Losers on the Run

Sonny is right to accredit reports of al Qaeda´s timely demise as well-deserved good news. But it´s as good as occasion as any to exercise our contrarian muscles for the fun and edification of all. One of my great complaints about the way we´ve represented the threat of jihadist terrorism has zeroed in on the popular charge that terrorists are cowards.

But today I want to complain instead about the probably highly excessive amount of credit we´ve given al Qaeda. Our concern over al Qaeda´s postmodern organizational prowess is sort of tantamount to our overhyping of internet fundrasing or the Y2K ´crisis.´ Netroots? Not insignificant. World computer crash? Worth worrying about. But it strikes me as likely that much of the attention-grabbing factor involved in our distress over nuclear proliferation, technological instability, and, yes, shadowy worldwide networks of insane terrorist foes has to do with an understandably bourgeois but still excessive anxiety about The Future as such.

In a world in which everything is supposed to be divisible into two groups — that which we control and that which is open to choice — the uncanny remainder of fortune nags and nags. As we beat back al Qaeda — and, as is the usual caveat, there´s still much to be done — it behooves us to remember what we´re dealing with when we´re dealing with a gaggle of nihilist radical losers.