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发帖数: 569 | 1 2014年09月29日 12:36
来源：中国日报网
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原标题：ISIS成员：正筹划在纽约发动猛烈袭击
中国日报网9月29日电（小唐） 据《纽约每日新闻》27日报道称，极端组织“伊斯兰国
”（ISIS）的一名成员宣称，该组织正筹划在纽约发动袭击，而其目标是未来让该组织
旗帜在白宫上空飘荡。
“如果情况允许的话，我们很快就会在纽约发动恐怖袭击。”这名自称法拉赫·希雷顿
的加拿大人通过视频对外界说，“很多兄弟正在那里进行活动。”他还断定美国的武装
分子势必发动一场猛烈的袭击。
他还说：“我还知道很多人——数以千计的人——目前生活在西部，准备好在你们的土
地上行动。”他们的终极目标是看到ISIS的旗帜飘扬在白宫上空。
伊拉克总理阿巴迪最近也提醒称恐怖分子要在纽约和巴黎的地铁发动袭击。为了安抚民
众的恐慌情绪，纽约市市长白思豪25日出现在纽约地铁，向市民保证地铁的安全性。此
外，警长和纽约州的州长还分别乘坐不同的地铁线，向公众证明地铁的安全性。白宫也
回应说，美方情报部门没有收到任何针对地铁的恐怖袭击情报，但表示会进一步研究伊
拉克方面的情报。
The great American freakout
By Steven A. Holmes, CNN
updated 4:55 AM EDT, Wed October 1, 2014
Welcome to the Great American Freakout -- a time and space where the whole
country seems to be infused with, and contributing to an overriding sense of
fear of terrorism in general and ISIS in particular.
Washington (CNN) -- Late Thursday morning, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-
Abadi told a group of reporters in New York that his country had uncovered a
plot by ISIS sympathizers to attack subway systems in Paris and New York.
Al-Abadi, who was in New York attending the opening of the United Nations
General Assembly, said the information had come from his country's
intelligence service.
The Associated Press soon put out a report based on the Iraqi official's
comments and the ISIS political/media/security machine shifted into higher
gear.
Though federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies quickly cautioned
that they could not confirm the Iraqi report, social media exploded with the
story. Cable news outlets, including CNN, Fox and MSNBC, led their news
hours during the late afternoon with the story. The story was also featured
on the evening news broadcasts on NBC and CBS, and a number of news outlets
featured it the next morning.
The news organizations stressed that U.S. officials were spreading doubt on
the report. Still, often superimposed banners with messages such as "U.S
Blindsided By Iraqi Terror Warning," and "Officials: No Hint of ISIS Plot
Against Subways" left the viewer unsure what to think.
New York officials, prompted by the report, deployed SWAT teams and K-9
units to the city's subway stations, sent uniformed patrol personnel to
check on all 450 stations in the subway system, randomly inspected handbags
and luggage and kept officers on duty after their shifts ended. By the next
day, heavily armed officers were patrolling subway systems in cities across
the country.
All because of a report that had been debunked early on.
Welcome to the Great American Freakout: a time and space where the whole
country seems to be infused with, and contributing to, an overriding sense
of fear of terrorism in general and ISIS in particular. Despite ISIS not
having launched any attacks on U.S. soil and repeated assurances from
federal officials that they have not detected evidence of any imminent
threats, nearly 60% of respondents in a recent CBS/New York Times poll said
they felt ISIS was a "major threat" to the United States.
Indeed, a CNN poll taken in mid-September indicated that 71% of Americans
felt ISIS already had operatives working inside the country.
While there is little question that ISIS could pose a threat to the United
States if left unchecked, some security experts said they believe the
current hysteria is overblown.
"It's hard to imagine a better indication of the ability of elected
officials and TV talking heads to spin the public into a panic, with claims
that the nation is honeycombed with sleeper cells, that operatives are
streaming across the border into Texas or that the group will soon be
spraying Ebola virus on mass transit systems — all on the basis of no
corroborated information," Daniel Benjamin, a former National Security
Council worker who teaches at Dartmouth College, recently told The New York
Times.
