The Threat Is Real…Really
Frank Salvato
February 16, 2006
Recently, a friend of mine, Jeff Epstein, who is diligently working to put together a symposium on the threat posed to the US by terrorism, was at a trade show handing out promotional fliers for the event featuring the title, “The Threat is Real.” Given that September 11th, 2001 wasn’t really that long ago, that Iran’s radical Islamic government is actively pursuing nuclear weapons and that rank and file Muslims have taken to the streets screaming for the hands, heads and any other applicable body parts of those who dared to draw Muhammad in caricature, the titled seemed to fit. But one “progressive” attending the show was so outraged at the notion that the US may still be in the crosshairs of terrorism he literally accosted my friend wanting to know, “What threat is real!”
It is puzzling to me that there are some among us unable to understand that we are in a battle for our very existence; The War on Terror.
Perhaps it can be attributed to the “sitcom attention span” epidemic that has taken hold in the United States. This mentality has effectively set the threshold for grasping any concept at 30 minutes of media face-time – commercials included. Any longer than 30 minutes, well, we really don’t have time in our busy lives for anything that would take longer than 30 minutes, now do we. After all, we’ve gotten all the facts we need from CBS News, Newsweek and the New York Times and, well, we’re really late for the “Anti-War/Anti-Bush/Global Warming/Socialism Is Wonderful/Cindy Sheehan Look-a-Like Contest.”
Couple the “sitcom attention span” with the mainstream news media’s over-use of the phrase “War on Terror” and it is easy to see how the very real threat that terrorism poses to the United States has been gradually transformed into just another computer generated graphic underscored by bad music to be used by the bubble-headed bleached-blond coming on at five to practice her best “I’m looking serious for the camera” face (my apologies to Don Henley).
Whatever the reason, the American public has disassociated the meanings of the words “war” and “terror” with regard to the phrase “War on Terror.” With an enemy that looks at a time span of ten years between attacks as a rhetorical “blink of the eye,” this sitcom attention span plays directly into our enemy’s hands; it makes us very vulnerable and, quite frankly, it allows for stupidity to reign.
Here is a good example.
Recently, Al Gore – the “progressive” left’s unelected President of the United States (boy, that has to frost John Kerry) and, if you ask him, the epicenter of all worldly wisdom, on planet Gore and elsewhere – spoke at the Jeddah Economic Forum in Saudi Arabia.
To illustrate how the sitcom attention span has affected the former-vice president, Gore – in his typical “I invented the internet” style – invented atrocities allegedly committed by the US government against Saudi Arabians in the days that followed September 11th, 2001. Evidently his Sitcom Attention Span Disorder, or SASD (progressives can’t have an affliction without an acronym) either had him confusing the attacks of September 11th with the attack on Pearl Harbor some 60 years earlier or had him forgetting that he had accused President Bush of showing Saudi nationals preferential treatment after September 11th by spiriting them out of the US to avoid actions of retribution.
It would be rude to call an ex-vice president stupid – or to accuse him of having lied – so I will assume that his case of SASD is a severe one. Why else would a former-vice president go to the Middle East and invent American perpetrated atrocities against Middle Easterners to further inflame the radical Islamists who advocate the continued slaughtering of Western innocents?
Osama bin Laden and Ayman al Zawahri both recently released communiqués reiterating their contempt for the United States and the free world. In both communiqués they promised new and terrifying attacks on the United States and the Western (read modern) world. Arguably, these two sponsors of mass murder are threats to the United States.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the lunatic now playing the role of mouthpiece for the Iranian imams and ayatollahs, laughs and jokes with his radical Islamic fundamentalist buddies as he threatens nuclear Armageddon for Israel, the United States and any other nation that refuses to let the “madmen across the water” have nuclear capability. Arguably, these fanatics are a threat to the United States.
The Syrian government disingenuously presents itself as dumbfounded at the accusations they were complicit, if not the perpetrators of, the assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, a reformer championing Lebanese independence from Syria. Meanwhile the former Iraqi air force second in command is presenting testimony that Syria is now in possession of WMD produced by Saddam Hussein’s now toppled regime.
The Palestinian people voted into power a globally recognized terror organization that to this day refuses to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist and that rejects a two-state Israeli-Palestinian solution. Militant factions of Hamas have refused to renounce terrorism as a tool.
Arguably, the Syrians and Hamas represent a threat to the stability of the region and the safety of the world.
I wonder how I would have reacted if I had been with my friend Jeff when the “progressive” accosted him with his angry question, “what threat is real?” On the one hand I would have been entirely within my right to label him as part of the problem, his head-in-the-sand, too self-obsessed to see the world as it really exists. On the other hand it must be really hard to live with an Al Gore sized case of SASD.
Note: For more information on my friend Jeff Epstein’s symposium, The Roots of Terrorism, scheduled to take place on April 29, 2006 in Washington DC please visit www.americastruthforum.com.
