All Aboard

--L'Ange du Foyeur, Max Ernst

Honey, honey, can't you hear?
Funny, funny music, dear
Ain't the funny strain
Goin' to your brain?
--Everybody's Doin' It Now,
Irving Berlin

One of these things is not like the others,
One of these things just doesn't belong,
Can you tell which thing is not like the others
By the time I finish my song?
--The Sesame Street Song
_________________

Why does the media spread hype about terrorism versus the actual facts?

The hype has perhaps seen its apotheosis being woven into the plots of most criminal television programs with the latest fad -- the terrorist takeovers of schools. Surely this is crime most heinous, yet it is naught but a hotch-potch of fiction seasoned by a smidgeon of outdated news.

But that is adequate to strike fear in the average viewer, who hasn't much time to fact-check before bedtime and the morning alarm. People watch these programs feeling uneasy that they are viewing something familiar ... and they are. But Hollywood is constructing this toxic brew serving to keep everyone all aboard the war bandwagon -- liberal Hollywood!

NCIS, Blue Bloods, The Unit and Flashpoint are each complicit in serving us this horrible fantasy: The terrorists are here, they're strac and they want your children, now.

What is the point of this fantasy? Is it the sublimation of exhausted, hyper-vigilant helicopter parents? The resolution always involve bloody fights won by assault teams. The program "Criminal Minds" gave the same unrealistic scenario, except with serial killers. Ranger predicts the next trend will be serial-killing terrorists.

These shows are so far from reality that they should be viewed after dropping acid, in place of a planetarium visit. There have been two isolated incidents of terrorists attacking schools: The 1974 Ma'alot Massacre off 22 Israeli students by the PDFLP, and the 1977 Moluccan hostage crisis in the Netherlands in which the terrorists did not kill any of their hostages, but two students died in a subsequent police raid.

Terrorists soon realized that attacking schoolchildren will not generate sympathy and erodes the aura of the group, and so this activity was not repeated. It is simply not conducive to gaining funds and new members, which is the goal of most terrorist activity. Also, terrorists will not waste their assets on a schoolhouse attack because there is no way to extricate their assets; a professional operative is not suicidal.

Terror has a purpose beyond the simple violence suffered by the target group: it is symbolic and aims to spread fear beyond the target audience. If it does not accomplish that goal, it is simply crime. What would any terror group hope to achieve by killing children on U.S. soil?

If the answer were as simple as the war hawk/fundamentalist crowd claims, we would imagine their purpose would actually be eradicating Americans. But that would an arduous way to go about the task of winnowing down a nation of 300+ million people; there are simply too many of us. (The 22 Israeli students killed was a far greater actual loss to a small nation like Israel, so the PDFLP attack could be seen as achieving both ends, though the publicity was a negative gain.)

These t.v. programs are simply hawking fear in the guise of machismo. The writers shamelessly conflate news of actual school murders -- like those in China, Scotland, Chechnya, Columbine and Pennsylvania -- taking the onus off the crazy one-off shooter and institutionalizing it in the form of a well-oiled generic terrorist machine; it just ain't the reality.

The U.S. media consumer is never exposed to the facts on terrorism, which can easily be found in non-classified United Nations or State department reports. Why? Put in perspective, so many more of your fellows are killed each year by auto accidents and medical mistakes as to make the actual threat of terrorism pale.

But that wouldn't generate the kind of mass paranoia that needs to be kept on a low simmer to fuel the complacency of the average citizen, Democrat and Republican, alike.

Duck and Cover

"Hostage Drill Promotes Safety,"
Tallahassee Democrat (2/19/08)

Have no time to look around
Just run around, run around and think why
Does anybody really know what time it is
Does anybody really care
--Does Anybody Really Know What Time it Is?,
Chicago

It no longer shatters the intellect
that those who make war
call themselves diplomats

we are no longer surprised that the
unfaithful pray loudest every Sunday
in every church and sometimes
in rooms facing east
though it is a sin and a shame
--The Women Gather, Nikki Giovanni
___________

Following the recent school shooting at NIU by the latest 15-second-of-famer, our local paper has decided to make us all feel better and as though someone knows WTF is happening by fronting the story, "Hostage Drill Promotes Safety."

The article covers the hostage drill at at a local middle school and Florida A & M University, replete with "rapid gunfire, 'bloody' victims and panicked squeals." George Romero would be proud; however, the featured response is an unlikely deterrent and possibly, inappropriate treatment.

As always, the officers are conducting a military-type assault. All are wearing protective masks, implying the use of toxic substances such as CS or CN (teargas). The hostages obviously won't have such protective gear. The officer on the right is carrying a 5.56 mm M-4 type military assault rifle, which fires a projectile at +/- 3,250 f/s -- not a wise weapons choice for close quarters in which friendlies may be taking refuge. (A 9mm with safety slugs would be a much wiser choice of weapons.)

The pictured assault team is bunched up, and a dedicated shooter could neutralize the three on the left with controlled fire. Bunching up is a formula for disaster, and I'm assuming they are not in the posture posing for the cameraman. The picture indicates a lack of training.

While armed responses are often required in such scenarios, some thought should be given to resolution of the incident via hostage negotiation. Shooting first is not always the answer.

"When an incident happens, a universal system is used so everyone can patch into it." Hopefully the communication and mobile crisis management center has pre-established lines of communication for overall incident management. But at the team level, only the response team should communicate internally. Too many people talking on a tactical net is not a viable command and control function.

The newspaper headlines on NIU read "latest school terror." Finally, we must be clear defining the threat. A crazed lone gunman is not a "terror threat." To conflate the terms is to appropriate a discrete phenomenon in the name of which two wars are falsely being conducted to include any act of outrageous violence. This accretion of violent episodes inappropriately lends credence to the wars. The two phenomena are separate in origin and purpose.

The military assault might not be the best treatment in either scenario.

After the Virginia Tech shooting, VT English teacher and poet Nikki Giovanni said, "I knew when it happened that that's probably who it was. I would have been shocked if it wasn't." Because of the shooter's previous menacing behavior, Giovanni went to the department's chairwoman and told her she was "willing to resign before [she] was going to continue with him." He was removed from her classroom.

As an aside, read some of Ms. Giovanni's poetry if you want to read real. There are no minced words there, only a harsh yet redeeming honesty.

That is the kind of integrity and honesty that is called for today. The father and girlfriend of the NIU shooter gave the usual babble about "what a nice guy he was," and how, "no one would've suspected." Yet the night before the shooting he called the girlfriend -- with whom he lived -- late to poignantly say goodbye, and had just purchased a handgun for her.

Hello -- these are warning signs, if anyone cares to sees them.