Jan 082010
 

I just sent the following  comment to the NYTimes: “The presumed perpetrator on the plane [i.e., the 12/25 incident on the Amsterdam -Detroit flight ] is now set to be arraigned tomorrow for “attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction”. This is an absurd and unnecessary conflation of terms. “WMD” originally meant something like a nuclear weapon, which could have killed many thousands of people. Now, setting off an explosive on a plane is said to be this, when one ground-to-air-missile would have been as lethal. Supposedly, Iraq was targeted for invasion because it was feared to possess WMD’s. But probably every country has them by this new definition. Is this to be an excuse for attacking everyone, everywhere? This inflated language may turn out to be far more deadly than the attempted bombing ever could have been.”

Why is the incident being magnified out of all proportion? for essentially the same reason that terrorsim is committted, that Dubai just dedicated  the absurd tower more than twice as high as the Empire State bldg., that reality show candidates fake a child’s ride in a balloon or crash a state dinner at the White House — namely, to get otherwise unwarranted attention. It is an unending explosion of exaggeration, in which our country now seems plunged, from tea-party-ers to Pres. Obama himself when he reiterates the absurdity that “this is war.” Sending a nut with explosvies in his underwear onto aplane is hardly war, whatever it is better called.