Manufactured terrorist threats serve governance by keeping citizens fearful and quiescent

Evidence

In 2009, the State Department reported that the number of Americans killed that year around the world due to terrorism was a grand total of nine. Fourteen people were injured, and four were kidnapped. To put those numbers in perspective, the Bureau of Labor Statistics counted 4,340 deaths due to workplace events or exposure in 2009.14 Deaths from car accidents numbered 30,797.15 Yet no one declared war on corporations or auto manufacturers. What’s more, a State Department terrorism report released in April 2009 states that “al-Qaeda … and associated networks continued to lose ground, both structurally and in the court of world public opinion.” Nevertheless, the report asserted that these organizations “remained the greatest terrorist threat to the United States and its partners.” All this reveals not only the disconnect between rhetoric and reality but also the mechanics involved in mobilizing a politics of fear. It is worth emphasizing that the threat from terrorism is a manufactured crisis, one that is useful to justify war and continued violations of civil liberties domestically. The green scare is just as useful today as the red scare was during the Cold War. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 508 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Seen in perspective, the domestic War on Terror is not really about keeping Americans safe as much as it is about creating a spectacle of fear. During the Cold War, schools routinely conducted “duck and cover” drills in which students and teachers hid under tables, supposedly to protect them from a blast in the event of a nuclear attack by the Soviet Union. Whatever the marginal benefits of ducking under a table, the ability to survive a nuclear bomb depends on one’s distance from the blast, not on the furniture. The real goal of such activities was to keep the threat of attack alive and to foster fear and paranoia. In the War on Terror era, color-coded “terror threat levels” (ultimately phased out in 2011) and “if you see something, say something” signs in airports and subway stations have served a similar purpose by generating the spectacle of terrorism. And mainstream media coverage of “foiled terror plots” orchestrated by the law enforcement community only serves to reinforce this atmosphere. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 484 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

People generally choose safety. This is not a trait unique to members of any race or religion. People want safety and security for themselves, but also for their families. And giving people what they want is certainly a route to power. Nations like to have leaders who are strong protectors. And for all of recorded history, opportunists like Trump have understood that they can rise on promises to protect their people from imagined threats just as much as from real ones. — Arsalan Iftikhar, Fear of a Muslim Planet_ Global…, 329 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim
• XREF: connects to: A government can manufacture crisis to construct its own people as enemy — , The Braided Reading EPUB: 5-Year…, 111; Sovereignty operates by designating quotidian acts as security matters.; Sustained terror normalizes precaution until fear becomes habit — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 1583 (+9 more)

Related

• War against terrorism is itself a form of terrorism. (similarity 0.91)
• The terrorism threat is a manufactured crisis useful for justifying war and curtailing liberties. (similarity 0.91)
• Manufactured external terror serves elite interests while real internal terror afflicts the poor. (similarity 0.90)
• Domestic war on terror functions as a manufactured spectacle of fear rather than safety (similarity 0.88)
• Terrorism fear uniquely suits political manipulation because it resists quick fixes (similarity 0.87)
• States manufacture paranoia so the public welcomes the very power that created the anxiety (similarity 0.82)
• Politicians gain power by promising protection against imagined threats (similarity 0.81)
• The radicalized Muslim threat narrative is a fear instrument rather than a safety measure (similarity 0.79)
• War on terror justice neutralizes the rule of law in the name of security (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• The terrorism threat is a manufactured crisis useful for justifying war and curtailing liberties. #corroborates (0.90) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 508
• Domestic war on terror functions as a manufactured spectacle of fear rather than safety #corroborates (0.85) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 484
• Politicians gain power by promising protection against imagined threats #corroborates (0.75) — Arsalan Iftikhar, Fear of a Muslim Planet_ Global…, 329
• Power cannot self-realize but depends on societal-structural conditions for legitimacy #expands (0.70)
• Terrorism aims to provoke state repression that radicalizes the population. #complicates (0.55)
• Provoking state repression is the core mechanism of modern revolutionary terrorism #complicates (0.55) — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 368