Terrorized by the media
Spare us the sky-is-falling hysteria. If anything, the failed bombing shows how little we need to fear al-Qaida
Topics: Media Criticism, Terrorism, Transportation Security Administration, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab
President Obama speaks about plans to thwart future terrorist attacks, on Jan. 5, at the White House.No one can say how America’s struggle with Islamic extremism will end, save that it won’t be resolved by having Matt Damon kill Osama bin Laden in single combat. And President Obama won’t yell “Get off my plane!” before tossing Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to his death.
However this conflict ends, Bruce Willis will not be involved.
Most Americans understand that the long battle against al-Qaida and related terrorist groups has little in common with a Hollywood plot. Or at least I hope they do. Watching excitable media personalities and the Chicken Little wing of the Republican Party doing everything possible to turn the failed Christmas airline bombing in Detroit into a combination Super Bowl-size ratings bonanza and political opportunity, however, made me wonder: Can’t these jokers be serious about anything?
TV news broadcasters dote upon melodrama. The fact that would-be Nigerian terrorist Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab struck on Christmas Day, one of the slowest news days of the year, sent the media into overdrive. For CNN, Fox News and the rest, the catastrophe that blessedly didn’t happen spurred them to do what they do best: gather a terrific amount of information in a short time and inform us about what happened aboard Northwest Airlines Flight 253 — and, equally important, what didn’t, such as a coordinated attack by multiple terrorists.
(Was I the only one who wondered whether the heroism of Dutch tourist Jasper Schuringa, who threw himself on Abdulmutallab, preventing the bomb in his pants from detonating, got relatively short shrift because he wasn’t an American?)
Moreover, the rapidity with which the media had gathered crucial information about the would-be terrorist only underscored the magnitude of the intelligence failure. How, in the age of Google, can the Transportation Security Administration not have an instantly searchable database containing every suspect who has come to the attention of the CIA or FBI, much less one whose father warned U.S. embassy authorities about his son’s growing radicalism?
Obama has demanded an answer. Congress needs to make sure Americans get one, even if that means having to endure Sen. John McCain and Holy Joe Lieberman’s unique blend of smugness and solemnity for weeks at a time.
However, we could all do without the sky-is-falling hysteria. If anything, Abdulmutallab’s failed atrocity attempt demonstrates, once again, how little America as a nation actually has to fear from al-Qaida. Everyone reading this column is far more likely to die in an automobile accident or an influenza epidemic than at a terrorist’s hands.
Arkansas Times columnist Gene Lyons is a National Magazine Award winner and co-author of "The Hunting of the President" (St. Martin's Press, 2000). You can e-mail Lyons at eugenelyons2@yahoo.com. More Gene Lyons.


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