Do we give terrorists too much publicity and reward their threats by marketing their message?

Question

When a terrorist group produces a video, audio tape or sends one of their regular messages, are we rewarding them with just the publicity they seek?

Should our leaders act like PR agents by reminding the world that terror groups can strike at will & kill us? Why boost their morale by spreading fear? Why don’t we smear them, spread misinformation, belittle them or just ignore them?

Why do we respond to those that hate our freedoms by removing the freedoms they hate?

Why are Bin Laden & Co treated like military Generals? They're pathetic traitors & betray the people they send to die in terrorist attacks

Why reward Bin Laden with every newspaper & TV headline, just because he recorded a 2 minute audio tape calling us infidels. It’s pathetic

I’m fed-up of seeing politicians act like cowards by telling us that terrorists are powerful & can penetrate our national security at will.

I’m fed-up of our leaders reacting to people that hate our freedoms by pushing policies to strip freedoms

To clarify - I'm not suggesting information is witheld. I'm asking why terrorists are given such credibility, PR & a morale boost by daily reminders from leaders that we're at risk.

We know we're at risk. Why not go and kill them instead of talking about them?

Answer 1

your right as usual ,the point of terrorism is to force peoples attention onto the terrorists cause, all the attention which terrorists are getting will only encourage them to do worse.even the word terrorist explains itself .I think with all the media coverage and the government playing on it, to get the population scared enough to let them get away with just about anything .the terrorists are getting exactly what they wanted (to disrupt every ones lives ) the only way to deal with them is to ignore what they do ,as much as possible and go to the cause of the grievances and sort that out so that it`s less easy for them to recruit more people to their fanatical causes

Answer 2

I agree with you 100%. The reason, however, for giving publicity to terrorists, is simply to instill fear in people like you and me. The Government can't take away your freedoms for nothing so they build up paranoia and fear and then use this as an excuse to remove the freedoms you took for granted.

The US is a great example. They introduced a terror threat warning which was colour coded and based on the def-com system. Green was no threat and red was the highest threat. In order to raise the fear and threat level they simply moved the colour up. People didn't question this, as to what the threat actually was but began to become afraid simply based in the threat colour. The govt never offered any specifics on the threats when the threat level was increased.

The British Govt also use the smoke and mirror tactic of vague threats and never specify what is actually going on. This again create a vague background effect of fear and soon we will all be carrying expensive biometric ID cards, which were never thought of during the whole 30 years of the IRA campaign.

Terrorists thrive on publicity because it also acts a recruiting tool. Any publicity is good publicity and there will always be people who sympathise with their cause. Cut the reporting of their actions and threats and you can help cut (but not eliminate) their recruitment.

Answer 3

You are absolutely right, the media are working against the public interest by helping them to spread fear and their propaganda. This is a different kind of enemy and different tactics are required to defeat it. The public do not need to know everything. Your reference to the enemy within is also accurate. I would broadly describe them as the lefty/liberal brigade. Of course, the TV media are a part of that brigade. They can't be trusted to defend the interests of Britain.

I really don't believe that the media are involved in fear mongering purely as an aid to governments desire to remove more of our freedoms. Although, I accept that this is probably in the mix if opportunities arise, but I still maintain that there is a real threat, and I believe that it is mainly from within our own shores.

Answer 4

a minority of people have the most amount of money and power.they control when where and how the media reports things.bin bin laden is in the same boat as these people.they help create the threats and governments change laws and take away our freedoms. bin laden even won the last election for bush. after showing the bin laden video the reporter says "oh what a dilemma its like bin laden saying if you vote for John Kerry then bin laden will be happy" so it works in bush's favour.

Answer 5

why dont people care thats the question really ,and the answer to that is the general population are zombies ,they go about there day minding there own business, watch the programming machine (the TV) many dont take the time to look into it just look at the news corp news papers that spin everything ,and many dont care to as they feel this doesnt affect them and there little bubble they live in .the bubble will burst soon enough and people will wake up but will it be to late ? i think the answer to that is yes.but still that doesnt mean you shouldnt try and inform others keep up the good work .laters

Answer 6

Sure, the media also only shows a very small portion of the whole story, so by marketing Bin Laden's message, it only gives the terrrorists more strength, as it instills fear in the general public.

Answer 7

Yes the state terrorists Bush and B-liar do get too much media cover and airtime.
They also give others airtime who are fighting against foreign state theft of their assets and occupation of their land and genocide against their civilian population, but they manipulate the media coverage to change the story.
Most of the average people in the world believe it for a while, but eventually wake up to the reality.
This is a wake up to you and many of your answerers.

Answer 8

Well, I was with you 100% until your last sentence.
I agree that the terrorists work the US media like puppets on a string.
I think the terrorists' plan is to take down the US from the inside by dividing our citizens and they are accomplishing this to a great degree by bashing the current administration.
I think terrorists will continue to try to take over the world and rid it of all infidels, even if it takes them a hundred years.

Answer 9

Nice question, but as usual you got some loony answers.
One is even blaming liberals for this.
The main culprit here is Fox News, and nobody in their right minds can call people like Hannity, O'Reilly, et al, 'liberal'.
Noticed how often they use 'terrorist' and 'liberal' (or in O'Reilly's fantasy world 'secular progressives') in the same sentence?

Answer 10

We need to hear their message in case they have improved capabilities like nukes, we would know when to make a tactical reassessment of our position.(its called leggit in the UK)