Held Hostage

Zbignew Brzezinski, national security adviser to President Jimmy Carter, makes THE POINT here that using the words, "War on Terror" has created a culture of fear in America. He says that, it "has had a pernicious impact on American democracy, on America's psyche and on U.S. standing in the world. Using this phrase has actually undermined our ability to effectively confront the real challenges we face from fanatics who may use terrorism against us.


And as we might expect, he is refuted here by Michael Chertoff, secretary of homeland security who says, "Yes, we're at war. No, it's not hype."

Hype or not, one could say we have been hijacked by the Bush administration. We, have been held hostage as a nation, by a new culture of fear. The bombings have been in the form of rhetoric such as, "If we (do)n't...then we could be hit again." and "If we (do)n't...there is the chance that THEY WILL FOLLOW US HOME. "

I have lived abroad since 1992, and have visited a few US embassies around the world. Getting in always required showing your passport, and there was a guard and metal detector. I was recently at the US embassy in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. To enter took 20 minutes, 3 rings of security, two phone calls, a metal detector, an X-ray machine like in the airport, (possibly a bomb-sniffing machine,) and I had to check my cell phone and my car keys. After finally making it in, I exhaled and couldn't help but ask myself about the relevance of "Land of the free...home of the brave."