Independence Journal | Exurban Living Article

“The average man does not want to be free. He simply wants to be safe.” --- H. L. Mencken

CASE BRIEF #1

“It was 4:30 in the morning on Sept. 5, 1972, when five Arab terrorists wearing track sweat suits climbed the six-foot six-inch fence surrounding the Olympic Village.

Although they were seen by several people, no one thought anything was unusual since athletes routinely hopped the fence; moreover, the terrorists' weapons were hidden in athletic bags. These five were met by three more men who are presumed to have obtained credentials to enter the village.

The Palestinians, it was later learned belonged to a PLO faction called Black September. The terrorists made several demands, among which was that they and their hostages be taken to the airfield.

The terrorists and Israelis were then taken by bus to helicopters and flown to the airfield…After the helicopters landed at the air base around 10:30 p.m., German sharpshooters attempted to kill the terrorists and a bloody firefight ensued. A cease-f ire occurred lasting about one hour when new fighting broke out and one of the helicopters holding the Israelis was blown up by a terrorist grenade.

The remaining hostages in the second helicopter were shot to death by one of the surviving terrorists.

Case Brief #2

On May 30, 1972, a three-man hit squad from the Japanese Red Army arrived at the Lod Airport in Tel Aviv, Israel, via Air France Flight 132. They were dressed in business suits and carried what appeared to be violin cases. The operation was planned and supported by the General Command of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP-GC).

As the three men passed the ticket counter area, they suddenly pulled automatic weapons from their cases and began to spray the crowd indiscriminately. As they changed magazines in their weapons, the men threw hand grenades into the mass of sprawling bodies.

One of the terrorists, Yasuyuki Yasuda, ran out of ammunition and was cut down by his companions. A second terrorist, Tsuyoshi Okudaira, committed suicide by pulling the pin on a grenade and detonating it against his body.

Twenty-six people were killed in the massacre and 78 were injured. Sixteen of the dead were not even Israelis or Jews. They were Puerto Ricans in Israel on a pilgrimage.

Bombing of U.S. Embassy in Beirut, April 18, 1983: Sixty-three people, including the CIA's Middle East director, were killed, and 120 were injured in a 400-pound suicide truck-bomb attack on the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon. The Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility.”

This is not an article about terrorism. This is an article about the idea of terrorism. This is an article about the effects of the mental creation of that idea. This is an article about thinking, some peculiarities of American thinking, and consequences of non-critical thinking. This is an article about individual will, perceptions about safety and security. And finally, when all that thinking is done, I’ve included some information about tools that are available to us to help us maintain our independence.

Security, safety, protection, these words have different meanings for people depending on where they live. How they interpret and define these concepts is based upon their cultural mindset and perception of the world. Most people on our globe live on a somewhat more practical level everyday compared to the majority of folks in America. It is notable that the former tend to possess a sort of ‘mental toughness’ or emotional stability that enables them to persevere all the while holding onto hope and optimism under often horrific and brutal conditions. For such people, security, safety and protection may simply mean freedom from fear.

By contrast, too many Americans display an almost paralyzing self-pity when confronted by even relatively minor often insignificant, or even disconnected events or situations in their lives. It is an exceptional person today in America, who upon talking to someone who has a friend whose cousin witnessed a fatal shooting, can remain functional without over-dosing on Prozac, stocking up on Ritalin, or signing up the whole family for grief counseling.

Coupled with this, there is every indication that Americans manifest an increasing inability to think rationally and deliberately about themselves, their beliefs, their country, and the world.

“Defending our Nation against its enemies is the first and fundamental commitment of the Federal Government. Today, that task has changed dramatically. Enemies in the past needed great armies and great industrial capabilities to endanger America. Now, shadowy networks of individuals can bring great chaos and suffering to our shores for less than it costs to purchase a single tank. Terrorists are organized to penetrate open societies and to turn the power of modern technologies against us.”

So, now we come to the subject of safety and security in a world of threats of dangers. Sometimes the suggestion that something will occur is more effective in developing fear in people than the realization of the threat itself.

