The Hollywood effect

Is this the Hollywood effect in international relations? We watch horror and thriller films for the adrenaline rush of fear, and the relief when it ends. Has the preposterous ‘War on Terror’ become a entertainment brand in which we collaborate in being scared in the expectation that Arnie or the US military will appear at the last moment and save us? And justify treating this solemnly because real people are getting killed? These endless recitations of the importance of ‘security’ allow us to look away from the violence we inflict or sponsor. ‘Real people’ getting killed refers to dozens in Europe, thousands in America — not tens of thousands in Palestine, not the half-million in that Iraq.

On any reasonably objective test the United Kingdom and the United States are nuclear-armed rogue states, sponsors of terror.

We are what we fear.