Considering terrorism and Julie Couillard's dress
AND ANOTHER THING CAMPBELL WEBSTER
The Guardian
You wouldn't be alone if, every time the press gets in a lather about threats to national security, you wondered to yourself, "Canada has national security issues?"
Of course, every nation does have national security issues, but compared to the abject state of terror the leaders of our neighbours to the south seem to be perpetually in, it can seem a bit rich to imagine we have any dangers that approach their fears. We tend to be suspicious of the U.S. histrionics at the best of times, Canada being much less a nation of chest-thumpers, except perhaps during international hockey tournaments.
It is a reasonable question to puzzle over, if only because the hullabaloo about terrorism seems remarkably overstated compared to other threats to our health and safety from climate change and other environmental challenges. And even in the U.S., there are detractors about the reality of the terrorist threat to that country, a point neatly brought home in the recent book by John Mueller, entitled, 'Overblown: How Politicians and the Terrorism Industry Inflate National Security Threats, and Why We Believe Them'.
Mueller makes a convincing case for how unconvincing the threat is, citing such examples as the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's listing of a petting zoo in Alabama and a roadside water park in Florida as potential al-Qaida targets. (To be fair, Canada's security agency, CSIS did its part, identifying the Confederation Bridge as one place Osama bin Laden might be gunning for. We are quaking in our Island boots, no doubt.)
So while it was decidedly sloppy of deposed Foreign Affairs Minister Maxine Bernier to leave classified government documents lying around his girlfriend Julie Couillard's house, does anybody really think the document, or where it was left, could lead to such terrible results, including the resumption of ferry service in the place of an exploding bridge? In fact, the whole thing just seems a little rinky-dink, more about the tiny vanities and power relationships between misguided ambitious people, than it is about NATO being brought down by Bernier's slack incompetence.
What is telling is Ms. Couillard's choice in boyfriends. It's not that one was a politician and the others were criminals. It's that they were both leaders. The common quality to all of them was power. For Mr. Bernier's and the other ex-boyfriends' part, they likely thought Ms. Couillard made a nice adornment to their power, as evidenced by Mr. Bernier's supposed request that Ms. Couillard wear a revealing dress to his swearing-in ceremony. He may as well have shouted from the rafters, "Look what I got, boys!" To be fair, his behaviour is not so special, and nor is the behaviour of Ms. Couillard. Recent history is full of such examples, including the late Judith Exner, who was the purported mistress of Mafia leaders Sam Giancana and John Roselli as well as John F. Kennedy.
So fear not for the terrible damage our former Foreign Affairs minister may have done to your safety. It is not really the point. What is the point is the silly things people will do to demonstrate their power or, as Henry Kissinger put it when asked why he seemed to have so many attractive dates, "Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac." Which may account for why Stephen Harper looks so aroused all the time. Or maybe not.
Campbell Webster, a television producer and writer, lives in Charlottetown. He can be reached by e-mail at: cweb@isn.net
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Leefe John from Ottawa, Ontario writes: The preponderance of evidence would seem to suggest that the threat is indeed overstated. (perhaps this is becuse the potential result of the risk, however low, is so devastating).
Another recent book that makes a similar case is Risk: The Science and Politics of Fear . Recommended reading!
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