>Shhh ... Maybe if no one knows about the terrorists, they’ll all go away.
That’s pretty much what Secretary of State John Kerry seemed to be suggesting in Bangladesh this week when he gave reporters covering his first official visit there some astonishing advice.
Terrorists “can make some noise” by going out and killing people, he said, adding: “Perhaps the media would do us all a service if they didn’t cover it quite as much.”
How would that help? Explained Kerry: “People wouldn’t know what’s going on” — so presumably, they wouldn’t be terrorized.
Of course, they’d still be victims. But hey, ignorance is bliss, right?
Then again, this is the same guy whose embarrassing effort to show support for France after the Charlie Hebdo massacres was to fly aging singer James Taylor to Paris for a public performance of his 1971 song, “You’ve Got a Friend.”
Now, what Kerry seemed to be suggesting is that media coverage fuels terrorist copycats. That’s hardly a proven theory — and besides, it’s pretty irrelevant in the internet era.
Thanks to social media, terrorists can easily spread their message to would-be recruits. Whatever publicity they get on the evening news has nothing to do with it.
But those news reports do remind people that the Obama administration’s excuses and dubious counter-terror policies aren’t working.
Media coverage exposed the lie of the president’s absurd claim that ISIS was little more than a “JV team.” And it underscores the absurdity of rewarding state sponsors of terror like Iran with diplomatic deals that free up billions for terrorist funding.
Urging the press to help Americans stick their heads in the sand might be politically convenient for the architects of a failed policy. But it won’t stop a single terrorist attack.
nypost.com
