THE PAULA GORDON SHOW |
Know Your Terrorist |
Related Links:
Securing the City: Inside the World’s Best Counterterror Force, the NYPD is published by Simon and Schuster.
A decade ago, former deputy director of the FBI Danny Coulson first pointed out to us the important distinction between the role of police and that of the military. He also argued that treating terrorists as criminals rather than members of some amorphous army greatly reduces the public relations efficacy of their crimes. Mia Bloom (Dying to Kill) says that it is precisely the PR effect of suicide bombings which sustains their use. In How Israel Lost, Richard Ben Cramer agrees with Mr. Dickey's point that military occupation of a land along with accompanying humiliation of its people is guaranteed to stoke the flames of terrorism. In The Terror Dream, Susan Faludi says that, rather than dealing with the reality of terrorism as Mr. Dickey suggests, American media and much of the political and chattering classes chose to respond to 9/11 by engaging in magical thinking based or ersatz American myths Former Ambassador Peter Galbraith supports Mr. Dickey's view that the American invasion and occupation of Iraq has served as an excellent tool for recruiting new terrorists. Tim Weiner has documented the ongoing intelligence failures of the CIA in Legacy of Ashes. And, here's a little background information on Paula Gordon and Bill Russell, the Program co-hosts. |
Acknowledgement
At the same time that Christopher Dickey’s book Securing the City reads a lot like a police thriller, it also makes clear what both makes the United States genuinely powerful and what protects us best -- the American promise of liberty and justice for all. We thank him on all counts. |
|