Personal About Politics: A Change in the Equation Between Terrorism and Our Daily Lives.

Sunday was just about as perfect as a day can get here in Southern California. Warm and sunny with clear blue skies and a faint scent of jasmine in the air. Blooming jacaranda trees lined the streets with purple profusion. The kind of day that makes me glad to be living in Southern California. The kind of day that makes me glad to be alive.

It was just the right kind of day to sit outside with a bagel, the Sunday paper and a cup of coffee. I was lucky enough to find a vacant table in a small area between Noah’s Bagels, beneath the raised area of Wild Oats. A large number of people sat at tables and benches and on the grass of the gently sloping knoll, surrounded by bushes heavy with blooms and fragrance, reading papers, eating and drinking coffee. Pigeons walked undeterred scouting for crumbs.  Young parents pushed strollers or held the hand of a toddler. There was a gentle hum of conversation. It was a peaceful idle.

Until the bang.

It was an enormous bang, like the sound of a shotgun or an explosion, just above me at the top of the knoll. Suddenly, everyone froze and looked toward the frightening noise. No one moved or made a sound.  I could feel, as well as see, the fear in everyone. The fear was palpable. A fear that I felt too. Because of the raised area and the bushes, we couldn’t see what had happened, nor was there a way out of this little cul de sac, except from the direction of the bang. We were all stuck in a frightful, frozen tableau.

I’m sure it was only about a minute, although it seemed longer, before I, and everyone else, realized there was no screaming or running for cover, or no additional bangs. Gradually, everyone went back to their paper or conversation, but with a little more trepidation. I realized the scales of my perfect Sunday morning idle had tipped toward fear. Fear of someone shooting, although this area is rather cerebral, and miles away from Compton or South Central L.A. know for random shootings. Or, even more frightening, a terrorist who decided to walk among gathered families and blow himself up as a holy jihad.

That’s when I realized terrorism has invaded and pervaded our daily lives. Quietly. Insidiously. By even thinking of a terrorist as a possibility, proves it to be true. It has become part of our vocabulary. It is part of the equation of our lives.  Added security at large events and the ministrations we must now go through at the airport, prove it to be true.

Much as Bush, and especially Cheney like to call the war in Iraq the “war on terror”, that is not the case.  Iraq is not the birthplace of terrorism, but our invasion of, and subsequent war there has created an incubator for terrorists.

In the current issue of Harper’s, James Bamford wrote, “An April 2006 report from the administration’s own director of national intelligence found that ‘the Iraq conflict has become the “cause celebre” for jihadists’ and was shaping a new generation of terrorist leaders and operatives.”

Peter Bergen and Paul Cruickshank, research fellows at New York University’s Center on Law and Security, reported in Mother Jones that the war had “generated a stunning sevenfold increase in the yearly rate of fatal jihadist attacks, amounting to literally hundreds of additional terrorist attacks and thousands of civilian lives lost; even when terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan is excluded, fatal attacks in the rest of the world have increased by more than one-third”. They called this increase the “Iraq effect.” (Harper’s, June/2007)

The Iraq Effect. It even has it’s own name. Terrorism personified.

The Los Angeles Times reported on Monday that “the Iraq war, which for years has drawn militants from around the world, is beginning to export fighters and the tactics they have honed in the insurgency to neighboring countries and beyond, according to American, European and Middle Eastern government officials and interviews with militant leaders in Lebanon, Jordan and London.”

Because we invaded Iraq, terrorists are now being exported from there to the rest of the world. We have fanned the flames of the holy jihad.

The war on terror is not in Iraq. It is everywhere. And most importantly, it is right here, right now. Whoever, and wherever we are, we must fight the fear of terrorism invading our lives and our minds, because that is exactly what terrorists want. They want us to live in constant fear. 

Memorial Day was another stunning day here in Southern California. A day to honor those in the military for their sacrifice and guardianship. A day to enjoy fully, without fear.


“Nothing is so much to be feared as fear.”
Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) Journal, 7 September 1851


Cheri Cabot, Politics Correspondent
Cheri’s column, “Personal About Politics”, published every Tuesday, will reflect on how the life of a 57 year-old, middle class woman is affected by politics, policy and the current state of the nation - a look at the personal aspects of politics. The articles will be posted to Politics.gather.com as part of Gather Essentials.

Cheri is a single teacher and writer, living in Southern California.  She has two grown children, one in Iowa and one at Columbia University, and is the proud grandmother of two. Cheri is also a purveyor of fine coffee, warm chatter and dry wit.

You can find all of Cheri’s columns on Personal About Politics at www.ccabot.gather.com.  Keep up with Cheri’s other postings and Gather activity by joining her Gather network at www.ccabot.gather.com, and select the orange “Connect” button on the left-hand side of the page.

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