Since the 11 September bombing of the World Trade Center, there has been a seemingly steady stream of bombings, assassinations, wars, and threats of wars throughout the world.

People today are generally apprehensive, while many are simply afraid. Susceptible minds are beginning to think apocalyptically, wresting complex meanings from the Bible, the contents of which most had never read previously with regularity or at all.

Others have seized upon formulas and esoteric calculations from the writings of myriads of arcane pseudo-scientific prophets and predictors. All this information has only heightened our anxiety and titillated our imagination, much like the fear-thrill one experiences while watching horror movies such as, Nightmare on Elm Street, Amityville Horror, Scream I, II, III, etc., ad nauseam.

Cashing in on those fears, security companies are doing a windfall business, renting out bodyguards (referred to as “executive protection specialists”), selling electronic intrusion devices, armored vehicles, and personal protection paraphernalia of all types, from weighted gloves to help you hit harder, to miniature daggers disguised as ball point pens.

Television news is creating an international state of fear, and boosting interest in security products. The line between crime and terrorism has become blurred. A story about a disgruntled employee shooting his boss in a factory in Ohio, and a bombing in Indonesia suddenly look connected.

Through the magic of TV, shootings and bombings are enhanced and stream across our screen from all over the world. This all occurs within ten to fifteen minutes (approximately the time actually devoted to news in a half-hour news program. The rest is taken up by commercials and fluff.

Television news programs are able to create a sensation of intimacy and inevitability. This intense exposure invades our mind like a nightmare. We retain the impression, perhaps imperfectly, but the uneasiness remains long afterward.

Next we see terrorism experts coming out of the woodwork. We see them especially on MSNBC, FOX and CNN, talking with smug certainty about terrorist infrastructure, technology, and sophisticated worldwide network.

They spring out of seemingly nowhere. They talk easily in specialized terror jargon without a pause. Where were these guys when we needed them? Robert Wheeler says an expert is someone from out of town with a briefcase.

As we stagger back from the screen, we are convinced that terrorists surely know the names, addresses, and every intimate detail of 270 million Americans. They know who we are, and they are out to get us personally.

Unique by culture and programming, Americans have difficulty employing logic in how they think. They are not trained to ask simple and relevant questions. There is a tendency to confuse complexity with complication. Too often they believe the unbelievable and accept the denial of reality.

Take Moab, UT

It doesn’t matter for example, that the citizens of Moab Utah will likely be the last to be affected by weapons of mass destruction. The idea of a swarthy character with a beard sitting for ten hours on a Greyhound bus holding a coffee container full of deadly pathogens (we’re not sure what pathogens are) just to wipe out all 4,779 inhabitants of Moab does not seem farfetched in the American mind.

National paranoia may be gripping Americans, perhaps the world. “It’s not that we’re paranoid someone is out to get us. It’s that there may be more people out to get us than we can imagine.”

This and other ideas are believable because Americans resist a pragmatic view of the world.

Whenever they are confronted with conditions and situations that defy political correctness of the moment, they experience difficulty in acknowledging the reality of things- the way things really are. Their thoughts and conception of life in general, reflect an adolescent and theatrical quality. Immersed in a matrix-like culture, they have reached the acme of suspension of disbelief.

It is important to understand American thought. We have been writing somewhat obliquely about the psychology of terror, and the general state of mind upon which it is directed. We have examined the susceptibility of people, nations, and societies to imagery, implication, and form over substance. We have looked rather ruthlessly at the general attitude and state of the American mind in an attempt to understand the dimensions of national will. Now, let us move on.

Defining Security

For most Americans, security means personal safety. If one were to talk to the person next to them while standing in a supermarket line and ask, “Considering the state of world today, what kind of security would you like to have in your life?” Many people would probably say that they would not like to be blown up on an airliner, or have to worry about deadly chemical weapons.

Few would mention muggings, robberies, or even murder. These are familiar risks and we have become accustomed to them.

