Man-Caused Disasters?

The culture of the newly minted Department of Homeland Security experienced a dramatic shift upon the appointment of Janet Napolitano. Though I was dubious of her appointment at the time, given her relative inexperience to anything but Arizona politics, I extended my support as long as it wasn't betrayed.

Monday, Napolitano had the opportunity to make good on the presidents appointment. In an interview with SPIEGEL, the secretary made light of her apparent omission of the term terrorism in her first testimony to congress:

SPIEGEL: Madame Secretary, in your first testimony to the US Congress as Homeland Security Secretary you never mentioned the word "terrorism." Does Islamist terrorism suddenly no longer pose a threat to your country?

Napolitano: Of course it does. I presume there is always a threat from terrorism. In my speech, although I did not use the word "terrorism," I referred to "man-caused" disasters. That is perhaps only a nuance, but it demonstrates that we want to move away from the politics of fear toward a policy of being prepared for all risks that can occur.

I take issue with this line of thinking for a few reasons.

1. The term "man-caused disasters" has no precedented use, culture, or strategic meaning. I can think of dozens man-caused disasters (hat tip to Matt Fuller, graduate of Bradley University) that have nothing to do with the phenomenon of terrorism. This term is vague to the point of losing all usefulness.
2. Is this term just a replacement for the word terrorism? Is there a new definition that has yet to be revealed? Or is this just like saying "fudge" in place of an expletive.
3. Is it just me or is that term oddly sexist? MAN caused disasters... Its probably just me.

The term terrorism, or terrorist, is useful because it paints a rough picture of the type of combatant being discussed, and how to deal with them. As a general rule, terrorists do not follow the laws of war, because they target civilians for political gain. The United States has a Foreign Terrorist Organization list, published by the State Department, which is used across agencies to define specific threats to US interests.

It will be interesting to see if the name of the FTO list changed to the Foreign Man Caused Disasterist Organization list. That does have a nice ring to it.

Get your boots on soldier... on second thought don't, the DHS has no clue with whom we are fighting.

Photo: The News & Observer

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