What s your biggest personal fear about terrorism?

Giving terrorism, which is nothing more or less than crime, more attention than it deserves.

And the perpetual "war" enabled by that attention and the molded perceptions of it.

a reply to: woodwardjnr

Not afraid in the slightest...not even a little bit.

And don't get me wrong, i've no death wish for my family or myself, we love life.

I take a pragmatic view that what we've come to call 'terrorism', is nothing new. It has been with our species, in one form or another, to one extent or another since time immemorial.

Despite it going on in the background, on the periphery of our societies, sometimes smack dab in the middle in all it's grisly theatre...we've prevailed and progressed along as we usually do.

It's always been here, and as long as one group of people feel, rightly or wrongly, slighted, disrespected, ignored, frustrated, belittled, insulted, or otherwise disgruntled with or by the majority, it will always be here in one form or another.

It also makes for a useful tool to control the majority and to impose restrictions and general ramping up of draconian Governmental overbearing attitudes.

Many of us on ATS, well..a lot of us that can see and reason deeper into happenings than those who may delight in the latest Justin Bieber TV spot, or the endless geeing up of this or that 'celebrity', would otherwise tend to see, already suspect much of what is announced regarding 'terrorism' is largely a vehicle for enforced public conformity through engineered fear and insecurity.

I don't fear terrorism...i fear those massively exaggerating and propagandising occasional acts of violence from minority groups who are deliberately given reason to pick up the sword, much more than the frustrated minority groups themselves.

originally posted by: woodwardjnr

originally posted by: Cobaltic1978
I feel the Government should undertake more surveillance and limit our freedoms more in order to tackle the threat on our freedoms from these nasty, scary terrorists.

I'm sensing a hint of sarcasm in your post, but if you haven't done anything wrong you have nothing to fear

Ha ha, I've heard that all my life, so it must be true.

originally posted by: woodwardjnr

originally posted by: Cobaltic1978
I feel the Government should undertake more surveillance and limit our freedoms more in order to tackle the threat on our freedoms from these nasty, scary terrorists.

I'm sensing a hint of sarcasm in your post, but if you haven't done anything wrong you have nothing to fear

I'm sure that was the attitude of many people who have been fitted up, used as patsy's or caught up in a false flag over the years too.

One doesn't have to be guilty to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

My biggest fear about terrorism is that the fear will overtake and change how we are today, More so for my little girl and teaching her that you have to stand up to such things, not be afraid and that life has to go on or those extremists win, Teaching her that its not religion or about what color you are that theres bad people in this world that do these things and that she has to think for herself and not listen to hype, ITs a hard job as a mother as its all around her on the TV and opinions in society that she will hear,

My fear is that she will become scared and overtaken by what she has to listen to, Knowledge is the key but fear creates a nest for those bad things.

a reply to: MysterX

There are many hideous possibilities if terror does go unchecked; biological, nuclear, chemical, digital, physical, psychological. Unfortunately, we as humans have created this snare we are all now tangled up in. It follows that if terror exists we need counter terror.

We all have seen the degree of hatred and revenge and I really think it is possible those who hate us would use a nuclear weapon if they had the chance. This is where the Security Services are justified for their existence in the modern world. They are our frontline defence, early warning system and agents of prevention.

The only thing I am scared about terrorism is my daughter, and son in law may have to be deployed someplace. They are Army soldiers they may have to go fight terrorists. I do not fear terrorism here in the states.

Right now, I am not personally especially worried. I know there is a decently large Muslim community here in my city and that there have been connections to terrorist operations at least financially from it, but the odds that I personally get caught up in any direct terror act are still very tiny, less than my odds of contracting Ebola and I wasn't worried about that.

My main worry is that we continue to ignore something that is a growing problem. Europe has real potential trouble in its heart. It could descend into chaos over there, and that would have ramifications world wide in unpleasant ways. It might even provoke the economic collapse of the whole Eurozone.

And never forget that those radicals do have the endless stated intent of destroying certain countries. How if they take over a nuclear nation? Pakistan is none too stable ... and nuclear. Pakistan and India both have their arsenals. If the nukes fly, would the rest of the world stay out?

These are the little what if scenarios I think to myself. None of them are quite real yet, so not too personally scared, but they are the things I think about as possible.

a reply to: woodwardjnr

I'm not scared of the threat of terrorism.
My biggest personal fear is kind of happening... and it's that Muslims in general get treated and tarnished with mistrust and labelled as silent terrorists and all the rest of it and then attacks happen and then some sort of segregation or "laws" put in place just for the Muslims.
Similar to what happened in Nazi Germany with the Jews... there is a lot of propaganda used by extremists and far-right hate groups and even those with an agenda here at ATS, to constantly bombard people with negative images and stories and sentiments about ALL of Islam, rather than focus on the tiny minority that carry out these attacks and actually are terrorists.
It has been going on since 9/11.

