Given the central role of ‘terror experts’ in defining terror risks and ‘threats’ in recent years, the place of such academics in the representation of security and terror deserves closer scrutiny to detect if there are any gaping holes in the sum of their parts.

Think tanks and the media, which advance “form over substance, celebrity over ideas” plague the public discourse, warn Stefan Halper and Jonathan Clarke adding: At times of crisis, the nuanced and expert advice of — "career professionals, scholars, analysts and others working in government and at universities and think tanks — is sidelined or ignored, while emotional sloganeering is amplified by 24/7 cable news and Internet chatter that prize raucous confrontations between fervent avatars of the right and the left. Reasoned analysis is shoved to the sidelines, and critics of the party or faction in power are often accused of being unpatriotic or disloyal."

Many of us are beginning to be weary of the pushier sort of ‘expert’ declare Christopher Booker and Richard North. In their book, Scared to Death: From BSE to Global Warming they point out: Gone is the sense of proportion, the admission of scientific doubt, the ability to weigh risks against benefits. Taking seriously a year’s worth of their health warnings would give anyone an eating disorder. This tendency makes Anne Applebaum, author of Finding Things to Fear remark: Now that we've eliminated most of the things that the human race once feared, we've just invented new ones to replace them.

There have been a litany of so-called "terrorism experts" travelling the world, peddling oft outrageous, encouraging fear and distrust, and
campaigning to have civil liberties curtailed in the name of "fighting terror".

David Small, a human rights advocate and academic at New Zealand’s University of Canterbury has called to take note of comments that are made to heighten people’s sense of fear and suspicion, particularly in relation to Islamic groups and migrant communities.
www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0408/S00236.htm

Tim Shorrock, a freelance journalist based in Washington, who writes about how corporations influence foreign policy notes that in recent years a new industry of terrorism experts has spawned who have made their mark by explaining their theories to the media and advising governments and corporations on security issues. http://www.antiwar.com/ips/shorrock1.html

In such a context, one wonders what makes sections of the main stream media patronise the Asia-Pacific Foundation with The Spectator hailing it as “highly respected.” While APF claims to be supported by donations and grants, no information appears to have ever been published detailing the Foundation's funding sources. The Foundation does not appear to publish accounts. Although, the Foundation claims that it "...maintains a Board of Patrons as well as an Advisory Board, whose members originate from many countries across the globe. It does not appear to have ever published a concise list of members of either board. Attempting to ascertain whether and how the organization has been formally registered is not made easier by the fact it has never published a postal address. http://tinyurl.com/yu7nlh
Essentially, the Asia-Pacific Foundation is a family business led by MJ Gohel and supported by his son, Sajjan. It is surprising that Coughlin has consulted Gohel on nuclear safety, despite a rather sparse CV. But U.S. military and defense officials have said Pakistan's nuclear weapons remain securely under the control of the Pakistani military. Those officials have repeatedly called the Pakistani military a responsible steward of the arsenal and said it would remain out of country's political conflict. We do not know what Gohel’s background was prior to his founding of the Asia-Pacific Foundation, nor what his credentials are to take his words against the assessment of Pentagon officials.

On BBC’s Newsnight a discussion on suspicious Arabic web sites that have appeared on 15 January 2008 offered comments by Sajjan Gohel whose Arabic knowledge credentials and understanding of Arabic expression remains unconvincing and unclear. Thus instead of analyzing contents from a specific site under discussion all that viewers got was a broad brush overview of what such sites usually ought to imply. Within hours of any blast in Algiers, Basra, Chechnya, you find expertise sought by individuals who are not known to have visited those areas, or have cultivated enough knowledge about the unique setting, context and implication of isolated incidents spread over several continents.

M.J. Gohel's long time associate who's also promoted as advisor to the Asia Pacific Foundation is Rohan Gunaratna. The two are often found on the same page, peddling prose of probabilities as paranoid prognosis. If as Simon Ings - author of The Eye: A Natural History - puts it the war of terror is a branding exercise, then, are there some individuals who lend their voice as hawkers?

It is pertinent that investigative journalists begin to size up the quality of ‘intelligence’ delivered by self-acclaimed experts. Journalist Gary Hughes had produced an expose for the Melbourne Age dated July 20th 2003. The expose by Hughes reveals puts under scrutiny the tendency by one such expert for (a) social climbing, (b) academic imposturing (c) name dropping and (d) vita forgery, by puffing his vita with non-existing positions. www.sangam.org/articles/view/?id=7

Lately, the press in Australia and New Zealand has voiced serious reservations about the terrorism expertise of the likes of Gunaratna. Here are few links questioning the credentials and reliability of Gunaratna that readers may like to check:
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/aug2003/guna-a08.shtml
portland.indymedia.org/en/2002/04/9064.shtml
www.antiwar.com/ips/shorrock1.html
www.tamilcanadian.com/pageview.php?SID=&ID=388.1
http://www.sangam.org/ANALYSIS/Sachi_9_12_03.htm

Academics who closely monitor the priming and framing of news items on potential but mostly percieved terror will take interest in a statement made by Dame Stella Remington. As someone who had first hand exposure to such matters, Dame Stella raises the question if some Labour Ministers cite terror to stir fear and press for stricter legislations.

Some interesting scholarship on the link between use of fear for posing more restrictions is provided by Indiana University Law professor Steven Chermak.

The implications of Dame Stella’s statement can be well understood by a uniquely insightful article, Marketing Fear: Representing Terrorism After September 11 in the Journal for Crime, Conflict and the Media, where Dr. Chermak offers a threadbare analysis of how some opinion makers, writers and media experts take full advantage of the propaganda opportunity by creating a symbolic threat, structuring the response to eradicate the threat, and declaring symbolic victories.

Two points need to be noted. First is that media coverage provides a good platform for politicians to justify and legitimize these responses. A second point related to that is that society’s top social-control powerbrokers can effectively manage how the public thinks about this issue. Steven Chermak author of Searching for a Demon: the Media’s Construction of the Militia Movement, suspects that “Celebrated cases, and often the moral panics that flow from such cases, provide dramatic lessons and an opportunity to reshape society.

Often the most unusual and unrepresentative events can dominate media coverage for a long period of time, providing an opportunity to reshape public thinking about an issue. Much of the public’s reliance on the news media and the profit-potential of news making are in fact linked to their ability to satisfy the public craving for information.

Sensational cases startle the public into accepting a new understanding by opening gateways to the public’s fears and frustrations, and igniting processes that illuminate the boundaries of a community. The media defines these events, relying primarily on representatives from institutions typically used in the construction of news.

Do any reporters at times exploit some incidents in an emphasis-added, over blown fashion for gaining advantage, claiming scoops, competing for ratings and score one-upmanship? Those seeking for a link showcasing abundantly clear examples need only visit a web page populated by despatches grouped as “Richard Watson On Extremism” http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/uk

In this backdrop, is it a coincidence that at least once every quarter, stories of lurking (but mostly unfounded and at times unproved) dangers appear on some news outlets?