Capitalizing on Fear: The Neo-con Playbook Revisited

The recent New Year’s attacks in New Orleans and Las Vegas bear troubling similarities to the tactics employed in the wake of 9/11. Upon hearing the reports on January 1st, I got a serious case of déjà vu. The framing and timing of these occurrences took me back to the all-encompassing fearmongering I lived through post-9/11—fearmongering that was used to justify the expansion of the surveillance state and fuel fear around terrorism. As we know, public sentiment among the elites has soured, whether reflected in events like January 6th or vigilante justice by individuals like Luigi Mangione. The elites are seeking ways to protect themselves against civil unrest and to sustain support for Israel in the Middle East. These two incidents provide a perfect political cover for pushing policy decisions to favor both goals. Already, these events have catalyzed renewed calls for invasive surveillance measures, stricter border controls, and greater funding for law enforcement, as well as justifications for hostilities toward Iran. As the saying goes, “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.” This time, it’s important the American public does not take the bait.

After the September 11th attacks, the U.S. government capitalized on fear to implement sweeping changes that curtailed civil liberties, including the Patriot Act and mass surveillance programs, as well as dragged us into a decades-long war in the Middle East. Julian Assange and Edward Snowden—two of the most important whistleblowers of our time—have shed light on the darker underbelly of these policies. Assange’s WikiLeaks exposed the unrelenting surveillance mechanisms and covert operations conducted under the guise of counterterrorism. Assange has also laid bare the reality that the roots of modern Islamist terrorism began through a joint venture by the CIA and the Saudi Arabian government, which funneled billions of dollars to create a “Mujahideen” force to fight against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. This ultimately led to the creation of al-Qaeda.

“The rise of al-Qaeda eventually bore the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States, enabling the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq and over a decade of war, leaving, at its end, the ideological, financial, and geographic basis for ISIS,” said Assange. Furthermore, the Podesta Emails exposed that the governments of Saudi Arabia and Qatar directly funded ISIS. In an email dated August 17, 2014, Hillary Clinton asked John Podesta to help put “pressure” on the Qatari and Saudi Arabian governments over their support of ISIS.

Clinton’s email clearly states:

“We need to use our diplomatic and more traditional intelligence assets to bring pressure on the governments of Qatar and Saudi Arabia, which are providing clandestine financial and logistic support to ISIL and other radical Sunni groups in the region.”

This makes one wonder: Who is ISIS, and what purpose does ISIS serve in this disaster of a Middle East policy? They seem to have a close connection with our longtime ally, Saudi Arabia. While there are strategic reasons for maintaining good terms with Saudi Arabia, why do we tolerate this relationship? Given the shared goals between Saudi Arabia, the United States, and Israel in the region—such as the Abraham Accords—is it possible that ISIS benefits us as well? For radical religious extremists, their biggest operations seem to align with U.S. interests. In 2024 alone, they claimed responsibility for the deadly attack in Iran January of last year, as well as a concert bombing in Russia—all coincidentally occurring against the backdrop of the Israel-Gaza war. These operations overlap with U.S. and Israeli targets. Even more striking, ISIS has never targeted Israel, even though Israel serves as a threat to Muslims in the region, and Israel is constantly attacking ISIS through rhetoric.

The Islamic State’s operational focus appears to align with U.S. foreign policy priorities. For example, in Syria, U.S. forces, Turkey, and ex-al-Qaeda operatives have worked side by side with ISIS against the Assad regime. Historically, ISIS has targeted “apostate” regimes in the Arab world, rather than the United States. This raises the possibility that ISIS serves as a convenient boogeyman, strategically used yet not fully controlled, much like the Mujahideen was during the Cold War.

When I hear about an ISIS-inspired attack or ISIS cells in the United States, I approach the reports with a healthy dose of skepticism—especially given the FBI’s history of involvement in “foiled” terrorist plots. After dropping the ball with the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the FBI became less concerned with gangsters and crooked elected officials. The new target became terrorists, and the pursuit of terrorists has consumed the FBI. In the 14 years since 9/11, you can count about six real terrorist attacks in the United States. These include the Boston Marathon bombings in 2013, as well as failed attacks, such as the time when a man named Faisal Shahzad tried to deliver a car bomb to Times Square. In those same 14 years, however, the Bureau has bragged about how it’s foiled dozens of terrorism plots. The FBI has been responsible for more terrorism plots in the United States than any other organization. Since 9/11, the Bureau has arrested more than 175 people in aggressive, undercover counterterrorism stings. These operations, which are usually led by an informant, provide the means and opportunity, and sometimes even the idea, for mentally ill and economically desperate people to become what we now term terrorists. After 9/11, the FBI was given an edict: never again. Never another attack on American soil. FBI agents were told to find terrorists before they struck. To do this, agents recruited a network of more than 15,000 informants nationwide, all looking for anyone who might be dangerous. An informant can earn $100,000 or more for every terrorism case they bring to the FBI. That’s right, the FBI is paying mostly criminals and con men six figures to spy on communities in the United States, but mostly Muslim American communities.

