety measures aren't the same as effective policy measures - those policy measures being designed to unify us in our patriotic zeal to protect each other from that nameless foe, the medium macroscopic phase of matter known as liquid.

Strangely, fear has been transferred from humans to runny inanimate blobs. And this is good policy because liquids have no consituency. Liquids have no religious adherents in our culture to offend. And we won't restrict these insensate objects from certain people but from everyone - who could object? Except those of us who would like to travel in safety rather than in a false sense of security.

Update: Here's a great analysis of the most likely story behind the 'British terrorist plot.'