Now, perhaps we should think about security and what we expect it to mean. In certain parts of the world personal security/safety is a real and urgent state of mind.

Notwithstanding that the United States has a crime rate that is unique in its frequency, and creativity, it pales in significance to daily life in Medellín, Colombia, the Philippines, or more significantly Liberia where (at the time of this writing) there are only perpetrators and victims.

For the most part, our security has been of a national kind. That is, we trust in and expect our nation to protect us individually from danger/harm.

The nature of the threat may not be fully explained, but that is because the scope for action by the terrorist groups cannot be specified, because of the flexible nature of the goals and methods of the groups involved. There are no front lines, no standard or uniformed enemy, no standard weapons. There is no timetable. So what is my country going to do for me?

Everything has a price.

Each state, county and city provides a sort of downward spiral of personal protection for its inhabitants, from higher to lower, through local law enforcement.

In reverse, our personal protection diminishes as it moves from the lowest to highest level of authority, reaching ultimately to the federal government itself.

In a way, we might say that the responsibility for the citizen’s safety is the responsibility of the government, but only within the context of national security.

Over the years this separation of national and state protection had overlapped somewhat, but still remained essentially as it was originally designed. That is up until 9/11as we shall see.

The creation of the Department of Homeland Security in the United States was soon followed by the passage of the USA Patriot Act in the US Congress.

The full text of the USA Patriot Act is too lengthy to copy so here are just a few items paraphrased for brevity.

The Independence Journal urges everyone to read the entire text. You can do it during CNN headline news.

Under this act, the federal government has loosened restraints on law enforcement activities, giving increased powers to national law enforcement agencies.

With more relaxed laws protecting privacy and search and seizure, authorities may now detain suspects, monitor your phone conversations and conduct wiretaps with less stringent requirements for evidence or probable cause.

Police powers have not been given total autonomy, nevertheless they have also been granted greatly expanded authority to conduct wiretaps, detain suspects and demand private records with a broader requirement of evidence than before.

· Powers granted to the Attorney General to put in jail and detain non-citizens without probable cause, simply mere suspicion.

· Relaxed judicial supervision regarding the conduct of secret searches and telephone and Internet surveillance by law enforcement authorities involved in anti-terrorism investigations, and including routine criminal investigations unrelated to terrorism.

The American Civil Liberties Union, in a letter to Congress 23 October 2001, expressed dismay about these expanded law enforcement powers, and issued a warning that such laws create conditions that are potentially dangerous to civil rights, as existing legal barriers between the citizens and the federal government will most certainly be gradually worn away.

When the Department of Homeland Security was created, one of its goals was to develop programs that could inform individuals not only regarding security threats nationally, but also provide information and guidance that an individual could do to help themselves, and by doing so become an active participant in helping achieve the nation’s security objectives.

One of the first programs is called: The Homeland Security Advisory System.

The Advisory System is the Threat Condition Alert System that we hear so much about, and that we have become accustomed to seeing scroll across the bottom of the screen on news networks such as: CNN, MSNBC and FOX.

This alert system was established in March 2002 under the title: Homeland Directive –3 and designated five threat conditions for possible terrorist attack: Green = Low; Blue = Guarded; Yellow = Elevated; Orange = High; and Red = Severe. “

The Advisory System includes information that people can use for the safety of themselves, their family, and their neighborhood.

Besides the obvious benefit from the advisory system, the fact that a person can do something, and exercise some level of control over his or her life does a great deal to lessen fears and feelings of impotency about personal safety

However, there has been some confusion about what the threat conditions mean for the individual when a particular level is announced or displayed.

What many people did not realize was that the threat advisory is not only a national system, that informed Americans of the level of alert that the nations was on, but it is also an extensive plan that is broken down into Individual, family, Neighborhood, School, and business levels.

The Homeland Security Advisory System is quite extensive and beyond the objectives of this article, however brochures about the system can be obtained from the American Red Cross.

Here is an abbreviated example of how recommendations from the Advisory System are assigned according to the threat conditions.

