Krugman on the Real Threat of ISIS

He's right-just like FDR was all those years ago: the only fear is fear itself.

Having said that, let me say that I'm afraid. I am. Not of ISIS-we can handle them. But of what this may do to us as a country. I'm afraid that we make the same errors we made in the Bush years. That's my fear.

Krugman nails this sense.

"Like millions of people, I’ve been obsessively following the news from Paris, putting aside other things to focus on the horror. It’s the natural human reaction. But let’s be clear: it’s also the reaction the terrorists want. And that’s something not everyone seems to understand."

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/16/opinion/fearing-fear-itself.html?rref=collection%2Fcolumn%2Fpaul-krugman&action=click&contentCollection=opinion&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=collection

Yes. Even the act of watching hours of this endless reporting is morbid in a sense. Yes, I like Krugman do it. You have to do it if you want to keep up with what's going on in the world.

I am not critical of cable news to have wall to wall coverage but I do agree it carries this danger. I think for the wrong kinds of people it can be dangerous-morbid people tend to latch onto morbid ideas and images.

"So what was Friday’s attack about? Killing random people in restaurants and at concerts is a strategy that reflects its perpetrators’ fundamental weakness. It isn’t going to establish a caliphate in Paris. What it can do, however, is inspire fear — which is why we call it terrorism, and shouldn’t dignify it with the name of war."

That has been a big faultine in the last few days. The conservatives want Obama to say 'We're at war with radical Islam.' Why won't he say it?! they rage.

One reason is this gives ISIS exactly what they want. They want us to dignify it by calling it war rather than terror; and they are selling this as a war against Islam.

"The point is not to minimize the horror. It is, instead, to emphasize that the biggest danger terrorism poses to our society comes not from the direct harm inflicted, but from the wrong-headed responses it can inspire. And it’s crucial to realize that there are multiple ways the response can go wrong."

Of course, there's this hypersensitivity out there about minimizing the horror. Obama said it was just a setback. Kerry said the Charlie Hebdo attack had a rationale. Obama said we're winning against ISIS. We are clearly not winning.

Well what makes that so clear? Because of one attack? What is getting obscured is that it wasn't really ISIS that did the attack on Friday, but European nationals inspired by ISIS. Which is not the same thing as ISIS sending it's own in.

It is true that they control 25% less territory than they did a year ago. This is what the President had meant. Obama has the right temperament. Hopefully he doesn't get intimidated.

"A much bigger risk, in practice, is that the targets of terrorism will try to achieve perfect security by eliminating every conceivable threat — a response that inevitably makes things worse, because it’s a big, complicated world, and even superpowers can’t set everything right. On 9/11 Donald Rumsfeld told his aides: “Sweep it up. Related and not,” and immediately suggested using the attack as an excuse to invade Iraq. The result was a disastrous war that actually empowered terrorists, and set the stage for the rise of ISIS."

Finally he makes another really crucial point-terrorism is a danger but not the only or even worst in the world.

"Finally, terrorism is just one of many dangers in the world, and shouldn’t be allowed to divert our attention from other issues. Sorry, conservatives: when President Obama describes climate change as the greatest threat we face, he’s exactly right. Terrorism can’t and won’t destroy our civilization, but global warming could and might."

"So what can we say about how to respond to terrorism? Before the atrocities in Paris, the West’s general response involved a mix of policing, precaution, and military action. All involved difficult tradeoffs: surveillance versus privacy, protection versus freedom of movement, denying terrorists safe havens versus the costs and dangers of waging war abroad. And it was always obvious that sometimes a terrorist attack would slip through."

"Paris may have changed that calculus a bit, especially when it comes to Europe’s handling of refugees, an agonizing issue that has now gotten even more fraught. And there will have to be a post-mortem on why such an elaborate plot wasn’t spotted. But do you remember all the pronouncements that 9/11 would change everything? Well, it didn’t — and neither will this atrocity."

"Again, the goal of terrorists is to inspire terror, because that’s all they’re capable of. And the most important thing our societies can do in response is to refuse to give in to fear."