I suppose also the fact that our freedoms may be further eroded to "Combat Extremism" and the movement of people and our communications may be further restricted.

I'm far more worried about what is being done Because of Terrorism and to supposedly keep us all safe than the threat of being blown up or shot or beheaded.

a reply to: lonesomerimbaud

My feeling is the current situation is partly a result of Western modern imperialism, or the perception of the same, largely concentrated and carried out in the Middle East, coupled with media reporting and persuasive imagery, psychologically effective and reactive words and phrases designed to shape and mold the public's opinions regarding operations in that region.

Since the disastrous public relations fiasco of Vietnam, where the superior USA military machine was effectively castrated by negative public opinion, opinion which was mostly formed from media coverage resulting in a ramping up and blossoming of fledgling peace movements, such as the beatniks and Hippies...the military machine became impotent and the USA lost the Vietnam war...the galling thing was the USA didn't lose the war in Vietnam, they lost the war at home, in the USA.

I think this was the tipping point for TPTB where they realised, quite quickly two important things.

One was the power of the people...the public, once organised and galvanised by emotive based reasoning were virtually unstoppable, especially with the freedoms and rights afforded to the public at the time.

And the other was the astonishing power of the media to either promote and cultivate that emotive reasoning in the public or to subvert and or redirect that same emotive force among us. TPTB had of course always known the media could be a valuable tool, but quite how powerful became apparent during the 60's and 70's.

Of course, since then the media is the primary manipulative tool used for public opinion shaping...TPTB won't allow another Vietnam style public awakening with the media helping to cultivate that awakening. Now the media is firmly and apart from online independents, almost exclusively in TPTB's arsenal of tools to use for their own agendas.

We see 'psychologically provocative' statements regarding terrorism almost everyday in the MSM, a pained look here, a carefully and subtly worded phrase there, sympathetic body language, emotive graphics and much more besides all contribute to the Psy-Ops that is Opinion shaping using the media.

This is what generates public fear and anxieties, not the actual terrorism..which for the overwhelming majority of people, regardless of where they live, never actually affects them, their families or their way of life...except for the changes to their way of life that comes from the authorities or TPTB who wish and engineer these changes to suit or facilitate there hidden agendas for us and our societies and way of life.

Yes, terrorist could use any of the WMD's you mention...but they have not - even though access to such materials can be manufactured, can be stolen, can be infiltrated and can be utilised at the whim of these disgruntled groups, provided sufficient time and opportunity to insinuate themselves into the required positions necessary to procure such materials.

While we do depend on our security services to detect and prevent such things, i instinctively feel that much of what is said 'could happen', would never happen and much of it is to generate the required environment of distrust and fear rolling along.

The end game or goal of this is anyone's guess...totalitarian control and absolute power? Imperialism? Resource grabs? All without the public opposition on the scale and emotive force of the Vietnam era.

I think that is much too simplistic a reason, power for the sake of power just isn't enough IMO. Even resource grabs don't really explain it all in my view.

Whatever the reason and the ultimate goal of engineered fear and loathing, i can see the psychological engineering at work on the MSM, as i hardly watch it, but when i do, this opinion shaping is obvious to me, albeit on a mostly subtle level.

originally posted by: woodwardjnr
So what is it. I apologise for being blasé I'm not really scared about it on a personal level, so im interested to know what I should be scared about. How far should we go to alleviate people's fears?

My biggest personal fear, regarding terrorism, is that a percentage of the population, large enough to create change within our borders, will let fear guide them into sacrificing precious freedoms which our ancestors fought bravely for.

Man lives in a world of turmoil, and change. It is within our nature to try to find an equilibrium while living on Earth, but it is in Nature's nature to always and effortlessly promote and create turmoil, and change.

There is no true security here on Earth. Safety comes from precaution, from intelligence, from compassion and understanding, and from readiness.

My greatest fear is not terrorism itself. Acts of terror are by nature meant to be psychological. They are meant to promote fear, chaos, an instability. The GREATEST weapon we have against terrorism is NOT weapons. The greatest weapon we have is indifference towards terrorism. We don't let it affect our lives, we don't fear it, we don't praise it, we don't cover it on the news 24/7, and yet we don't hide from it, or pretend it isn't there.

