April 30, 2008 FEMA Emergency Management Higher Education Report

(1) Terrorism:

Mueller, John. “Terrorphobia: Our False Sense of Insecurity.” American Interest Online, Vol. III, No. 5, May/June 2008. At: http://www.the-american- interest.com/ai2/article.cfm?Id=418&MId=19

Excerpts:

A few days after the 9/11 attacks, Vice President Dick Cheney warned that there might never be an “end date” in the “struggle” against terrorism, a point when it would be possible to say, “There, it’s all over with.” More than six and a half years later, his wisdom seems to have been vindicated, though perhaps not quite in the way he intended. At least in its domestic homeland security aspects, the so- called War on Terror shows clear signs of having developed into a popularly supported governmental perpetual-motion machine…

…terrorism and the attendant “war” thereon have become fully embedded in the public consciousness, with the effect that politicians and bureaucrats have become as wary of appearing soft on terrorism as they are about appearing soft on drugs, or as they once were about appearing soft on Communism….

…polls since 2001 do not demonstrate all that much of a decline in the percentage of the American public anticipating another terrorist attack, or expressing fear that they themselves might become a victim of it. The public has chosen to wallow in a false sense of insecurity, and it apparently plans to keep on doing so. Accordingly, it will presumably continue to demand that its leaders defer to its insecurities, and will uncritically approve as huge amounts of money are shelled out in a quixotic and mostly symbolic effort to assuage those insecurities….

Our problems do not arise, then, from a national anxiety neurosis, but more from other consequences of the fear of terrorism. One is that when a consensus about a threat becomes internalized, it becomes politically unwise, even disastrous, to oppose it—or even to lend only half-hearted support to it. Another is that the internalized consensus creates a political atmosphere in which government and assorted pork-barrelers can fritter away considerable money and effort on questionable enterprises, as long as they appear somehow to be focused on dealing with the threat. In the present context, the magic phrase, “We don’t want to have another 9/11”, tends to end the discussion.

(2) Email Backlog Update: 536 in the am; 537 in the pm.

[Note: Not much of an EM Hi-Ed Report today – most of the day spent in a series of meetings with potential contractors, who were being interviewed on their qualifications to undertake the revision of some or all of 14 EMI State-delivered training courses and 3 EM Hi-Ed Program college courses. Will try to play catch-up tomorrow.] The End.

B.Wayne Blanchard, Ph.D., CEM Higher Education Program Manager Emergency Management Institute National Emergency Training Center Federal Emergency Management Agency Department of Homeland Security 16825 S. Seton, K-011 Emmitsburg, MD 21727 http://training.fema.gov/EMIWeb/edu

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