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Considering the nearly constant warnings of the near certainty of a major terrorist attack this summer, dire declarations that Al Queda is
determined
to
upset or influence the US elections with an attack, and that the infamous
"chatter" is pointing to an attack launched inside the US using non-Arab
looking individuals, as well as the undeniable fact that major terrorist
attacks seem to occur approximately every three years, it is passing
curious that more speculation has not been forthcoming as to the probable
political fallout from such a seemingly inevitable occurrence.
Of course, it is a horrible thing to anticipate, and we all pray that
a repetition or variation of 9/11 can somehow be avoided, but the lack
of discussion on the topic of the political effects of an attack strikes
us as a sort of whistling by the graveyard, as though we are passing
through
a bout
of
national
denial,
refusing
to imagine the unimaginable.
First, in the name of full disclosure, we should mention that any kind
of serious terrorist attack within the United States would have an immediate
and disastrous effect on our employment status. As a Senior Lecturer
at a major private American university, we have absolutely no job security,
and are currently working our way through our 15th consecutive one-year
academic
year (9 month) contract. We can be discarded without recourse or separation
benefits at any point in time.
Furthermore, as a specialist in Teaching English as a Second Language,
the poor step-sister of higher education English instruction, our students
are all foreigners here on student visas, to take advantage of the
world’s premier university system. Since 9/11 our enrollment has fallen
by more
than half, and has only recently started to stabilize, and in some programs
even inch upward. Of the 43 full-time lecturers in our Center during
the Fall ’01 semester, only 21 remain. The rest were laid off on
a strict seniority basis. At present, the Dowbrigade, with 15
years of full-time service, is 21st on the seniority list. Meaning that
if
we lose any more students, a virtual certainty should there be another
attack, we will be unceremoniously shown the door.
Politically, for the past 6 months, since it became clear that the
Democratic Party was in the process of uniting behind John Kerry in a
desperate attempt to dethrone the Bush regime at all costs, we have had
a growing conviction that the tide had turned, time had run out on the
administration’s attempt to fool all of the people all of the time, and
the only thing that could save the ideologically bankrupt Bush team was
a serious
terrorist
attack
during
the run up to
the election.
The reasoning was simple. Historically, the nation bands together behind
the sitting President, regardless of their agreement or disagreement
with his domestic and foreign policy, at moments that the country itself
is under attack. Bush’s popularity peaked after the attack on the
Twin Towers, and spiked up again when our armed forces busted into Iraq
and rolled up what passed for conventional armed forces in the chaotic
pseudo state of Saddam Hussein.
But the conventional battle, which the world-class PR masterminds in
Washington could framed in historical, patriotic martial crepe, was
over too soon. The
messy war of occupation and attrition which followed is increasingly
difficult
to package as
a glorious
demonstration of American righteous armed heroism. The conventional war
had ended too soon, and there are no likely geopolitical candidates
for a new campaign which could be brought on-line in the short few months
before
the election.
So the only possible scenario to rekindle the insatiable thirst for
revenge and macho machination Bush needs to put him over the top would
be a terrorist
strike on the homeland.
Now, however, the situation has subtly shifted. Bush is hanging
his campaign on the only marginally supportable sense in which Americans
can be convinced that they have been directly and positively affected
in their daily lives by the whole war apparatus the administration has
ponderously
assembled. According
to Bush, the United States is more secure today thanks to his War on
Terrorism,
the Invasion of Iraq, the installation of a puppet regime in Afghanistan,
the sacrifice of personal liberty to the nefarious Patriot Act, the
creation of the Orwellian Department of Homeland Security, and the continual
feeding of the low-level paranoia which has become the status quo in
our country.
And every day, every week, every prime opportunity (4th of July, the
Superbowl, G8 meetings, etc.) that goes by without an incident, the Bush
argument gains weight. Hey, it’s been three years, and they haven’t
hit us again. Maybe all this Homeland Security stuff is really
working!
Meanwhile, the Democrats have been maneuvered into the awkward position
of having to argue that because the Bush strategy is misdirected at best,
criminally corrupt at worst, we are indeed LESS safe than we were before
9/11. In the absence of an attack, this position becomes harder
and harder to sustain. As the election approaches, we believe Bush
will benefit from a subconscious but powerful common sense stubbornness;
if it ain’t obviously broke, don’t mess with it. If we keep avoiding
the next blow, maybe we should stay the current course.
Seen from this point of view, an attack in the next few months could,
perversely, help the Democrats. It would be obvious that the Bush approach
is NOT working, and we are if anything more vulnerable than before.
Of course, all of this speculation cannot help us decide the best approach
to take, either to influence the outcome of the presidential election
or to avoid another attack. The Bush people are engaged in a desperate
gamble to
scare
the US population into supporting their aggressive moves to somehow defeat
an unseen and ephemeral enemy. The only conclusion clear to the Dowbrigade,
at this stage of the game, is that the outcome of the election will depend
on what happens, not in the convention halls or the news organizations,
but on the streets and in the skies of America. Or maybe, by what
doesn’t happen.
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