When, not if, will the next terrorist attack happen?
Timothy Snyder wrote an article on the next terrorist attack. You can read the full article here. What follows is an edited version. He writes about America but what happens to our southern neighbour affects every Canadian.
Timot
hy Snyder is an American historian of Europe and a public intellectual on both continents. Among his books are On Tyranny and Bloodlands, which appear in new editions in 2022. Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the bombing of its energy infrastructure, Snyder has spoken and written widely on related subjects: the history of Ukraine and its worldwide importance for democracy; the disastrous geopolitical effects of the invasion; and the need for other nations and individuals to stand up for the protection of territory belonging to that state.
Tyranny
Synder cites Lesson 18 of On Tyranny.
- Be calm when the unthinkable arrives. Modern tyranny is terror management. When the terrorist attack comes, remember that authoritarians exploit such events in order to consolidate power. The sudden disaster that requires the end of checks and balances, the dissolution of opposition parties, the suspension of freedom of expression, the right to a fair trial, and so on, is the oldest trick in the Hitlerian book.Do not fall for it.
That lesson arises from two notorious twentieth-century examples: the Reichstag Fire in Germany in 1933, which Hitler used to declare a state of emergency, and the Kirov assassination in the Soviet Union in 1934, which Stalin used as an excuse to expand terror. In both cases, it is the reaction that we remember, rather than the event itself.
USA Today
The Trump government has made the unthinkable much more likely. They have created the conditions for terrorism, and thus for terror management. This is true at several levels.
Most obviously, they have debilitated the services that detect terrorist threats and prevent attacks: the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and the National Security Agency (NSA). The CIA is a foreign intelligence service. The FBI is the federal police force. The NSA, which specializes in cryptography and foreign signals intelligence, is part of the Department of Defense. Homeland Security is a cabinet-level department that amalgamates a number of functions from immigration control through disaster relief and anti-terrorism.
The Players
Tulsi Gabbard exercises overall guidance over the intelligence agencies. She is known as an apologist for the now-overthrown Assad regime in Syria and the Putin regime in Russia.
The director of the FBI is Kash Patel, an author of children’s books that promote conspiracy theories, and a recipient of payments from sources linked to Russia.
The deputy director of the FBI is Dan Bongino, a right-wing entertainer who has called the FBI “irredeemable corrupt” and indulged in conspiracy theories about its special agents. He now draws FBI special agents away from their usual duties to serve as a personal bodyguard. Close to half of the FBI is now at work on border enforcement, which means that it is not at work on solving crimes or preventing terror attacks.
The director of Homeland Security is Kristi Noem, who lacks relevant expertise. Noem has distinguished herself by posing in front of a cell full of prisoners in El Salvador and “facing down” a protestor wearing an inflatable costume in Portland.
Security?
Homeland Security is focused on spectacular abductions at the expense of its other missions. Its programs to prevent terrorism have been defunded, and it is no longer keeping up its database on domestic terrorism.
As one insider put it: “The vibe is: How to use DHS to go after migrants, immigrants. That is the vibe, that is the only vibe, there is no other vibe. It’s wild — it’s as if the rest of the department doesn’t exist.” The obsession with migrants means that local law enforcement, all across the country, is being in effect federalized in the service of an objective that is essentially irrelevant to core missions. That, too, makes life easier for aspiring terrorists.
The National Security Agency sits within the Department of Defense (renamed the War Department), which is run by Pete Hegseth, a right-wing entertainer and culture warrior. He has fired people who were qualified, and is unable to keep even his own people at work — he lost four staffers in one day. The “meltdown” at the top of the Pentagon bodes ill. Elements of the Department of Defense which were meant to detect and predict terror attacks have ceased to exist.
Trump’s nominee for US district attorney for Washington, DC, Jeanine Pirro, is a media star in Russia.
Vulnerability
The leadership of the NSA itself was changed, under bizarre and troubling circumstances. After a meeting with conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer, Trump fired the NSA director, General Timothy Haugh. Wendy Noble, the deputy director, was also fired. This decapitation was part of a larger set of firings initiated by Loomer. It takes place during an ongoing purge of military leaders and national security officials. From the perspective of potential attackers, the culture wars mean vulnerability.
Meanwhile, other Department of Defense agencies that are central to the twenty-first century security of the United States, such as the Defense Digital Service, were destroyed by Elon Musk’s DOGE. It is worth contemplating the reaction of a former Pentagon official: “They’re not really using AI, they’re not really driving efficiency. What they’re doing is smashing everything.” In general, the penetration of the federal government by DOGE has weakened its functions, and likely made critical data available to adversaries who wish to hurt Americans.
These people run national security, intelligence, and law enforcement like a television show. A media strategy does not stop actual terrorists. It summons them.
A Real Risk
Terrorism is a real risk in the real world. The constant use of the word to denote unreal threats creates unreality. And unreality inside key institutions degrades capability. Security agencies that have been trained to follow political instructions about imaginary threats do not investigate actual threats. Fiction is dangerous. Treating the administration’s abduction of a legal permanent resident as a heroic defense against terror is not only mendacious and unconstitutional but also dangerous.
This administration makes the United States look vulnerable. Americans under the spell of Trump’s charisma might imagine that strength is being projected. Not so.
The Usual Suspects
The Trump administration is also generating scenarios for Islamicist terror with its erratic behavior in the Middle East. And Russia is now a risk in a way that it was not before. It has special units that carry out acts of destruction abroad, such as assassinations and sabotage.
Until recently, the United States had been fastidious about including Russia as a possible source of foreign terror. Now intelligence and defense work designed to monitor Russian sabotage inside the United States have been scaled back, as has tracking of Russian war crimes in Ukraine and public reporting on Russia.
Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, rationalizes Russian aggression. Patel, the FBI director, owes his career to the claim that people who (truthfully) speak of Russian operations inside the United States are carrying out a hoax.
Exploiting Terror
Our present government would be the last to resist the temptation to exploit terror. This administration would, I fear, make little if any attempt to apprehend the responsible people, especially if they are Americans or Russians. They might blame the Democratic Party, or Americans they hate for other reasons, or the opposition generally, or Canadians or Ukrainians or other Europeans. They will likely claim that there is some liking of underlying “antifa” conspiracy that somehow just happens to involve everyone that do not like.
History teaches us how terrorist attacks are exploited. Our advantage is that we know this history, and so react sensibly. Do not give the present regime the benefit of the doubt after it allows a terrorist attack to take place on American soil. Be skeptical about its account of who is to blame. And understand that freedom is the first condition of security. A terrorist attack is no reason to concede anything to this regime. On the contrary: such a failure would be one more reason, and a very powerful one, to resist it.
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