‍

Alongside its counterterrorism program, intelligence agencies used 9/11 to justify the creation of a surveillance state. Whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed the National Security Agency’s (NSA) extensive data collection on both domestic and foreign individuals, often without oversight or due process. These programs exploit public fear to justify privacy invasions and erode freedoms.

The New Orleans and Las Vegas attacks feel eerily reminiscent of this strategy. Investigative Journalist Whitney Webb’s analysis suggests these incidents, even if not outright engineered, are being leveraged to push for authoritarian solutions like predictive policing, biometric surveillance, and the normalization of domestic counterterrorism operations and war in the Middle East.

How else can you explain the egregious propaganda push regarding the New Orleans attack? It seemed very clear that the mission was not to investigate the who, what, and why of the case but to push an Islamophobic terrorist rhetoric. They were so concerned with pushing this narrative that they even let a New York Post reporter do a walkthrough of an active crime scene with supposed “bomb-making stations and Islamic text” (scary!). Even at the cost of compromising the crime scene and leaving important evidence behind, the goal was to instill fear in the public.

‍

I wish I could say this is a new phenomenon, but it’s not. Historically, intelligence agencies have engaged in covert activities to shape public opinion and policy. Operation Mockingbird, a CIA initiative to manipulate news media, exemplifies this pattern. Similarly, Operation Gladio, a Cold War-era program in Europe, staged terror attacks blamed on leftist groups to steer governments toward authoritarian policies. The specter of these past operations lends credibility to concerns about current events being part of a coordinated agenda.

The intelligence community has long sought to centralize information to enhance surveillance capabilities. The ultimate goal of this expansion is to create a comprehensive surveillance ecosystem that operates seamlessly across domestic and international borders. This system seeks to integrate data from various sources, including social media activity, financial transactions, medical records, and even genetic information, to construct detailed profiles of individuals. By achieving total information awareness, intelligence agencies aim to predict behaviors, identify dissenters, and maintain control over populations. Larry Ellison’s Oracle database, initially developed as a CIA project, embodies this drive for total information awareness. This vision aligns with the broader ambition of implementing a global surveillance framework, where technologies like smart city infrastructure, Internet of Things (IoT) devices, and advanced machine learning algorithms are utilized to monitor and influence public behavior in real time. In 2002, Ellison publicly advocated for a national security database that consolidated data from various government systems. Today, this vision has evolved into more sophisticated tools, including facial recognition, biometric tracking, and AI-driven predictive policing algorithms.

Predictive policing, already implemented in cities like Los Angeles and New Orleans, disproportionately targets marginalized communities. These systems rely on historical crime data, which often reflect existing biases, thereby reinforcing systemic inequalities. Additionally, predictive policing is only one component of a broader surveillance strategy that includes tools like geolocation tracking, drone surveillance, and mass data mining, all working in tandem to create a highly invasive security apparatus. These algorithms, often flawed and biased, perpetuate systemic inequalities under the guise of improving public safety. Yet, they are celebrated by proponents as necessary tools to prevent crime and terror. The private sector’s involvement, including companies like Palantir, further complicates accountability, as these technologies operate in a shadowy space between government and corporate interests.

The use of fear to justify domestic surveillance also serves as a tool to manufacture consent for wars abroad, particularly in the Middle East. Since 9/11, the narrative of an ever-present terrorist threat has been used to sustain military interventions in countries like Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and Yemen. These operations, often justified as efforts to combat Al-Qaeda or ISIS, have resulted in significant civilian casualties and destabilized entire regions.

The New Year’s attacks, framed as part of a broader Islamist terror threat, could reignite calls for military action in the Middle East. Media outlets and political leaders often present these incidents as proof that terrorist groups like ISIS or Al-Qaeda remain a significant threat to U.S. security, despite evidence that these organizations have been severely weakened. This messaging lays the groundwork for renewed military interventions, which conveniently align with the strategic interests of defense contractors, oil companies, and geopolitical agendas aimed at countering rivals like Iran.

Julian Assange has long emphasized how wars in the Middle East are fueled by misinformation and deliberate propaganda. WikiLeaks’ release of diplomatic cables revealed how governments manufacture crises to justify intervention, while Snowden’s disclosures highlighted how intelligence agencies use surveillance data to support these operations. The result is a perpetual cycle of fear, war, and erosion of civil liberties, with the public manipulated into supporting policies that ultimately benefit a small elite.

The New Year’s attacks in New Orleans and Las Vegas should serve as a wake-up call—not to the threat of terrorism but to the enduring dangers of a neo-conservative agenda that weaponizes fear to consolidate power. The revelations of Assange and Snowden have shown us the stakes. Resisting these new iterations of control mechanisms requires vigilance, solidarity, and an unwavering commitment to civil liberties. The surveillance state thrives on fear; it’s time we stop feeding it.