What does the US government know? Indeed, this question needs to be asked as, it issues a GLOBAL travel alert for its citizens in response to “increased terrorist threats” for a period lasting up until 24th Feb 2016.
Belgium also announced that its capital would remain at the highest alert level for another week.
It is likely that the decision has some basis in the recent France terror attack (why not? Everyone else is using it as an excuse to do whatever they want), the downing of a Russian civilian airliner and attacks in Mali.
The state department said “current information” suggested the Islamic State [IS] group, al-Qaeda, Boko Haram and others “plan terrorist attacks in multiple regions” though “currently… no reason to believe that US citizens would be specifically targeted”.
The US has been quick to issue similar alerts; the most recent of these last Christmas because of an attack in Sydney Australia. It had also issued two alerts in 2011 after the alleged death of Osama Bin Laden and the 2011 September 11th attacks.
The fact is that these travel alerts do nothing but help the terrorists by shrouding all travelers in a cloud of fear, unless the government has some information that it has decided to keep to itself.
Does the government intend to stop all Americans from traveling abroad? To have them cancel their plans? Will the alert somehow enable government employees to suddenly become more effective at capturing terrorists? Couldn’t terrorists just postpone their attack for a month?
The alert does nothing but encourage an atmosphere of fear, and US officials will admit as much; they call it a “sensible reminder of the global terrorist threat”, or in non-Newspeak “fear fear fear fearfear fear”.
Sources: BBC
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September 11 2001 not 2011