Frank Salvato is the managing editor for The New Media Journal.us. He serves at the Executive Director of the Basics Project, a non-profit, non-partisan, socio-political education project. His pieces are regularly featured in over 100 publications both nationally and internationally. He has appeared on The O’Reilly Factor, numerous radio shows coast to coast and his pieces have been recognized by the Japan Center for Conflict.
It is puzzling to me that there are some among us unable to understand that we are in a battle for our very existence; The War on Terror.
Perhaps it can be attributed to the “sitcom attention span” epidemic that has taken hold in the United States. This mentality has effectively set the threshold for grasping any concept at 30 minutes of media face-time – commercials included. Any longer than 30 minutes, well, we really don’t have time in our busy lives for anything that would take longer than 30 minutes, now do we. After all, we’ve gotten all the facts we need from CBS News, Newsweek and the New York Times and, well, we’re really late for the “Anti-War/Anti-Bush/Global Warming/Socialism Is Wonderful/Cindy Sheehan Look-a-Like Contest.”
Couple the “sitcom attention span” with the mainstream news media’s over-use of the phrase “War on Terror” and it is easy to see how the very real threat that terrorism poses to the United States has been gradually transformed into just another computer generated graphic underscored by bad music to be used by the bubble-headed bleached-blond coming on at five to practice her best “I’m looking serious for the camera” face (my apologies to Don Henley).
Whatever the reason, the American public has disassociated the meanings of the words “war” and “terror” with regard to the phrase “War on Terror.” With an enemy that looks at a time span of ten years between attacks as a rhetorical “blink of the eye,” this sitcom attention span plays directly into our enemy’s hands; it makes us very vulnerable and, quite frankly, it allows for stupidity to reign.
Here is a good example.
Recently, Al Gore – the “progressive” left’s unelected President of the United States (boy, that has to frost John Kerry) and, if you ask him, the epicenter of all worldly wisdom, on planet Gore and elsewhere – spoke at the Jeddah Economic Forum in Saudi Arabia.
To illustrate how the sitcom attention span has affected the former-vice president, Gore – in his typical “I invented the internet” style – invented atrocities allegedly committed by the US government against Saudi Arabians in the days that followed September 11th, 2001. Evidently his Sitcom Attention Span Disorder, or SASD (progressives can’t have an affliction without an acronym) either had him confusing the attacks of September 11th with the attack on Pearl Harbor some 60 years earlier or had him forgetting that he had accused President Bush of showing Saudi nationals preferential treatment after September 11th by spiriting them out of the US to avoid actions of retribution.
It would be rude to call an ex-vice president stupid – or to accuse him of having lied – so I will assume that his case of SASD is a severe one. Why else would a former-vice president go to the Middle East and invent American perpetrated atrocities against Middle Easterners to further inflame the radical Islamists who advocate the continued slaughtering of Western innocents?
Osama bin Laden and Ayman al Zawahri both recently released communiqués reiterating their contempt for the United States and the free world. In both communiqués they promised new and terrifying attacks on the United States and the Western (read modern) world. Arguably, these two sponsors of mass murder are threats to the United States.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the lunatic now playing the role of mouthpiece for the Iranian imams and ayatollahs, laughs and jokes with his radical Islamic fundamentalist buddies as he threatens nuclear Armageddon for Israel, the United States and any other nation that refuses to let the “madmen across the water” have nuclear capability. Arguably, these fanatics are a threat to the United States.
The Syrian government disingenuously presents itself as dumbfounded at the accusations they were complicit, if not the perpetrators of, the assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, a reformer championing Lebanese independence from Syria. Meanwhile the former Iraqi air force second in command is presenting testimony that Syria is now in possession of WMD produced by Saddam Hussein’s now toppled regime.
The Palestinian people voted into power a globally recognized terror organization that to this day refuses to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist and that rejects a two-state Israeli-Palestinian solution. Militant factions of Hamas have refused to renounce terrorism as a tool.
Arguably, the Syrians and Hamas represent a threat to the stability of the region and the safety of the world.
I wonder how I would have reacted if I had been with my friend Jeff when the “progressive” accosted him with his angry question, “what threat is real?” On the one hand I would have been entirely within my right to label him as part of the problem, his head-in-the-sand, too self-obsessed to see the world as it really exists. On the other hand it must be really hard to live with an Al Gore sized case of SASD.
Note: For more information on my friend Jeff Epstein’s symposium, The Roots of Terrorism, scheduled to take place on April 29, 2006 in Washington DC please visit www.americastruthforum.com.
Frank Salvato is the managing editor for The New Media Journal.us. He serves at the Executive Director of the Basics Project, a non-profit, non-partisan, socio-political education project. His pieces are regularly featured in over 100 publications both nationally and internationally. He has appeared on The O’Reilly Factor, numerous radio shows coast to coast and his pieces have been recognized by the Japan Center for Conflict.
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