Advertising Preparedness

A further component of the Homeland advisory System is the Citizen’s Preparedness Campaign. Part of this campaign includes preparing a Disaster Plan and making a Disaster Preparedness Kit. Here are excerpts from the Disaster Plan.

Terrorism—Preparing for the Unexpected

Develop a disaster plan together.

1. Create an emergency communications plan.
Choose an out-of-town contact your family or household will call or e-mail to check on each other should a disaster occur. Your selected contact should live far enough away that they would be unlikely to be directly affected by the same event, and they should know they are the chosen contact. Make sure every household member has that contact's, and each other's, e-mail addresses and telephone numbers (home, work, pager and cell). Leave these contact numbers at your children's schools, if you have children, and at your workplace. Your family should know that if telephones are not working, they need to be patient and try again later or try e-mail. Many people flood the telephone lines when emergencies happen but e-mail can sometimes get through when calls don't.

2. Establish a meeting place.
Having a predetermined meeting place away from your home will save time and minimize confusion should your home be affected or the area evacuated. You may even want to make arrangements to stay with a family member or friend in case of an emergency. Be sure to include any pets in these plans, since pets are not permitted in shelters and some hotels will not accept them.

3. Assemble a disaster supplies kit.
If you need to evacuate your home or are asked to "shelter in place," having some essential supplies on hand will make you and your family more comfortable. Prepare a disaster supplies kit in an easy-to-carry container such as a duffel bag or small plastic trash can. Include "special needs" items for any member of your household (infant formula or items for people with disabilities or older people), first aid supplies (including prescription medications), a change of clothing for each household member, a sleeping bag or bedroll for each, a battery powered radio or television and extra batteries, food, bottled water and tools. It is also a good idea to include some cash and copies of important family documents (birth certificates, passports and licenses) in your kit.

This is general information to assist a person or family to develop their own preparedness kit that meets their special requirements. The plan should be flexible and designed for natural disasters as well as emergencies resulting from criminal or terrorist acts.

Folks who live in metropolitan and urban areas may have specific needs that may be different from those who live in rural areas.

Start with three days worth of non-perishable food and water. Remember, even if your community is not directly affected by an attack, your life and daily routine may be disrupted. You may need to shelter at home for a couple of days. Roads and stores may be closed - electricity may be turned off - your water supply might be interrupted.

Add flashlights and a battery-powered radio to hear the latest instructions from local authorities. Don't forget extra batteries, a blanket, a first aid kit and medicines, and a manual can opener.

Stash away duct tape and pre-measured plastic sheeting for future use. Experts tell us that a safe room inside your house or apartment can help protect you from airborne contaminants for approximately five hours - that could be just enough time for a chemical agent to blow away.

Make certain that everyone knows how to get in touch, and knows what the emergency plan is for different types of attacks. Every state, every community, every school and every workplace should have an emergency plan. Find out what that plan is and who is in charge.

If your school or employer does not have a plan, volunteer to be part of a group to create one. Choose a meeting place, maybe a friend or relative's house, that's well away from your neighborhood. Keep your gas tank half-full. And always make sure you have a set of emergency and contact numbers posted by the phone.

The writers and staff of the Independence Journal support these plans and guidelines and urge you to create and maintain your own Disaster Preparedness Kit. In fact, if you make a copy of this article you can use the paper to start a fire if you need to.

From the beginning, it was obvious that there is no way to adequately cover all the different aspects of national and personal security. There’s simply too much information. So, this article is more about thinking about thinking, and thinking about security than about the mechanics. The official emergency programs, the standby emergency kit in the hall closet, our personal security in general, all really depend on our state of mind.

We must ‘get a grip’ on our imagination and our emotions. Control those flights of fancy and irrational fears that are all too often the result of hyped-up news coverage. Try to think critically and rationally. Do not allow feelings of despair to dominate your thoughts. It’s not bad to feel bad; it’s only bad to feel bad all the time. Get involved in your church, community, etc. but don’t become a zealot either.

Exurban Living