But the fear is real and it is palpable and its existence says much, not
only about the nature of ISIS, but also about the changes in America
politics, media and psychology in the last few decades. This is not to say
there are no reasons -- real or imagined -- for Americans to be so afraid.
In fact there are at least six.
Growing public fear over terror threat Sen. doesn't want U.S. leading ISIS
fight New CNN Poll: The ISIS Impact
The video: While the ISIS videos did not show the actual slayings of James
Foley and Steven Sotloff, they did end with the grisly scene of their
decapitated heads lying on their bodies. The impact on the viewing American
public was chilling, not just for its barbarity, but also its other
worldliness.
"The concept of a beheading is so far out of our normal way of thinking,"
said Donna Fiedler, an associate professor of social work at LaSalle
University who has study how psychological trauma affects individuals. "It's
not something we regularly think about or even have in our conceptual maps.
So this is something completely new and scary."
It is also intensely personal. Images of most other terror attacks tended
not to show individuals who were being killed or about to die. "I think we
shouldn't underestimate the power of the particular; the power of the
individual, said Roy Peter Clark, a senior scholar at the Poynter Institute.
"It's like the little girl in the red dress in 'Schindler's List.' There's
death all around her. But you can recognize her as an individual. What that
inspires is empathy."
New media/old media: "ISIS has proved to be very adept, very talented ... in
ratcheting up the hysteria, ratcheting up the image of their influence far
beyond what their actual military capabilities are," former "CBS News"
anchor Dan Rather said recently on CNN's "Reliable Sources." Indeed, in
producing a steady stream of slickly produced videos that can be downloaded
onto smartphones and tablets, ISIS has brought its brutality into the palms
of our hands, as well as our living rooms. So whenever someone seeks to play
down the threat, evidence supporting it is just a click away.
By giving ISIS saturation coverage, old media has played a role in keeping
the public on the edge of its seat with regard to ISIS. In many ways ISIS is
an irresistible story for television. ISIS is dramatic. It is mysterious.
It is potentially dangerous. It has political ramifications. And it has
pictures: the life blood of TV. Battlefield pictures, hostage pictures,
scary pictures.
"There's something about the structure of television news that makes small
threats big," said Brian Stelter, host of CNN's "Reliable Sources." "It's
the graphics and the color and the repetition. Probably the repetition more
than anything that makes these guys seem like they're 10 feet tall."
Partisan politics: This week Scott Brown, the Republican candidate for the
senate from New Hampshire, unveiled a commercial accusing the Democratic
incumbent, Jeanne Shaheen, and President Obama of failing to adequately
protect the country against the ISIS threat. "Radical Islamic terrorists are
threatening to cause the collapse of our country," Brown intoned on the ad.
"President Obama and Sen. Shaheen seem confused about the nature of the
threat. Not me."
A Republican operative told CNN's Dana Bash and Deirdre Walsh that polling
and focus group data indicates that, in the wake of ISIS' emergence,
national security concerns are gaining in importance, especially among
married women with children. Appealing to these swing voters and to the
party's conservative base, which according to polls has shown the most
concern about ISIS' terror, GOP strategists feel is a key to victory in the
midterm elections. As a result, variations of the Brown ad may soon start
appearing across the country. Whether they succeed or not, there is no doubt
they will amp up the fear quotient.
Related: Politics of fear invade 2014
They're everywhere! They're everywhere! To hear some tell it, ISIS is an
enormous army with fifth columns operating in big cities all over the
country. It is more than a little disconcerting to hear that the estimates
for the number of ISIS fighters have jumped dramatically from about 10,000
to as many as 30,000. But some analysts note that the first projection was a
year old, and that the marked increase in fighters may be ephemeral. "We
have seen that when jihadist groups roll over territory they pick up a lot
of riff-raff," said Daniel Benjamin. "A lot of young men join up, mainly to
get money to feed themselves every day." So, if ISIS is forced to retreat,
many of these new converts may simply melt away.
