“Out of these troubled times, our fifth objective-a new world order-can emerge.”
Those words were spoken by President George Bush Sr. on Sept. 11, 1990, in regard to Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. And 15 years later we have just that: a new world order.
But I doubt if this is what the president had in mind.
The recent bombing and attempted re-bombing of three subway stations and a bus in London during July put the whole world on notice. Terrorists sent a message to every man, woman and child on Earth that if you stand in opposition to their agenda, you can get it, too. It’s not only the United States and our Middle East affiliates that they’re after.
So now the whole world is walking on eggshells because nobody knows when, where or how severe the next attack is going to be. And regardless of how many times Tony Blair says the British won’t be intimidated by terror, you know they are.
How could they not be? How could anyone not be?
Terrorism has settled over the world like a fog, and it’s not going to blow over anytime soon. This is the way things are going to be for a while.
Even if we squash the insurgency in Iraq and catch Bin Laden, there will still be terrorists. There will still be people who are willing, even anxious, to sacrifice their own lives to harm us. That’s how much they hate us.
And we as Americans can’t do anything to change the terrorists’ perceptions of us.
It’s too late to say, “Hey! You’ve got us all wrong. We’re really not bad people.”
It’s too late to preach peace and tolerance in an effort to pacify the terrorists’ anger.
And it’s definitely too late to stop chasing terrorists around the world or stop fighting the insurgents in Iraq. Both sides have way too much invested to give up now.
The only solution is for one side to defeat the other. It’s them or us and, no matter how it ends, it’s going to be ugly.
In the meantime, while the U.S. military goes head to head with terrorists in the Middle East, the world holds its breath, waiting for the next attack. And until the world is deemed safe again and we can truly exhale, we’ll only allow tiny whispers of relief to escape each time an attack happens somewhere other than where we are. But what if that changed?
Mississippi isn’t exactly rife with potential terror targets, so we tend to feel fairly secure when it comes to our chances of being a victim of terror. And the majority of the country probably holds the same “Why would they hit us here?” attitude.
We assume that terrorists are intent on causing maximum damage, killing a large amount of people or making a statement when they commit destructive acts. But besides the immediate impact of whatever they do, terrorists also operate through fear and intimidation. They want us to be afraid that we’ll be the next to die.
What if a terrorist threw a dart at a map of the United States and decided to set off a bomb wherever it landed. Can you imagine the impact?
Not only would the people of that town have to recover, but also every town in America would go on high alert. Suddenly nobody would be safe.
People would be afraid to leave their homes or use public transportation. Racial profiling would reach epidemic levels. Stores would require a background check before they sold you bleach. Metal detectors would become standard equipment everywhere.
And regardless of how small and insignificant you think your town is, you would be forced to deal with the reality that terrorists might blow it up. And small town life would never be the same.
Luckily, that’s not the case now. And hopefully it never will be. But the atmosphere of the world today is different than it’s ever been.
Terrorism has always existed, but now it’s on a new scale. Now the stakes are much higher.
What we are witnessing is a new world order.