Our greatest weapon against terrorism is to NEVER give in to the psychological pressure that acts of terror create.

We need to protect our freedom, but our freedom doesn't come from outside of us. Our freedom is our ability to live life as WE choose, and when our government reacts to terrorism by creating more security within our borders, we are already losing the war on terrorism.



I would much rather live in a society with occasional terror attacks, then to live in a society that sacrificed its freedom so as to eliminate terror attacks entirely.

My thoughts about it are pretty much inline with most of the other posters so far.

I don’t feel fear on any personal level. Odds are pretty low that I’ll ever find myself at the scene of a terrorist attack, and so I don’t think of it in that way. In any case, though, I see no point in worrying about something that exists only in my imagination.

However, I must admit that the thought of it is mildly disconcerting on an impersonal level. I’m talking about a 9/11 scale or larger event. It seems to me that there are endless possibilities to inflict major damage to our nation’s systems and structures (contaminating water supplies, disrupting/destroying major power facilities, setting off suitcase nukes, disseminating deadly viruses via small aircraft, cyber attacks on critical systems, etc). What surprises me most is that the U.S. has escaped it for so long. It’s been over 13 years since 9/11. I mean, there’s some folks out there that really hate us.

As far as a large scale attack goes, aside from the loss of life, my concern would be with damage done to our financial systems/economy and the blow to the American psyche. I recall 9/11 and how surreal it seemed as it unfolded, and the images that will be forever imprinted on my brain.

I think terrorism is here to stay. There will always be haters in the world (be they justified or not). As technology advances it puts more and more destructive power into the hands of the average Joe, and therefore more opportunity to violently express their pent up rage.

My biggest fear of terrorism is that elements in control of my government might murder me and my family in some spectacle to make others believe that terror is a real threat to westerners.

I could not care less about the added security just please stop murdering people for an excuse to implement it.

a reply to: woodwardjnr

1. I fear that the terrorists will take away our freedoms.
2. I fear that we will come to live in a police state.
3. I fear that we will be strip searched in public trying to get on planes,trains,buses etc.
4. I fear that we won't even be able to take a photo while on vacation of things we see because we might be considered terrorists.
5 I fear they will try to remove the only real protection we have against the criminal element.
6.I fear that I won't be able to have a phone conversation nor be on my computer without the enemy tracking me.
7.I fear that I will end up in a 'camp' to protect me.
8. I fear that despite their oaths,that the armed forces will not protect me from all enemys foreign and domestic.
9. I fear that our constitution and bill of rights will be walked all over from the terrorists.
10. I fear that our way of life will change irreparably because of the terrorists.
11. I fear to live in a country ruled by fear.

Except for number 5 which they are working on, our government has done all these things. THEY are the terrorists. They fund them,they support them behind closed doors,they make up their groups,they train them.They are enemys of the state.

a reply to: woodwardjnr

That we as Americans have a POTUS that is complacent to terrorism by continuing where his father left off.

What with the Whitehouse full of Muslims and Valerie Jarrett as senior advisor it is obvious why the Jihadist have proliferated while this administration has been in the Whitehouse.

A dirty bomb being set off in a major city would be a game changer.

I'm not scared as such as others have mentioned if I was caught up in it id be bricking it. But I see it how I see as if I was flying in a plane, accidents happen but it's out of my control so i don't fear flying. I can't control terrorism therefore why should I worry about what I do in my daily life. Also I sonetimes see incidents like what happened in Paris sometimes occur at perfect timing. The conspiracy side of me sees what was happening with prince Andrew and the allegation of abuse climbing up the royal ladder, the attention needed to be diverted so what better to have a terrorist attack and strike fear into the people and take their minds completely off. But that's a different story

Either way I can't do jack about terrorist therefore it's doesn't make me afraid .. Just gotta accept what happens sometimes

that it is just another of the many situations that is used by the government to control it's citizens and pad the pockets of the selected few.

I'm scared my culture is so concerned about being politically correct that they have completely lost track of the basic rules of nature that assure competition between different ideals and cultures will always exist and we wont kick the crap out of those who pose threats to our way of life.

My biggest fear is my children being caught up in it. I have no fear of death for myself, I know my kids would be well taken care of. But if my kids came to harm it would potentially destroy me. I have the same fear of them getting into car accidents etc. I don't let it run our lives, we go out, use public transport, go into town etc. Doesn't stop me being scared for them, I will always worry about them no matter how old they are, they will always be my babies.