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Who is the
terrorist here?
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The
headlines scream, "Model Airplane Can Be a Terrorist Weapon"
or a similar diatribe and my E-mail lights up. We have all
seen a variation of this theme when it's a slow news day and
a reporter needs something to report.
When this happens, AMA
members contact me or AMA Headquarters and ask, "What is AMA
doing about this?" "AMA should make them stop printing this
stuff!"
I wish it were that easy to stifle such speech, but
I'm glad it isn't. If it were we'd be living in a country
where freedom was a rare commodity.
It is a fact that a
model airplane could be used to commit a number of
reprehensible deeds so the headlines don't totally lie;
however, there are many easier, cheaper, and more effective
ways that a terrorist could carry out his deeds, so a model
airplane is unlikely to be involved in such a plot.
Although
AMA is powerless to put a stop to such headlines, it has
been quite effective in convincing the authorities who are
concerned with such matters that the aeromodeling community
would report any activity which seemed unusual or
threatening. Having eyes in the field is an effective
deterrent to misdeeds.
Nearly everyday the media reports of
a car bomb exploding and taking lives, yet reporters seem
oblivious to that threat. Can you imagine the reaction the
journalists would receive to any suggestion that cars and
trucks should be banned because they can carry bombs? How
about outlawing shoes since shoe bombs have been tried?
Who
is the terrorist here? Terrorism is the act of creating fear
and terror in the minds of a society. Blowing things up and
killing people isn't terrorism—it's murder. It's terrorism
when it is used to instill fear in the minds of the people
who live on after the carnage. It's the disruption of life
that makes terrorism effective.
In the case of the headlines
about model airplanes and terrorists, isn't the main purpose
of the article to create fear in the minds of the readers? I
would have no problem with the media reporting an actual
incident where a model airplane was used as a weapon. That
is their job. When the media creates fear in the minds of
their readers and listeners by printing hypotheses of how
something might be used by terrorists, they themselves
become the terrorists.
Unfortunately the various media are
difficult to deal with, particularly in terms of trust. Most
of the negative articles I have seen began with the reporter
convincing the modelers that he or she was writing an
article about this wonderful sport. The modelers were open
with their words only to find them twisted when the final
piece was released.
How do we avoid this happening? I'm not
sure we can eliminate it, but a good first step is to be
very careful when talking to anyone from the media about the
capabilities of model airplanes. I've seen situations where
the answers to questions regarding the fastest, highest,
biggest, and furthest a model has ever flown are combined
into a single model with all of those capabilities. That
would sure be a heck of a model airplane!
We need the media
to promote our sport so we cannot totally shun them, but we
need to be wise in how we handle them. In many cases, the
wisest answer to a question is "I don't know."
Unfortunately, that is the hardest answer for some of us to
give, but it is the best thing to do, unless you are very
sure of what you are saying and are quite confident in the
person with whom you are speaking. It might also be
appropriate to ask him to take his shoes off ...
MA
Til next month.
Dave Brown, AMA president
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