Who Ya Gonna Call?
Happy Halloween gentle readers.
I’m not familiar with the customs in other parts of the world, but here in the United States Halloween is a time for costumes and trick-or-treat. It is also a time when we bring out many of our fears, real or imagined, about death, spooks, and spirits. It is a time when it is okay to be afraid of the shadows.
It is therefore perhaps serendipitous that on this Halloween I came across a new image in the fight against terrorism. Meet the new logo from the CIA. The Terror Busters:
One can’t help but notice the similarity to the old Ghostbusters logo:
When I first saw the TerrorBusters logo, I thought it was a joke. But the above image comes straight from the CIA website. It is real.
What isn’t clear to me is the purpose of the logo. Perhaps it is simply a light-hearted way to represent their very serious jobs, a kind of inside joke to relieve stress. Still, I can’t help but think that in many ways the logo represents what the terrorists have become. Spooks which hide under our beds or in our neighborhoods, waiting to do us harm while we sleep.
Then again, maybe there is something I am missing. What are your thoughts?
Credits: The terror busters logo comes straight from the CIA. The Ghostbusters logo was found at Wacky Neighbor.
November 3rd, 2007 20:30
Hi Brian,
As presented, the CIA logo alongside the delightful and humourous “Ghostbusters” logo, it does indeed have a patina of ridiculousness.
I can see those in the field of Counterterrorism enjoying an instance of lightheartedness in a deadly serious vocation.
I can also see how those who are in a solemn and serious hunt with life and death consequences to their choices, choosing what may seem a frivolous image.
Such an easily understood and simple image can serve as a focal point in a task that is complex, grey, convoluted, and byzantine. In the midst of the minutia, it would remind one of the real and ultimate goal of one’s efforts.
I think it might be a visual representation of this quote from the same website:
CIA & The War on Terrorism
“Victory will come, but it will take time and require the kind of focused and sustained national commitment that we saw during the Cold War. Most importantly, it will require a relentless global campaign, joined by those in the Muslim world who are repulsed by al-Qa’ida’s savagery, to expose the terrorists for what they are: peddlers of a hopeless, negative, backward vision of the world….”
— D/CIA Michael V. Hayden
speaking at the Duquesne University Commencement Ceremony May 4, 2007
Regards,
Denis
November 4th, 2007 10:10
Good try, Denis, but you really have to stretch your imagination to think of a positive benefit for such a silly logo.
Terrorism is faceless and we don’t dare try to put a face on it for fear of stigmatizing entire cultures and their representatives living among us. The whole idea of trying to “embody” the threat of terror with a human figure is hopeless from the start. The evidence is contained in the image itself. It can’t have a face, so must be masked. It can’t be male or female. It certainly can’t be of a recognizable ethnicity or skin color. Brian’s right. With only the shape of a human and no other traits but a gun, it’s the boogeyman.
Regarding that gun. Maybe it’s the real threat. We certainly can’t identify the faceless shape in our midst and there’s no way to draw a picture of “threatening actions,” but we might recognize that rifle if we saw one. Otherwise, the logo tells me nothing about what to look out for, only to be fearful.
I hate to think the CIA’s motive is to make me fearful, without empowering me to take action against the threats I’m looking out for. Who knows? Maybe that is their job. To serve the government by keeping the population timid, impotent, grateful for whatever ill-conceived War on Terror efforts the military has to offer.
November 4th, 2007 23:21
Hello David,
C’mon, that profile is taken right out off the nightly news. All the videos provided by the terrorists look just like this figure. These guys are proud of this profile. They show it to us all the time. It is indeed a fair image to place under the international “NO” sign.
You are in error when you claim terrorism is faceless. It does have a face, many thousands in fact. Since we cannot possibly hold up an image of each and every one, a single representative one will do nicely. It has attributes that embodies their methods and tactics, and captures their menace nicely, actually. They rely on anonymity, a menacing face/mask to terrify, and deliberate extreme violence with guns and explosive against non-combatants, ie., civilians.
I will point out that you fault the image for it’s lack of specificity thereby saying it is a general bogeyman to be used merely to scare us with. In the same argument, you say it cannot be representative for fear of stigmatizing entire cultures. You have just created a no-win proposition - If it is general, it is of no real use and therefore is a government scare tactic. If it is specific, then we are demonizing a known enemy.
Way to go. All I am hearing is that the government (trying to keep me and mine alive) is merely trying to scare me, and that if they do identify an enemy, then we are stigmatizing someone who wants to kill us.
I am more concerned with preventing their killing any of us, than with hurting their feelings by being stigmatized for their actions, or for supporting those who take despicable actions. These men are our committed enemies. They are laughing at us when we worry publicly about unfairly stigmatizing. They know they are out to conquer by any means necessary, and willful denial of this is most welcome to them.
Personally, I’d like to see a little more stigmatizing of Al Queda, Hamas, PLO, etc. (I’d even prefer a bit more WW II retribution and dealing with the terrorists the way we are dealt with by them.)
Gentlemen, I believe you do not give adequate credit to the threat we are facing. That is fine. There are those who labor to protect us, and if they want a cute or a terrible image for the Bad Guys, then that is OK with me.
November 5th, 2007 23:32
Here is my question, where did they get the model for this terrorist? It looks like something straight out of Munich in 1972 or Patty Hearst robbing a bank circa 1974/1975.
Whoever the ad genius that came up with this logo was certainly not trying to be up to date or politically correct.
Now the more fundamental question is how much time, money and effort was put into creating this logo by the CIA? Dont we think they should spending this time, money and effort torturing (I mean finding) bad guys and uncovering conspiracy’s and terrorist networks, rather than paying some ad agency to make their terror busters more appealing with a logo that does in deed remind me of Ghostbusters?
But hey, that is just me
Jeff
November 6th, 2007 10:24
Ok, I think I see a pattern here.
One of two possibilities exists:
These guys are the Gang-That-Can’t-Shoot-Straight, who are frivolously wasting time, effort, and taxpayer dollars mis-leading us with a false threat while they gratuitously torture innocent adversaries.
These guys are capable of locating, searching, and finding any of our enemies anywhere in the world on any given Thursday. Without breaking a sweat.
They can’t be both.
There seems to be this expectation of these people being supermen/women who can perform their mission at will, but perversely choose not to. Then there is the denigration of them for failing to perform as if they had these superpowers of knowledge, x-ray vision, and invulnerability.
They are doing a hard, nasty job against very bad people. Most of us have logos associated with the groups we belong to. Why does this one set one’s alarms off ?
If the logo was a true representation of those of Islamic Fascistic bent, then the cry would be “Discrimination” or “Bigotry”. Since it is a general representation of the hooded terrorists that have popped up since the ’70’s, it is derided as juvenile. Aren’t most logos juvenile in that they are simple, appeal to our more primal fight-or-flight nature, and immediately allow us to know if someone is “Us” or “Them”.
This logo isn’t intended for the general public. It is a target for those who protect us, a visual representation of the enemy. Surely this concept isn’t so hard.
The real question is should we have people protecting us from the bullets and bombs, or should we disband the CIA, NSA, etc, proclaim our common humanity with all and offer to join hands and sing Kumbaya with any who want to ?
Would you be as secure as you are now ? Would you trust the security of your children and your parents to Osama ?