What is worrying is the number of foreign fighters in the group. The number
of foreigners fighting in Syria is estimated to be more than 10,000. That
may sound perilous. But the vast majority of them come from places such as
Jordan or Tunisia or Saudi Arabia. A few of these, perhaps only a little
more than a dozen, are Americans. "There are only about a dozen Americans
fighting for ISIS and two of them are already dead," said Peter Bergen, a
national security analyst for CNN. "There is no evidence that any of the
Americans fighting in Syria have been involved in plotting attacks here at
home. So I think this particular threat of ISIS is wildly overstated."
Sure, there are thousands of Europeans, many of them hailing from countries
like the United Kingdom and France where visas are not required to travel to
the United States. But many are already being tracked by their governments,
Bergen said. And to carry out an attack, especially a large-scale one, they
would have to travel here, acquire weapons, or produce bomb-making material
without arousing suspicion.
New ISIS video mocks airstrikes How did Carney describe ISIS in 2013? CNN
Poll: Obama dovish on foreign policy Did intel community warn Obama on ISIS?
Perhaps the most dangerous homegrown problem is individuals who are inspired
by ISIS to commit murderous acts, such as Alton Nolen, who allegedly
beheaded a co-worker in Moore, Oklahoma. But Nolen, who told police he was "
oppressed" at work, could have found inspiration from any group that has
committed violent acts and received widespread news coverage. There may not
be anything special about ISIS.
Perhaps, most important, a number of experts said, there is little evidence
ISIS is interested in anything but establishing a caliphate in the Middle
East. Unlike al Qaeda, attacks on America do not seem to be a priority, at
least for now. "The key thing is that they are in a fundamentally different
business," said Benjamin. "They want to take and hold territory."
Red line fever: Public fear is always heightened when public faith in their
leaders to handle pending crises is shaken. Buoyed by his dispatching of
Osama bin Laden, public opinion polls gave Obama high -- or at least
passably good -- grades for his handling of foreign affairs into the summer
of 2013. Then came the issue of Syria's use of chemical weapons. Having
drawn what he himself termed a "red line" that the Bashar al Assad regime
should not cross with regard to using his chemical weapons, Obama seemed to
back away from military action when Damascus crossed it. Even though Syria
eventually gave up its chemical weapons, Obama came off in the minds of many
as feckless and weak. Public faith in his handling of foreign policy was
shaken and has yet to recover. In 2012, a Pew Research Center poll found
that 38% felt the President was "not tough enough" in his foreign policy
dealings. After the Syria chemical weapons affair, 51% of the public,
according to a Pew poll, felt that way. In the latest CNN/ORC International
Poll, 51% of the public said they do not trust Obama as commander in chief
of the armed forces.
With so little faith in the ability of their leader to protect them, it is
not surprising that the level of fear has risen.
9/11, CYA: When the second jet slammed into a World Trade Center tower on
September 11, 2001, the whole way the country looked at its vulnerability to
terrorism changed. But, as much as the public mood changed, it is the shift
in the psyche of politicians and governmental officials that is perhaps
most important. Having missed obvious signals that could have alerted them
to the pending attacks and being hauled before the 9/11 Commission to have
their mistakes publicly aired, the political mindset is now don't dismiss
any threat -- no matter how inconsequential. Rather than calming the public
anxiety, politicians may inadvertently stoke it.
"We know how to ratchet up," said Juliette Kayyem, a former deputy director
of Homeland Security in the Obama administration and now a CNN contributor.
"It's harder to ratchet down."
There doesn't seem to be any political price to be paid for overplaying a
threat and keeping people on edge. But underplaying one and being wrong
could mean the end of a politician's career. "I haven't seen much of a
political downside of putting out even a bogus terror threat warning, even
if there is only the slightest possibility there is something to it" said
Philip Shenon, author of "The Commission: An Uncensored History of the 9/11
Investigation." "Nobody's going to hold you to it." |
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